A New Political Atmosphere in America

...So, as an impossibilist, I give you my man, one who deserves to hold high political office only if: 1. He recognizes that national soy ereignty is an anachronism...

...Norman Mailer The heavy vote for Democrats was probably just that, heavy, sopped with anxiety—there's something not altogether alert or at...

...And how can they do better if they do not have the boldness to see that this country is sick, radically sick, its citizens stifling in depression and a collective loss of reality...

...Nothing less than a major wrench will do...

...4) But the liberalism of today is not that of twenty-five years ago...

...Through COPE, the trade unions have built up an imposing apparatus that has shown genuine power and serves as a rallying force for the more liberal elements within the Democratic party, as well as a partial (though inadequate) check on the more dema gogic liberal politicians (Senator Humphrey...

...At no point did the Democrats put forward a principled line of differentiation from their opponents...

...Sometimes no doubt it does...

...they are sales leaders on the supermarket of political opinion...

...cant shifts in our politics are basically over domestic issues, and their absence from this election—acknowledged by everyone—precludes attaching too much importance to the Democratic Party's victory...

...All profile and no courage...

...Gertrude Stein once said that remarks don't make literature...

...control of Congressional committee chairmanships which disproportionately favor the South...

...for the preventive warriors it was then or never...

...Alas, this does not hold true for the Communist world nor those areas (Near East, Africa, etc...

...Just wait and see how Lyndon Johnson will handle those few among the new Senators who may have inclinations to really do something in these areas...

...but there it is: take it or leave it, a fact...

...3) Despite the fact that the Democratic victory didn't stem from an unambiguous upsurge of liberal senti b ment, it does provide the opportunity for another liberal advance in American society, perhaps even of the dimensions of that we had in the thirties...

...It may be here to stay...

...but for us it means the possibility of undertaking certain editorial projects, doing necessary promotion and paying foreign contributors (the only ones who do get paid...

...But one formula may help: the image of well-being and assurance that has dominated American society these past ten or fifteen years —an image resulting from conscious fakery on the political summit and somnolent malaise at the base of a mass society—has been shattered...

...Actually I think we could take more cheer if the vote had been small for both parties...

...But who has replaced them...

...No, far more likely that the Democrats will continue to do the dirty work of the Right, even as the Republicans, willy-nilly, were obliged to open the Left...

...There is indeed much uneasiness and anxiety among Americans today, but so far they seek a solution in buying political tranquilizers...

...1) No single explanation will completely account for the Democratic victory and the defeat of many reaction...

...This sense of a country being stranded may explain the tremendous shift in voting...

...The moment for a bellicose reactionary foreign policy passed in the late forties...

...Theirs were styles of politics and ideas which are simply no longer in tune with the demands of the 20th century...

...As for the rest, I must forego the temptation (a great one) to reply, since this isn't a debate but the beginning of a discussion in which we hope our readers will now join...

...Domestically, too, it becomes clear that pressing problems like education and health can't even be approached as anything but public issues requiring public action...

...No doubt they will advocate building more schools, better hospitals and so on—and this is all to the good, of course—but how can one compare them to those dedicated men of the early New Deal who were animated by a vision of rebuilding America along more equalitarian and humane lines...

...The difference between conservative and liberal opinion has been summed up in a folk saying: that the former opposes all change and the latter favors change—but not now...

...Let us see what happens to Senator Gore's modest proposal that atomic experiments be conducted underground...

...We are so close to success...

...It is, as to what liberalism means in presof course, extremely welcome, offer- ent-day America...

...American elections for a long time have not been seriously influenced by issues of foreign policy, nor was 1958 an exception...

...What has happened is that a number of oldtime conservatives, Eastern, Midwestern and Western backwoodsmen, have finally been retired from the political scene...

...We possess no monopoly on either wisdom or humane concern, and to the extent that we can, we ought to try to connect (despite differences in both outlook and vocabulary) their discussions with our own...

...Samuel Lubell has put this accurately: One finds a deep uneasiness...

...I wonder if today one voter in ten could tell you of a bill the Democrats might pass...

...But it's not primarily a question of individuals...

...hardly anybody had the guts to press for enforcement of the Supreme Court decision by the federal government with deliberate speed...

...As a result, the liberal posture is required simply to gain adequate attention in the world arena...

...I think people are beginning to see that the liberal stance (that is, the stance of thirty years ago) is the very minimum, if even that, for coping with the country's problems...

...the filibuster etc.—these constitute the matter of American politics...

...When a nation is devilled by psychological conflicts, and its politicians are without principle, their ambition large, their courage small, their minds too shrewd and their knowledge too narrow, then the sum of the country's political maneuverings is rudderless, each party so fouled by personalities, confusions, apathy and the uncomfortable sense that drifting is dangerous, that the only action each party is free to make is to accomplish the nominal policies of the other...

