On the Outskirts of Nixonland
Rick Perlstein has written an enthralling and indispensable book about our collective life and times--and "indispensable" remains a useful adjective even if Madeleine Albright taints it by overapplication to American foreign policy. At least the first 435 pp. of Nixonland qualify--this is as many pages of the book as I've been able to read while navigating through an intense cold. I can't say I "couldn't put it down." I have to keep putting it down. Fifty pages of Perlstein in one reading leaves me in a state of rage and dumb horror, entailing the need for a recovery interval. Thus "enthralling" is also precisely what I mean. The momentum is unrelenting--an extraordinary writerly achievement. And no matter how much I thought I know about those times, Rick unearths actual cold facts I didn't know.
But let me say a few words about concepts. First, where I wholeheartedly agree: Rick is right to focus on "positive polarization." This is how Nixon made himself the victor of the 1968 Gotterdämmerung. I'm sure he's also right that Nixon excelled at managing the unleashed rages of the "silent majority" because he was so much one of them. The power of "positive polarization" taught a lesson that remains at the core of the Republican party--cf. Atwater, Rove, Bush, and stormy, huffy McCain, the McCain of whom we'll be seeing a lot more over the next five months. Positive polarization is the core idea that has to be grasped to understand the '60s et seq., and Rick grasps it.
It would be tedious to dwell on the agreement, though, so I'll turn to another matter. And this actually comes up not in the book but in Rick's book club opening salvo:
The liberals and leftists I write about were condescending asses. That's one of the main points of the book! Let me throw down here: I damn well I think I'm a better critic of liberal condescension in the 1960s and '70s than George Will is.
Too much, too fast. This wasn't the whole of either liberalism or New Leftism. First of all, many of us in the New Left well understood that the base of a relevant radicalism had to widen and deepen. We were not (all) fools who thought that universities would be the Debrayesque focos for a guerrilla march through the great wide expanse of America. We are queasy about turning cultural snobbery (even our own) into a political cause. We had more than a rudimentary grasp of who lives in America. The whole community organizing thrust that took much of the first generation of SDS leadership off the campuses in 1964-67 was predicated on a hugely ambitious notion that the student movement (and civil rights remnants) needed white poor working-class allies, and could get them with class-specific politics that would overcome racial antagonism. There emerged a rather fanciful hope that we could do something big about that need. I wouldn't have spent two years organizing poor whites in uptown Chicago with a dozen or so other organizers if I hadn't been serious about the intent. We largely failed. But it wasn't because we were effete snobs, and I don't think we were especially condescending. The conditions just weren't there.
Again, this is a matter of historical record, not self-serving. Rick writes about the insufferable antics of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, among others, but by taking them as the representative figures they cast themselves as on TV, he also swallows too much of their self-professing claims that they were the movement, or its vanguard, or cutting edge, or something. There were plenty of efforts around the New Left to embody very different styles of political work. For example, in Boston and Wisconsin there were organized attempts to do draft counseling for working class kids (mostly white), precisely in recognition that college students and graduates were privileged in their ability to evade the draft. SDS and allied groups were periodically convulsed with debates over whether the spectacular demonstrative style that evolved in the later '60s was, after all, the wisest way to build bridges to a larger polity.
Honestly, there's not much in these pages I want to take issue with. Wholehearted congradulations, Rick!
I'm not sure I see a disagreement here. To be sure, the New Left was not shot through with condescension - it wasn't all Hoffman and Rubin. But they were part of it, and they did command more public attention than those of you who organized in Chicago or counseled draftees in Boston. So the element that Rick identifies was present, and perhaps more importantly, it had undue sway on public perception of your movement, with bad consequences.
I suppose, in truth, that every political movement has its share of condescension - in a sense, the conviction that there must be some kind of change in society, or that some trend must be resisted, brings with it the inclination to look down on those on the other side. If so, all the more reason that effective political movements need to keep their Abbie Hoffmans backstage.
May 29, 2008 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just like the 'fringes' who join peaceful demonstrations as a lark and manage to completely override its intended message, the likes of Abbie really must be kept backstage. Image is, afterall, everything.
May 29, 2008 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is absurd to criticize Jerry and Abbie for the failure of left politics. They consciously and openly decried left wing politics and advocated for something different. It turns out they achieved little more that street theater, but highly entertaining theater at that. So they pissed off mainstreet and made it more difficult for Democrats to win elections. I suppose the same can be said of many creative artists.
