597 / 676
GOLDWATER
599
double-talk sufficient to mobilize the crusading spirit a right-wing move–
ment requires. But who knows where stupidity and obfuscation can lead
in this period.
If
the center should keep eating the Right the immediate question
is whether the Right or the center will be transformed. The answer, I
suppose, lies in what happens to the country. Affluence and the absence
of any large threats to stability and serenity have kept the digestive
system of the center in good shape. But the balance could be upset
if our difficulties should get out of hand.
In this respect even the seemingly harmless and absurd cliches of
the Right are always sinister. But the self-righteous liberal cliches-now
out in full-force to meet the new threat-won't help us much so long as
they hide those real problems which the Right tries to exploit.
RICHARD POIRIER
In Atlantic City during the Democratic Convention there
was a disturbing reminder of the nature of Goldwater's appeal: a huge
sign bearing only his picture and the admonition that, "You know in
your heart he's right." I was disturbed in part by the guilty feeling
that words so strangely affecting ought to have come not from Gold–
water but from people of my own, quite opposite political persuasion;
and I was disturbed also by the evidence that Goldwater has appro–
priated the present opportunity, also available to the people who op–
pose him, for an essentially radical political appeal to the increasing
number of people who are discontented and frustrated by the narrow–
ness, the tedious repetitiousness that characterize our national politics.
The sign called for assent to unstated propositions already shared by
people of widely different political allegiances: that "in our hearts"
we do feel that since 1945 we have not always been honest about
ourselves, our relations to one another or to other peoples; that "in
our hearts" we know that political debate in America is mostly
fraudulent, concerned often with non-existent issues like "balanced
budget," and that we've accepted this fraudulence when, as in Ken–
nedy's debates with Nixon, it has served our partisan interests; that
"in our hearts" we would welcome someone-and he'd have to be