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WILLIAM TAYLOR
amount to their own assumption of the political and financial direction
of America's affairs.. They have made a success of their lives, one senses,
at a comparatively youthful age, and they have settled with their
families in the better suburbs of American cities. In their outlook, they
appear to represent a new brand of well-heeled parochialism.
The problem is why this kind of man has responded to a Gold–
water rather than, say, to a Scranton, a Romney or a Lodge. There
are, it should be clear already, many things about Goldwater that ap–
peal to this kind of man, who may be college-trained but is not really
educated. He is semi-literate politically, intellectually defensive and,
all in all, a man of the times rather than a
Times
man. Early success
and family responsibilities have narrowed the focus of his concern. He
is made anxious and distrustful in the face of social and technological
change, both real and threatened, and he wishes above all else that he
could "buyout" on the basis of the present market. Though he dis–
trusts technology he, too, is enamoured of mechanical gimmicks and he
finds Goldwater's hobbies of flying and ham radio operating appealing.
Successful himself, he finds poverty and unemployment incomprehensible
and his contact with hardship, it must be confessed, has been slight in–
deed-even visually. His contact with politics has led him to conclude that
political parties represent some sort of conspiracy against him and others
like
him,
engines of corruption that are largely self-perpetuating. At the
same time, he has concluded that America is prosperous enough to
provide
him
with a sense of security abroad and to end for all time
the game of "give-away" that he associates with all previous administra–
tions. Tired of being "pushed around," he is attracted by Goldwater's
personal mildness as well as by his assurance that domestic and foreign
affairs can be spruced up with comparative simplicity. He sees in him
someone very like himself.