May 29, 2008 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Big Brother blamed Emmanuel Goldstein, too -- for everything. Oh, if only those "dirty fucking hippies" hadn't grown long hair and beards and sang all those folk songs in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, why, Big Brother would not have become enraged at the mere sight and sound of their nonconformity and would have just melted away, putting aside his truncheons in favor of peaceful collective bargaining for higher working wages. After all, Adolph Coors (the First) didn't really mean it when he said he could always hire half the unemployed to beat the other half into submission. Just a little "conservative joke," don't you see? Just kidding.
In fact, Big Brother invented Emmanuel Goldstein, and America's "rabid right at home" (to borrow historian Barbara Tuchman's apt phrase) would have invented Abbie Hoffman or some other pathetic bogeyman just like him if he hadn't appeared of his own zany volition. Shit, man, the constipated conservatives of the 50's and 60's hated Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles, too. If they couldn't hate, they wouldn't have a reason for breathing.
How about blaming the rabid right at home in America for what the rabid right thinks, says, and does? I doesn't really take much imagination. Leave us dirty fucking hippy Vietnam Veterans out of it. We don't care about medieval feudalism and have no desire to re-enact it at our own expense rather than dare to criticize the rabid right at home in America for trying -- with much success -- to flog us back into sullen somnolent serfdom again.
Like with Emmanuel Goldstein, I heard rumors of Abbie Hoffman back in the day, too, but I can't ever recall seeing him in person or knowing what to think of him. I have somewhat the same recollections of Alger Hiss, another one of Tricky Dick Nixon's dreaded Emmanuel Goldsteins. Pretty bad dude, from what I heard. Something about hiding a typewriter in a pumpkin, or something like that. I heard he wrote a couple of memos, too, and then we "lost" China! How awful! Lucky for America that we had Tricky Dick Nixon on the job. How close we came to a total commie takeover of, well, everthing!
Frankly, I had more pressing problems with my own government threatening me with prison of I didn't fall in line and submit passively to the draft for conscripted military duty in some Southeast Asian quagmire half a world away. Besides, I liked folk music, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles. They didn't scare me one bit.
Crypto fascist America crawled up its own asshole and died half-a-century ago. When Gore Vidal called Americans "among the most easily frightened people on earth," he barely scratched the surface of the awful truth. If "Clinton" and "Bush" define the "left" and "right" in America, then America doesn't have a "left," but only a single Janus oligarchy consisting of -- again as per Gore Vidal -- "one political party with two right wings."
I'd suggest giving the "left" a break for its wimpy ineffectiveness vis-a-vis the reactionary Republicans, but in America, one can hardly find a "left" to absolve. I'd probably have more luck locating Emmanuel Goldstein.
May 30, 2008 12:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately it was about perception. Not to criticize them, Hoffman and Rubin didn't represent the whole movement but they were perceived to be the identifying symbols for the left to a majority of the country, who seemed to think that they were "elitist". To many Americans, especially ones not from either coast, "the movement" in the 60's and 70's came off as militant and preachy at times, and unfortunately having violent fringe groups identified with it which were really not part of the movement as a whole, turned a lot of people off. I don't think it was the message only how the message was delivered.
I find it humorous, in an ironic way, that a movement that was all about "the people", and wanting to improve people's lives, ended up being defined as "elite". Compassion and trying to help others is "elite"?
From what I have seen posted by people who've read the book, I will be picking it up.
May 30, 2008 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
At the risk of turning this into a Hoffman/Rubin thread:
I was too young to be involved but just old enough to be aware of the Sixties politics. From my perspective, it appears that the antics of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin -- for all of their egotistical faults -- served a beneficial purpose by generating publicity that not only attracted the attention of the media, frightened conservatives and crazies who wanted to join in the "fun", but also motivated activists who tuned in and eventually heard the voices of Tom Hayden, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, Todd Gitlin and other, more serious leaders.
Those "radicals" got my head pointed left, but it was Tricky Dick and his band of burglars and bunglers that pushed me there to stay.
May 30, 2008 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr Gitlin,
Your title of the original post is both brilliant and precise. My thanks, in that I too am a kindred spirit when it comes to the "outside of Nixonland". As such, you have spurred to me to participate and contribute to the discourse.
This being my first post ever here at the Talking Points Memo, this post will be quite lengthy in keeping with diversity. As such, I have titled this a "A Book Recommendation" for military veterans here in the Sonoran Desert, and will be going up later today at the Cactus Juice Commentaries for the web site of the Chicano Veterans Organization. Enjoy.
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A Book Recommendation
After having read several reviews of the book titled, "Nixonland" by Richard Perlstein, one of America's noted historians, I have decided to go out and purchase the book, and find for myself that Perlstein is correct in his overall assessment of the Nixonian Era.
