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GOLDWATER
589
the liberation of hoary, strong prejudices which the moderately liberal
rule of the past thirty-two years has sicklied over or thwarted or even
outlawed. After the boil of their resentment has burst and drained,
politically they will follow their leader towards the center, where the
elect.oral power is.
The ingredients of Goldwaterism could of course be put together
in
such a way as to fonn a fascist totality. Anti-Communism is ide–
ologically a more cohesive force than the conservatives' now-dominant
motive, pr.ofit, and one prays that they never will allow anti-Com–
munism to become their over-riding obsession. The logic of it goes
something like this. Communism is the source of so many of the evils
of the modern world that to extirpate and destroy it is to weaken the
powers of socialism, statism, liberalism, until they cease to be un–
manageable dangers as they are now. AIl means are justified to ex–
terminate socialism and Communists, and to triumph over liberalism.
If
we must use the enemy's methods to defeat him, then we will do
so.... There is enough of this in Goldwater's occasional utterances and
in the philosophy of some of his extremer backers to be disturbing.
Also, he has near him at least one man who can think, William Buckley,
an all-or-none theocratic zealot of the most dangerous kind. (I heard
Buckley address a good-sized college audience last year on the subject
of American foreign policy. His criticism of the faults of the liberal
rulers of the nation was incisive and accurate; his forensic power and
control were by far the greatest I have heard in an American speaker;
and his locating in Marxism the excisable source of the sepsis vitiating
modern man seemed to entrance his listeners by its persuasive force as
deeply as it appalled me by its simplism.) Buckley intends no fascism,
but his fearful hatred is so nearly total that his counsels might well
become totalitarian with the heat turned up, as it will be if Goldwater
gets into power. Buckley now supplies Goldwater with a good many of
his ideas, though perhaps not with the worst ones. The danger would
be
if
Goldwater allowed him to provide some sort of intellectual
coherence as well.
But I doubt that this danger of fascism will be realized, primarily
because I doubt that Goldwater will be elected-too many voters are
moderate enough to fear some of his extreme views. And even if he is
elected, I doubt that anything very fascistic will come of it. Partly
this is because Goldwater's chief body of supporters is no better or–
ganized than is his own mind. (The Constitution Party is right to have
rejected him as Presidential candidate for being too flexible.) Fascist
organization is hard work and demands much purity of zeal, and with-