Daniel Bell was a sociologist and public intellectual throughout the post WW II era. His views on the emergence of the “Radical Right” as exemplified by Joseph McCarthy’s unexpected influence and impact are worth quoting extensively. Their pointed relevance to recent history is apparent. The quotes are from chapter 6 of “The End of Ideology”, 1960 which republished the first chapter of the earlier book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Bell
America in mid-century is in many respects a turbulent country. Oddly enough, it is a turbulence born, not of depression, but of prosperity. … brings in its wake new anxieties, new strains, new urgencies.
One important reason is the restraining role of the electoral system. These factors of rigid electoral structure have set definite limits on the role of protest movements, left and right, in American life. [until the Tea Party]
The “common man” is the source of ultimate appeal if not authority. Harrison won [in 1840], and the lesson was clear. Politics as a skill in manipulating the masses became the established feature of political life. The upper classes withdrew from direct participation in politics. The lawyer, the journalist, the drifter, finding politics an open ladder for advancement, came bounding up from the lower middle classes.
But while sectional politics has somewhat diminished, class politics has not taken its place. Instead, there has been the spectacular rise of pressure groups and lobbies. The multiplication of interests and the fractioning of groups … make it difficult to locate the sources of political power in the United States. … Does not mean, however, that all interests have equal power. This is a business society.
These lines of thought do not help us … to explain the emergence of the new American right wing, the group that S. M. Lipset has dubbed the “radical right” — radical because it opposes traditional conservatism, with its respect for individual rights, and because it sought to impose new patterns in American life. All this is dramatized by the issue of McCarthy and the communists. … It is difficult to explain the unchallenged position so long held by Senator McCarthy. It still fails to take into account the extensive damage to the democratic fabric that McCarthy and others were able to cause. … Reckless methods disproportionate to the problem. … compulsive Americanism … loyalty oaths … wild headlines … the suspicion and miasma of fear that played so large a role in American politics.
Calling him a demagogue explains little. McCarthy’s targets were intellectuals, especially Harvard men, Anglophiles, internationalists, the Army. Important clues to the right-wing support … a strange melange … soured patricians … whose emotional stake lay in a vanishing image of a muscular America defying a decadent Europe … the “new rich” — the automobile dealers, real estate manipulators, oil wildcatters — who needed the psychological assurance that they … had earned their own wealth, rather than (as in fact) through government aid, and who feared that “taxes” would rob them of that wealth … the rising middle class strata of various ethnic groups.
The central idea of the status politics conception is that groups that are advancing in wealth and social position are often as anxious and politically feverish as groups that have become declasse. … Seek more violently than ever to impose on all groups the older values of a society which they once represented. This rise takes place in periods of prosperity. These political forces, by their very nature, are unstable.
There are several consequences to the changed political temper in American life, most notably the introduction on a large scale of “moral issues” into political debate. By and large, this is new. Throughout their history, Americans have had an extraordinary talent for compromise in politics and extremism in morality. In matters of manners, morals and conduct – particularly in the small towns – there has been a ferocity of blue-nose attitudes unmatched by other countries. The sources of the moralism are varied. There has been a middle class culture. Moral indignation … characteristic of religions that have abandoned otherworldly preoccupations and concentrate on thisworldly concerns. Piety gives way to moralism.
This moralism, itself not unique to America, is linked to an evangelicalism that is unique. … the peculiar evangelicalism of Methodism and Baptism, with its high emotionalism, its fervor, enthusiasm, and excitement, its revivalism, its excesses of sinning and high-voltage confessing, has played a much more important role. The revivalist spirit was egalitarian and anti-intellectual. The evangelical churches wanted to “improve” man, whereas the liberals wanted to reform institutions. This moralism … would be imposed with vehemence in areas of culture and conduct – in the censorship of books, attacks on “immoral art”, etc., and in the realm of private habits; yet it was rarely heard regarding the depredations of business or the corruption of politics.
The moralizing temper had another consequence: the reinforcement of the “populist” character of American society. While in American culture the small town has been “defeated”, in American politics it has still held sway. So long as world experiences could be assimilated into the perceptions of the small town … the dichotomy of politics and moralism could prevail. But with the growth of international ideologies, the breakdown of market mechanisms, the bewildering complexities of economic decisions … the anxieties of decision-making became overwhelming.
Americans, in their extraordinary optimism, find it hard to stand defeat. The cry of betrayal and charge of conspiracy is an old one in American politics. These men were “terrible simplifiers”. All politics was a conspiracy, and at the center of the web were the “international bankers” and “the money changers”.
An unsettled society is always an anxious one and nowhere has this been truer than in the United States. In an egalitarian society, where status is not fixed … the acquisition of status becomes all important, and the threats to one’ status anxiety provoking. The socio-psychological attitude that [Gunnar] Myrdal discerned in the South has been equally characteristic of the immigrant pattern in American life. As each successive wave of people came over, they grouped together and viewed the next wave with hostility and fear. In the 1890’s …there was an effort to create a ‘high society’ with its own protocol and conventions.
But the fact that the arena of politics [1950’s] was now foreign policy allowed the moralistic strains to come to the fore. While domestic issues have been argued in hard-headed, practical terms … foreign policy has always been phrased in moralistic terms.
Political debate, therefore, moves from specific clashes of interest, in which issues can be identified and possibly compromised, to ideologically tinged conflicts which polarize the various groups and divide society. The tendency to convert concrete issues into ideological problems, to invest them with emotional color and high emotional charge, is to invite conflicts which can only damage a society. It has been one of the glories of the United States that politics has been a pragmatic give-and-take rather than a series of wars-to-the-death.
Democratic politics means bargaining between legitimate groups and the search for consensus. This is so because the historic contribution of liberalism was to separate law from morality.
1955 Recap
American politics between 1870 and 1950 mostly focused on classic economic interests and ideologies. Mainly conservative dominance in the 19th century, interrupted by some “progressive” reforms at the turn of the century, a return to business rule and then two decades of FDR’s “New Deal”. Americans embraced democracy and modestly regulated capitalism, rejecting socialism/communism and totalitarianism/fascism. Bell argued in the 1950’s that we had reach the “end of ideology”, much like Fukuyama argued we had reached “the end of history” 40 years later. The Soviet communist option had been discredited in many ways. Politics and intellectuals would adapt to find new dimensions of differences. The “radical right” was one option that Bell described as new, different than the core conservative politics of the last 75 years but clearly leveraging existing factors in American politics.
Today
Bell’s key insight as a sociologist is that groups of people have social, political and economic interests and pursue them. Marx’s simplistic economic determinism had proven to be unfounded, and his solutions had been disasters. Yet … individuals and groups of individuals are often driven by “status” first, not power or wealth. He highlighted the role of groups with new, unstable, threatened or declining status as very important.
The international economic competition revolution of the 1970’s and the “greed is good” cultural revolution of the 1980’s reflect the transformation of America into a meritocracy. Firms and organizations felt great pressure to perform so they did a much better job of defining needs, recruiting, socializing, retaining and compensating those who add the most value. They also gave up on their paternalistic roles and embraced the need to make economically rational decisions even when they conflicted with other factors and stakeholders. These changes obviously effected blue collar workers, but they also challenged supervisors, professionals, managers and executives. Job security and status security were shredded.
We now have a much, much more anxious society. This is obvious in rural America, the rust belt, and “fly over” country. But it is nearly as important on the coasts, in the growing Sunbelt cities and in the suburbs. The relative winners are preserving their gains. The modest middle-class winners are very insecure. The bottom one-third have largely lost hope, are angry and easily prodded to take a “victim” perspective.
Bell says that unstable groups can be manipulated by politicians. He describes the playbook. Populism, emotions, morality, religion, polarization, targets, anti-elites, anti-intellectuals. He notes that these factors apply to individuals at all economic levels of society. Individuals want to have a solid social status so that they can enjoy their wealth, power and lives. Trump’s offer to “make America great again” is a promise to provide this security against the various threats. Bell doesn’t think this approach is effective in the long run because mere promises will not deliver the promised results.
Big Picture Thoughts
Individuals require an ideology or a religious belief in order to be relatively secure within a true meritocracy. A revival of mainstream religious belief and participation is overdue in America. A purely secular worldview that provided security from pursuing one’s talents and rejecting economic and status goals might help some individuals.
The Trump coalition of bottom two-thirds social concerns with top 5% economic concerns is unstable in the long-run. “We won’t get fooled again”. “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. There are inherent, deep divisions between these two groups. The top 5% can thrive in a world with very limited public services, the bottom two-thirds cannot. The top 5% cannot allow the extreme Trump policies which threaten their wealth and status (anti-trade, lost allies, anti-universities, anti-media, irrational immigration policies, deficit spending/inflation, huge industrial policy investments, imperial president, undermined rule of law). They support human rights, globalism, DEI, minority interests, global health, global environment, global finance. Trump has managed to combine judge appointments, deregulation and tax cuts to maintain his minority coalition. It is only the weakness and strategic incoherence of the Democratic Party’s policies that has allowed this to succeed.
America has continued to grow wealthier. Its economy continues to be the envy of the world. The pie may be large enough to promise the 5% that they can keep their share while also promising the bottom two-thirds that we can run a society with a true safety net and some sharing of incremental income and wealth.
Americans may be ready to “take back” their government. Require civility. Prioritize real issues. Neutralize election policies. Set minimum character standards. Reward compromise and results. Require real majorities
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