590 / 676
592
RICHARD HOFSTADTER
minority could create a political climate in which the rational pursuit
of our well-being and safety would become impossible." Today we
seem a giant step closer to such an eventuality.
JOHN HOLLANDER
Senator Goldwater's nGmination has been an esthetic prank
and a moral disaster; it remains to be seen whether it will have been
a total political catastrophe as well. The biggest problems posed by his
candidacy are clouded in uncertainties which themselves seem to lie
at the heart of the problem. In any particularly dramatic time in
American politics, two kinds of myth struggle for control of any ra–
tional observer's feelings. One is apocalyptic: "Here's the showdown,
finally, the Real Thing." The other is pragmatic: "Don't be melo–
dramatic: things like that don't happen that way here, now, to us."
In the case of last fall's assassination, for example, the question whether
or not the event was political at all constitutes a version of just such
a struggle. The extreme of one view is paranoia; the other shades off
into a total acceptance of American political institutions as they are
that seems almost as insane. Each position eyes the other with con–
tempt; from moment to moment, each can become very attractive.
With the current campaign, all this has intensified rather than
becoming resolved. It is almost impossible to feel sure either that
Goldwater will turn out to have b.een a major threat or a kind of
symptomatic but nonetheless contemptible political buffoon. His sup–
porters, the Yahoos of respectability, mayor may not turn out to be
the analogues of the German petit-bourgeois trash of Hitler's rise. Some
of the direct political consequences of the nomination seem salutary–
Johnson's refusal so far to be pushed to the right on the vice-presi–
dential choice, at least, and the generally unique milieu which will
enable me to vote Democratic without the slightest qualm about the
composition of the popular front with which I shall be voting. But they
only make the election seem more like Armageddon; as the days go
by, my paranoia seems to be gaining the upper hand.
The reasonable view, perhaps, would hold either that there is no
chance of Goldwater's winning the election or that if he
did
win
things wouldn't be as bad as all
that.
I find neither of these suggestions
wholly impressive, and yet I would like
to
be able to cure my own