...If so, he is going to be cheated and hurt pretty badly...

...Another hundred checks or pledges in the mail, and DISSENT stays alive for the next two years...

...The general consen- ing new possibilities for people of our sus that there has been a significant persuasion...

...Does any sentient human being really care...

...Now, we seem to have had a flip toward the good heart and clear liberal constitution of the Democratic Party, but what will happen if the Democrats do no better...

...It is an important index to the quality of political life today that they didn't even get the chance to run...

...Nor should we be dogmatic about this...

...6) Wherever there are signs of new life, let us welcome them...

...I. H...

...Our man will lie awake nights formulating a new China policy, fully aware that Mao has already made a piker of Stalin, that there can always be another turn of the totalitarian screw...

...There has recently appeared in the New Republic a discussion among Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Leon Keyserling and John Galbraith about the future of liberalism...

...Where is the courageous liberal stand that the new men have taken on these issues...

...Many are the candidates and it would be premature to assume that Rockefeller will be the only one despite his obvious qualifications for this particular role...

...But there is more to it...

...The size of the Pledges has often been gratifying, but the number of pledges received thus far is disappointing...

...it was the Republicans who most reluctantly managed to stop McCarthy where the Democrats would never have dared...

...Given the clear continuation of Russian pressure on the West, the positions of America in the world are bound to continue to deteriorate in the way they are doing now...

...Where I do largely share Irving Howe's views is his emphasis on the struggle within the Democratic Party, on issues of domestic control of the party, etc...

...But it requires a reorientation...

...Every po litical scientist and almost every edi torialist in the land would accept that proposition...

...We then decided that the discussion might be of interest to our readers, and so present some of the comments (others had to be omitted for reasons of space) without any effort to disguise the informal and tentative character of the discussion...

...Lewis Coser One may be thankful in these bleak days for even minor blessings...

...I doubt it very much...

...Do the recent elections really indicate "a shift toward liberalism...

...that it is therefore a matter of the utmost urgency to sit in continuous session with the Soviets till a disarmament agreement is achieved...

...This uneasiness has a curious quality...

...By and large nobody in the recent campaign had the guts to attack Dulles' suicidal course or the madness of our atomic policy...

...And despite some contradictory evidence (such as the defeat in some localities of bond issues for new schools) there is a growing sentiment for an expansion of those public services that have been so shamefully starved these past two decades...

...By current standards, the difference is a ridiculously small sum...

...Unavoidably, new differentiations will occur...

...3. He knows that De Gaulle will explode a Hell bomb in the Sahara any moment and he has not forgotten Sakiet or Ike's uncertainty about whether an American commander in the field has authority to unleash nuclear weapons...

...it surged ahead on the basis of a genuine popular sentiment...

...we would prefer, no doubt, some American version of the British labor party...

...More important—and this too seems to operate against the notion of a significant change in the political climate —is their striking resemblance one to the other: paragons of moderation, blandness and lack of passion about any subject or issue...

...though we should take change in political mood, a shift to- care to make necessary qualifications ward liberalism, seems correct...

...we should continue to remain indifferent to these, but let us also realize that when young people today ask about our "program" they mean something else...

...THE EDITORS A New Political Atmosphere in America...

...let the next five be devoted, in part, to seeing what we can say usefully about American society as it operates today...

...This is a healthy sign...

...Here will be one opportunity and test for the liberals...

...We have a modest opportunity...

...but it's appalling...

...People are more reflective, more disturbed, than for a long time past...

...Concretely: On which issues do we go along with current liberal proposals, saying Amen...

...How much more impressive, even noble, does a three hour oration by Daniel Webster seem than this pitiful business of going up to a stranger with a fixed mad smile on one's face and saying, "I'm Joe Blow, elect me dogcatcher...

...Most of the liberal victors gave an increasingly "moderate" (i.e., conservative) coloration to their liberalism, anticipating the cue of Adlai Stevenson who, the day after the election, came out with a call for the victors to be "responsible," that is "moderate" (defined above...

...We had better start living by it, not just because war means ex tinction, but also because there can be no national solution to certain global problems that are nearly as serious as war...

...2) It was not an unambiguous triumph for liberalism...

...Rather— and here it followed the trend of all recent elections in Western democratic countries—the emphasis was on "moderation," a continuing of middleofthe-road (by our standards, drifting) policies...

...and that in more ways than one...

...ary candidates...

...Then, at least, by implication, Americans would have been saying overtly what they probably feel anyway, which is that nobody who runs anything really knows what he is running...

...The signifi...

...His approach is realistic and empirical, for piecemeal desegregation is proving to be a disaster which not only makes a mockery of our moral pretensions but also threatens to tear us apart...

...If America is getting a little closer to the time of her apocalypse, it may speed the consciousness of many of us to see that any revolutions and/or liberations of the future will come, if they come, out of no political parties which now exist, and indeed as a movement which may be in its origins hostile to politics itself...

...Like everything else, even the healthy trends in our political life are streaked with apathy...

...If so, true to past experience in American life, it will be over and around these specifics and not the abstractions of correct foreign policy...

...The election results indicate a long overdue adaptation of our political styles to the realities of mass society...

...5) The decisive political struggles during the next few years will occur in the Democratic party...

...They mean what we would propose for America today —short of socialism, which they often regard with sympathy but not as an immediate option (and in this they are right...

...Will a major party realignment take place...

...I insist, however, that this will not bring serious reactions within the country nor give birth to new political trends or hopes...

...it has many interesting—and amusing—parallels to our own discussions about the future of radicalism...

...In New York we had a choice between Harriman and Rockefeller, as to which the best suggestion was that they should buy the state together and divide it evenly instead of engaging in unseemly rivalry...

...American politics has become the art of the impossible...

...Today there is little of such spirit or sentiment—at least of a militant or aggressive kind...

...There isn't much the voter can do about it, but he can start searching for a replacement: a younger, more vigorous and, if luck holds with us, even more "personable" replacement...

...It might now be added that insights, even keen ones, don't constitute a political perspetive...

...Irving notes the paucity of ideas in the last campaign, but he seems to feel that this is only an incidental aspect...

...But perhaps I should say that my views have not been significantly altered by the dissentient observations of my fellow editors...

...Even if this last is true, there remains every reason for pushing ahead on those matters, like new schools, that can be taken care of in the here-andnow...

...Mindlessness gave the whole campaign its characteristic flavor...

...They too are in a political and intellectual crisis...

...A number of other editors then appended brief comments of disagreement and/or elaboration...

...He is wrong...

...But then I didn't vote, so I wouldn't qualify as evidence...

...tractive about an electorate which gives a landslide to a party whose aims and programs are without definition...

...I can find little evidence for this—as a matter of fact, the few genuine liberals who were prepared to run in New York, Connecticut and so on were eliminated by Democratic machines before the elections...

...2. He favors immediate and total desegregation, interpreting "with all deliberate speed" to mean "right now...

...What is happening inside the Democratic Party today resembles, in a curious way, what happens in the party of a one-party state: a crowded variety of opinions and pressures—distorted, compromised—are competing within it, expressing thereby some of the central conflicts—distorted, compromised— of American society...

...Mainly, it reflects an anxiety over impending disaster, a sense that as a nation we are beset by problems which are slipping beyond our control...

...By and large the winners are men who represent the new style in politics, smooth, personable, efficient, reasonably good administrators...

...and it is the Republicans I0 who made some half-hearted attempt to bring integration to the Southern schools which is probably more than the Democrats would have dared...

...partly it is due to the fact—and this is a fact—that political and economic issues in the fifties don't shape up as dramatically or starkly as they did in the thirties, when first of all there was the need to make sure that millions of people didn't starve...

...Irving Howe The article that immediately follows was written as a memorandum for discussion among the editors of DISSENT...

...Do they mark "the final triumph of the New Deal...

...It's a legitimate question, and it is our duty to try to answer it—not by rushing absurdly into print with a "program," but by turning our attention to such matters...

...The orgmen take over, the sophisticated experts at mass manipulation, the glad handers...

...They have been eliminated not because of an upsurge of liberalism, but because people felt, quite correctly, that these men were no longer in a position to cope with the problems of modern mass society...

...Foreign policy and segregation seem to me the most important immediate issues in America...

...This circumstance should not keep socialists from saying what such a candidate would be like...

...Lyndon Johnson has already begun his skillful maneuvers to head off the liberal wing of his party, and if past history is any indication, he will have more success than might presently be expected...

...The election, then, marked the final triumph of the New Deal—though, paradoxically, at a time when liberalism is less equipped than ever before in our century...

...Not merely has the administration failed...

...This fake personalization is a technique borrowed from the media of mass culture: you step out of the TV set and into Fulton Fish market, munching blintzes...

...And surely there are at least that many friends who have not yet been heard from...

...What this means as the world population explodes is most nightmarishly apparent in China...

...Things have gone badly in too many ways for some awareness of this fact not to have penetrated the consciousness of millions of people...

...sometimes it just seems that way...

...And Jim Burns, a liberal who did run in western Massachusetts, was snowed under...

...Stevenson exerts a pull toward gentility, respectability, moderation...

