Why Ike Is Popular:
NIEBUHR, REINHOLD
WHY IKE IS POPULAR He symbolizes Republican acceptance of the Roosevelt Revolution By Reinhold Niebuhr PRESIDENT EISENHOWER'S popularity is a real political phenomenon of great significance....
...This observation is occasioned by the fact that, if a Democratic administration had attempted to liquidate our inconvenient dependence on Chinese Nationalism, there would have been a public uproar of monstrous proportions...
...Percentagewise it may be about 65 instead of 95...
...He has proved his inclinations in the crises over Indo-China and the previous Quemoy incident...
...It is not my purpose to enter into hazardous predictions which had better be left to political experts...
...The taxation policy partly follows the Republican dogma that we need incentives for production rather than more adequate distribution of our productive wealth...
...The permanence of the Eisenhower popularity is, however, more significant...
...And he was forced to overrule the advisers he had appointed on the impetus of the Republican campaign, which had maintained that the Asian mess was not due to a vast continental revolution, but to the defects of a Democratic administration...
...Of course, in this realm the acceptance of previous accomplishments is not so complete...
...But it is also apparent that the business community has come to terms with the necessity of this retreat from its previous dogmas...
...The Government accepts responsibility both for preventing great fluctuations in the economy and for preserving minimal standards of welfare...
...Meanwhile, those of us who did not vote for Eisenhower in the last election and probably would not in 1956 might gratefully observe the beneficent effects of a change of administration in a democracy, even if the former administration corresponds more closely to our viewpoints...
...The natural-resources and public-power policy is wholly Republican...
...The defection of the farmers from Republicanism has not been as wide as was expected, but it may become wider, depending on the success or failure of the flexible price-support program...
...Eisenhower cannot completely disavow responsibility for their defense, because they are the remnant of the spiritual capital which American nationalism invested in Chinese Nationalism and of the illusions which were created by that investment...
...But meanwhile the business community, or at least that portion of it which was aware of both the moral and economic responsibilities and opportunities of the growing American power, deserted the old Republican nationalism for the new internationalism...
...This wing of the party was strong enough to nominate both Willkie and Dewey in turn...
...He was wiser because he failed to conform to the nationalist credo that the Asian problem could be solved purely by military action...
...On both the domestic and the foreign-policy front, the Eisenhower popularity has essentially the same basis...
...The conversion may not be completely honest or absolutely complete...
...Labor will certainly be more solidly anti-Republican in 1956 than in 1952...
...It is rooted in the fact that he is the agent of the acceptance by Republicanism of the major policies of the Rooseveltian Revolution of the past two decades...
...It would be foolish to predict that he is unbeatable in the next election...
...The high-tariff traditions of Republicanism are disintegrating under the pressure of world events, but they are not disintegrating fast enough...
...In foreign trade, Eisenhower is able to preserve only with the help of the Democrats in Congress a fair share of the reciprocal policies which the world so desperately needs...
...But there can be no question about the acceptance of the main portion of the social-security program of the previous administration...
...The impartial observers may, incidentally, be wrong in their complacency about the ultimate outcome...
...Public-opinion polls establish that over 70 per cent of the population favor him, and that his appeal to the people far exceeds that of the GOP, which still seems to be a minority party...
...It may not, indeed, have been complete enough to satisfy the country...
...This is true even if the flexibility is obscured by the residual inflexibility which may lead to war...
...But the political and social base of the phenomenon consists of the reluctant conversion of the U.S...
...Thus, Eisenhower may be said to stand for 95 per cent of the foreign policy of the previous administration...
...In domestic politics, the revolution meant a break with the doctrinaire laissez-faire traditions of Republicanism, and the intervention of political power in economic affairs for the purpose of preventing violent fluctuations in the economic life and of establishing minimal standards of social security...
...For in a democracy the crowning triumph of a revolution is its acceptance by the opposition...
...Eisenhower is popular because he follows the previous policy in domestic as well as foreign affairs...
...All political phenomena have a biographical pinnacle and a social and economic base...
...Eisenhower has been lucky enough to gain prestige merely by overruling advisers who represent the remnant of Republican nationalism...
...This is certain because it is obvious that they could not win without him...
...But, with all these hazards, it is now quite certain that the Republicans will renominate him, whatever his own inclination...
...The remaining 5 per cent is represented by the embarrassment we experience in regard to those offshore islands...
...Thus, a policy against which the business community fought for two decades, an opposition which kept it from political power for these decades, has been finally accepted by the party which represents the business community...
...The fact that the Republicans could win the last election only with Eisenhower was not surprising...
...The right wing of the Republican party may not grant him (or our nation) that boon...
...The housing program may be inadequate, but the acceptance of the general principles of social security is obvious...
...business community to the revolution in domestic and foreign policy which it professed to abhor...
...All this does not prove that Eisenhower can't be defeated in 1956...
...Incidentally, it had proved its flexibility in retreating in its own sphere of economic affairs long before it proved its willingness to sacrifice its political dogmas...
...It is significant, however, that impartial Washington observers are quite certain that Eisenhower will not involve us in war for the defense of those islands...
...Haven't all of our principal allies served notice that they accept our general stand on Formosa but will not support us in the defense of the offshore islands...
...In foreign affairs, that meant acceptance of the concept of our nation's responsibility for the health of the community of free nations...
...I wish merely to comment on the social and political significance of the Eisenhower phenomenon, which requires more explanation than reference to the President's obvious "charm" and his ability to impress the people as an able and prudent leader in times of crisis...
...And it is generally accepted that a part of the Eisenhower popularity is derived from this acceptance...
...Eisenhower has remained popular because, after vacillations in handling McCarthy, he was resolute in defeating the nationalists on the issue of the Bricker Amendment, and because he proved himself both politically and morally wiser than the advisers whom he chose to satisfy the nationalist wing of the party...
...That probably consists of both the prestige derived from his war services to the nation, and his "charm," which may be defined as the capacity to invest even the calculated political decision with the appearance of spontaneous sincerity...
...the appeal of a war hero has won more than one election in this country...
...Significantly, that nationalism has been transmuted from isolationism to a show of strength without reference to the security which the nation enjoys as a member of the alliance of free nations...
...If we escape this peril, one may hope that this last tie with past illusions will be dissipated and we may become trustworthy allies in the alliance of free nations, in which we exercise such a fateful hegemony...
...but the fact of the conversion has been of great benefit...
...Perhaps it is significant that it required a military figure to engineer this acceptance...
...But it does prove that there is more flexibility in American democracy than our critics give us credit for...
...Republicanism preserved its doctrinaire opposition to both of these policies...
...But it could not elect them, partly because the nationalists defected and partly because the nation, including many Republicans, did not trust the party to be loyal to the policy of international responsibility...
...Furthermore, everything depends upon the international situation, and Eisenhower's seeming invincibility presupposes peace at the time of the next elections...
...What could be smarter for the Chinese Communists than to take some action which would widen the rift between ourselves and our allies...
...It required an Eisenhower, one of the proconsuls of the new American imperium, to give the Republican cause sufficient prestige to overcome the minority status into which Republicanism had sunk through two decades of fruitless opposition to historic trends...
...We are thus flirting with war because the Eisenhower Administration must maintain some contact with the Republican past in foreign policy...
...The biographical pinnacle of the Eisenhower phenomenon presents us with Eisenhower's personal appeal to the voters...
Vol. 38 • April 1955 • No. 17
