The Political Atmosphere
Spinrad, William
May I add a word to the discussion begun in the last DISSENT on the political climate in America? Essentially, the 1958 vote continued a trend that began after the Korean War in the summer...
...The South is a separate problem...
...Must we remain essentially critics, living on the political margins and waiting for the breaks...
...On domestic economic issues they differ on some specific legislation—as revealed by the administration's opposition to aid for economically distressed areas...
...But labor leaders and liberals are "practical," and within their narrow vistas they will be successful enough to feel justified...
...Voting alignments based on domestic issues again prevail, further accentuated by the recession...
...However reluctantly, we must accept this as our general fate for the coming period...
...One can productively participate in many arenas while maintaining a radical political stance—labor unions, liberal groups, civil rights organizations, even in the major parties at the appropriate time and place...
...Korean war resentments were neither sufficiently pervasive or lasting to counteract the picture of the Democrats as the champions of the downtrodden...
...If the electorate is so little excited by the differences between the parties, the politicians are even less moved...
...It is not asking for too much, and as long as the Democratic Party can maintain its image as the plebian spokesman and can offer a few legisla tive victories after election, the unions will be reasonably satisfied...
...Last November's returns were similar to those of the 1948 election, even though the campaigns were quite different...
...One is forced to admit that, in terms of labor's current political objectives, this is the most realistic set-up...
...The Democrats start every campaign with the advantage of more candidates with spontaneous voter appeal...
...The Polish and Hungarian events destroyed the image of the Kremlin's domain as a cohesive totalitarian empire...
...There is also the possibility of permanent Democratic inroads on the farm vote...
...Yet there is less sentiment for such a new party than at any time during the past two decades...
...In the absence of an important change in the international situation, any combination of Republican ineptness on domestic questions and the ability of the Democrats to "deliver" a few tangible rewards (improved minimum wages, federal aid to education) will assure Democratic dominance in Northern metropolitan areas and, therefore, in national politics...
...For despite the persistent identifications that stem from the New Deal era, the differences between the Northern Democrats and the Republican "liberals"—even the Eisenhower administration cohorts—is very slight...
...In contrast, the Republicans can offer only a few archaic rural types and Madison Avenue creations...
...Essentially, the 1958 vote continued a trend that began after the Korean War in the summer of 1953...
...The fight within the Democratic Party will remain a family quarrel, with Northern liberals inspiring the electoral victories, the Southerners in control of the organization of Congress, and legislation the result of ad hoc alliances...
...Those who advocate independent labor politics should be prepared to accept this immediate result as a small price for ultimate ends...
...As a consequence, large numbers of those voters who had shifted to the Republicans because they blamed the Democrats for the spread of Stalinism and the resulting Korean War, have now returned to the Democratic column...
...Some former underdogs who no longer feel deprived—junior organization men on the make —probably switched completely to what they consider the party of ultimate respectability...
...THE ESSENTIAL similarity of the two parties could, as always, provide an impetus for some kind of third party-labor party development...
...The voters may thus have reestablished the New Deal type of electoral alignment, but without the old-time partisan fervor...
...But, in contrast to the situation in the 1930's, the national leadership of both parties has the same basic orientation...
...Some place their hopes for a new political climate on labor's independent political organization, which should presumably engender an automatic clash with the patronage-oriented party organizations...
...The Stalinist menace has become more that of a national political and economic rival (the Middle East) and a technological contestant (rockets and space exploration) rather than of an organizer of world-wide subversion...
...What, then, is the perspective for the American radical these days...
...Despite the landslide Eisenhower victories, the shift in the early 1950's to the Republican voting as such was slight and impermanent...
...But, they were never assured of their status, and it is likely that the recession restored early memories and early voting ways for many of them...
...Those who cut their political teeth during the 1930's and early 1940's are the dynamic political leaders and attractive candidates...
...Any other expectation will only yield more frustration...
...Creating a more thoroughly "laboristic" Demo cratic Party or a new labor party would, at least initially, alienate enough luke warm Democratic voters to assure decisive Republican victories and the resul tant defeat of much desired legislation...
...In both cases, the vote indicated that the New Deal type of electoral line-up was endemic to the American political scene, making the Democratic Party the normal majority party, whose victories would be overwhelming whenever domestic, particularly economic, issues were most relevant —the Taft-Hartley Act, civil rights, and the end of price control in 1948, the recession last year...
...May I add a word to the discussion begun in the last DISSENT on the political climate in America...
...It is time we stopped feeling embarrassed by being involved in small scale operations, as long as we do not delude ourselves into believing they are much more...
...To quote Mort Sahl's description of the respective Eisenhower and Stevenson positions on school integration, the former is for "moderation," the latter for "gradualism...
...The liberal dream of a new "political alignment"—a completely liberalized Democratic Party versus the reactionary Republicans—will be as unrealizable as ever...
...But few voters are adhering to the label with any political passion...
...they also marked the return to the Democratic fold of wartime shifters...
...Conspiracy explanations of international affairs have become less feasible and the "politics of revenge" against the Democrats—a basic ingredient of what used to be called "McCarthyism"—less pertinent...
...Nor is there a sharp cleavage on civil rights...
...And the only perceptible difference on foreign policy that is organized along party lines is the assessment of blame for the supposed missile lag...
...The reason is something we might as well learn to accept: the labor move ment can best achieve the type of politics it pursues within the present party system...
...The New Deal has had another lasting effect...
...But, apparently all that was actually done in most unions in the 1958 election, as before, was to print articles in the union press, get members registered, supply manpower to Democratic organizations on election day, and help advise and finance individual campaigns...
...Politics will go on about as usual...
...This might be true if there were much labor independent political action, even when supporting Demo cratic candidates...
...But this is not meant to be a call for abstention...
Vol. 6 • April 1959 • No. 2