...The past two years have brought repeated shocks in foreign policy, the domestic economy and the apparently sudden rise of complicated new problems: urban development, care of the aged, education...

...In fact, they elliptically cover the minimal conditions for survival...

...now there is no reason to...

...Many of yesterday's liberal heroes will prove tomorrow's weaklings...

...Furthermore, the glad-hand technique of campaigning, at which Nelson Rockefeller proved so skillful, is a technique for systematically avoiding issues—and is becoming a major element in our electoral system...

...In the short run, perhaps, the kind of people we want to reach, because of their renewed hope for immediate political results, may be impatient with our long range socialist perspective—but not, I think, if we indicate the possible constructive relation between the two...

...Our first five years were devoted to cleaning up a little our own intellectual heritage...

...Deficient as it was even then in historical perspective and moral fortitude, American liberalism of the thirties had a good deal of crusading spirit...

...But however it may come, may such a realignment come speedily...

...No, the old directions of Left and Right are lost, and we may do better not to try looking for them too quickly...

...At best, there will be new, desultory discussions within narrow circles...

...Bernard Rosenberg I could care less about who won in November, but with some difficulty...

...They are the new suburban type, or upperclass people desperately trying to look suburban...

...It is more than possible...

...My view is that there is much truth in the claim that "personality" was decisive in the campaign...

...We are extending the drive until January 31...

...There's nothing inherent in the structure of capitalism that prevents the building of more schools—though there may be something deeply ingrained in the ethos of our society which prevents the serious raising of educational and cultural standards...

...At no point did either party, or more than a very few candidates, seriously define issues...

...My impression, from traveling a bit, is that the hostility toward any sign of radicalism which one encountered five years ago has begun to evaporate...

...One "personality"— the daddy of them all—is waning sharply and the American voter has just about accepted the fact that the Presidency of the land will be occupied for two more years by a chronic "lame duck...

...There would have to be plenty of other planks in our ideal platform, but these three will do as a starter...

...help us now to reach it...

...Stanley Plastrik The consensus may well be that the November elections marked a "significant change" and a "shift toward liberalism," but this interpretation is difficult to swallow...

...No candidate of either party or any persuasion offered the electorate what it needs, perhaps because to do so would have meant certain defeat...

...Even with De Sapio around his neck, Honest Ave might have won if he had used a slogan—whch is durable and may yet be used—: "Don't change millionaires in midstream...

...Liberals...

...It is not fretting over something that already has happened...

...We began by being suspicious of "programs," in the sense of prefabricated ideologies advanced by left-wing sects...

...Civil Rights and desegregation...

...Five years ago we felt beleaguered...

...Even if we seriously raise such questions, without always answering them, we will perform a useful service...

...it has collapsed...

...We are now , 1,700 short of our goal of $7,500, the sum necessary to insure our survival for the next two years...

...Partly this is a symptom of our peculiar moment, the fumes of deception from the Eisenhower era still being thick...

...When these fail, there may arise "modest opportunities" for radicalism...

...We are still deeply bedded in an "age of conformity" with a turning away from politics, programs and ideology...

...On which do we feel that their approach breaks down because bed-rock issues, involving fundamental questions of power and the nature of society, are reached...

...Rather than face the terror of our national void, the country turned itself inside-out for two elections trying to believe that a professional soldier was just the one to take us around the nightmare, even if his most redeeming quality was that he was always on the edge of admitting he didn't know A-hole from appetite...

...Radical intransigence was never more appropriate than it is at this point of human history when every issue that engages us is a "bed-rock" issue...

...Like everyone else today, the liberals tend to be uncertain, reflective, doubting—that is, those liberals who think...

...But America seems to lack even the guts to look at bad facts...

...When Roosevelt won in 1936, it was a political victory—people voted with some notion of what future legislation would be...

...This may not be the ideal political arena—of course, it's not...

...where power-driven nationalism moves forward...

...On which do we say more is needed, the liberals are being timid or unimaginative...

...yet there is no need to succumb to the fallacy of pathetic exaggeration...

...The Republicans are man for man much more reactionary than the Democrats, but it is the Republicans who put an end to the Korean War which the Democrats via Truman got us into, and needlessly...

...To those who have helped us, we are deeply grateful...

...We ought to stop crediting—if we ever have—the nonsense that the American population consists merely of a mass of obedient automatons...

...But it is in the nature of our historical moment that it can't remain so: events strike blow after blow, people are forced to react...

...As of December 15, we have received in cash and pledges a total of ,5,800 for our fund drive...

...I know I couldn't...

...That our ideal political leader hasn't a chance of winning elections is beside the point...

...Two-thirds of the world's population need not live on a substandard diet, but without economic planning that banishes all forms of artificial autarchy, a majority of the race will remain in a state of chronic semistarvation...