One of the more salient observations among these many reviewers and who have actually read the book is that the book is both "enthralling" and quite "factual". If so, then the notional for "positive polarization" or presumptively known as the Southern Strategy is correct. As part and parcel to the Nixonian Era, the advent of the "Silent Majority" paid its political dividends as well. Of course, this is the big picture.
And perhaps, the focus of the SDS and similarly-situated and like-minded organizations as well as individuals such as Abby Hoffman and others, is not really germane to any Southern Strategy. But, if you're a member of the New Left, then the SDS and others are important to include into America's political history just as the history of the Chicano is important to include into America's political history. Of course, we will be writing Bush's "legacy" and we to will be modestly inserting ourselves into this "big picture" history, as well.
However, since I have yet to read Nixonland and therefore, any focus on Chicanos is likely non-existent and which remains to be seen from my standpoint of perspective and for political engagement, so I words are to be taken with a dose of caution or grains of salt.
As Chicanos, we have always taken the longer view as well as the expansive view. To wit, back in the 1930's, immigrants and blue-collar workers were viewed as the "other" while the majority of Americans saw themselves as the "real" Americans. And from this perspective of the folks that resided in the Construct for "political polarization", anyone one not 'real" was ultimately and obviously, all about identity politics with the inherent racial tinge, smell, and amply suspect of any affirming intentions. And it is from therein, that that America’s conservatives out-smarted themselves, not only for the short-term but also for the long term.
Today, 14% of Chicanos are conservative, and for the next twenty years, that 14% will be diminished considerably. As such, the notional that the “line is shorter on the Right” no longer applies. And this has occurred all because “egalitarianism” has taken root among our children and grandchildren vis-a-vis the Civil Rights Act, among others. And yet, it not been easy to accomplish given the wealth of distractions.
Interestingly though, Chicanos had a more effective opportunity for political engagement and delivered by and through President Johnson and his legislation for the Great Society. Thus, the establishment of the institutional infrastructure of the Community Action Agencies or the construct for, alleviated Chicanos from participating in any heavy-duty leadership responsibility in the New Left, and continues to this political day. And it was through these CAAs that Chicanos participated actively while husbanding the limited resources available. Consequently, much leadership training was completed, as well as developing the skill set for organizing the self-interested in the community. And today, one can look back and see the many accomplished successes, from individual investment of oneself for acquiring public housing, health care, and educational access, among other notable instances.
So, when the Nixonian Era entered, a continued conservative approach to any "positive polarization" was assumed to be a standard recognition of reality for Chicanos in the Sonoran Desert. More so, when one had the opportunity to see the late Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, "challenging" Chicano voters in South Phoenix on any Election Day. And this continues to this day as well, but albeit, in the form of electoral disenfranchisement by the DOJ, as it has in the past seven years and which has failed to investigate any legitimate cases where voter suppression and vote fraud, has penalized Chicanos with respect to exercising their full citizenship responsibilities. By contrast and with the consummate 1960’s descriptive, this disenfranchisement could be conveniently viewed as the continuity for a Nixonian Era of more “exorcism” in keeping with the conservative notional for a “positive polarization”.
After the Nixonian Era expired, along came Jimmy Carter. The consummate Chicano participation in establishing Human Rights as our national public policy is not recognized by historians. And yet, Carter reinvigorated Chicano communities across America, and especially, here in the Sonoran Desert. Moreover, the leadership skill set learned within and from the CAA construct, proved fruitful in expanding the political impact of PURPA or the Public Utilities Regulatory Schematic and which instigated Chicanos to address utility ratemaking by creating a residential consumer agency funded by Arizona’s taxpayers.
As to President Clinton, nothing came forth for significance or consequence, other than “let’s have a conversation about race”.
In closing, I will find it interesting that should Barack Obama read Rick Perlstein’s “Nixonland” and if so, will he take the levers of power to the point where Community Action Agencies become the ‘cutting edge’ for community development and empowerment that will lead to the further reinvigoration for more Chicanos becoming politically engaged in our future for self-governance? Furthermore, the history of the Chicano in America has always been on a two-track parallel. A two-track in which if you were a military veteran, the Nixon Era had a direct impact. If you were a migrant or an agricultural worker toiling in the fields from sun-up to sundown, the Nixon Era holds nothing for you. And today, our history has coalesced to the point where we, as Chicanos, walked around the outer perimeter of the Nixonian Era and into facing our future with Carter at the helm. So, Carter holds our highest esteem in this modern political era.
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Respectfully Submitted.
Jaango
May 30, 2008 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink