Principalities & Powersnby Samuel Francisn1 here’s a bad moon on the rise, and asn1990 drew to a close, the Americannruling class began to huddle in its tentsnto meet the coming storm. When ex-nKlansman David Duke seized 44 percentnof the vote in Louisiana’s senatorialnelection last October, the howling ofnthe political cyclone could be heardneven in the cellars of New York andnWashington, where the oligarchy’s augursnat once set to work to explain awaynthe tempest as just a light rain. Louisiana’snvoters are racist, whined the NewnYork Times and the Washington Post.nThe state is economically depressed. Itnwas all Ronald Reagan’s fault anyway.nThe pundits may actually believentheir own propaganda, and it’s just asnwell if they do, since it means that oncenagain they’ve managed to miss thenpoint and lose the message Mr. Duke’snsupporters were sending. Duke did notnrun as a Nazi or a Klansman, butnneither did he campaign as the kind ofnconservative that is now fashionable,nand no one has accused him of beingnliberal. Indeed, one of his two opponents,nBen Baggert, was precisely anfashionable sort of conservative Republican,nand Duke ripped his polihcalnthroat out. Three weeks before thenelection, Mr. Baggert’s campaign fellnapart like a wet grocery sack, and hisntop aides resigned. Two days before thenelection, Mr. Baggert himself withdrewnand endorsed the Democrat,nthird-term Senator Bennett Johnston,nand a whole flock of Republican geesensuddenly flapped south to honk in Mr.nJohnston’s support. Had it not been fornsuch last-minute devices, Duke wouldnalmost certainly have forced a runofl^nand perhaps would have wasted Mr.nJohnston as thoroughly as he did Mr.nBaggert. Thus does the oligarchy closenranks when it spies the lightning ofnrevolution flash in the darkening sky.nOf course, by itself, Mr. Duke’snability to gain votes does not constitutena revolution, nor does the candidatenhimself seem to promise much as anserious leader of one. He simply carriesntoo much baggage, and there are persistentnrumors about irregularities in hisnpersonal life, which, if true, point tonserious character flaws and threaten ann10/CHRONICLESneventual political embarrassment.nWhatever his plans for the future, Mr.nDuke and his supporters shouldn’tncount on holding high elective office.nHe can at most be a gadfly, andnperhaps the best thing for him to donnow would be to institutionalize thenmovement he has started in a nationwidenorganization that could exert culturalnand indirect political power andnradicalize Middle American consciousnessnstill further.nBut despite Mr. Duke’s shortcomings,nthe election of October 6 was notna fluke, and it could be the first rumblingsnof a new national political forcenthat rejects the dominant political culturenand the increasingly meaninglessnpoles of right and left between which itnshuffles. More than twenty years ago,nGeorge Wallace, who was in the samenmold as Mr. Duke, declared that therenwasn’t a dime’s worth of differencenbetween the two major parties, and thenhasty coalition between left and rightnformed to make sure Duke didn’tncause any more trouble pretty muchnproves he was correct.nNot only the Duke election but alsonthe paralysis of the federal governmentnover the same weekend shows that thenold order is simply out of gas. ThenPresident and Congress wheeled andndealed and ran off the road trying tondraft a miraculous budget that wouldnplacate all the parasites while at thensame time not bankrupt the country.nThe recession that began to setfle overnthe economy, the threat of a war in thenMiddle East on behalf of a “new worldnorder” that is irrelevant and inimical tonreal American interests, the disgust thatnmost voters express for Congress, andnthe apparent end of the Cold War allnpoint to the exhaustion of incumbentnelites, the uselessness of their ideologies,nand the readiness of many Americansnto forge a new identity that reflectsntheir real needs, interests, andnvalues.nThere is, in fact, statistical supportnfor this thesis. One month before thenelecdon in Louisiana, the Times MirrornCenter for the People and the Pollsnreleased a comprehensive survey ofnpolitical opinions in the United States,na sequel to a similar survey published inn1987. The study divided the electorateninto several groups called “attitudinalnnnclusters,” and it found no categorynlarger than the one it labeled then”Disaffecteds.” In 1987 this groupncomprised 9 percent of the adult population,nand by last year it had grown ton12 percent. It leans toward the RepublicannParty, but the GOP has not beennable to secure its loyalty, and it remainsnvolatile, ready to follow whoever hasnthe boldness to lead it.nThe Times Mirror survey characterizesnthe Disaffecteds as “alienated andnpessimistic” and “highly suspicious ofnall forms of authority, alienated fromnboth the political and economic establishment,naggravated by constant financialnpressure, and ready to defect politicallynat the slightest provocation.” ThenDisaffecteds bear a striking resemblancento, and may be identical with,nthe group sociologist Donald I. Warrennin 1974 called the “Middle AmericannRadicals,” or MARs, who perceivednthemselves as caught in an iron sandwichnbetween an irresponsible and oppressivenelite, on the one hand, and, onnthe other, a ravenous underclass thatnthe elite supports at the expense of thenmiddle class. The MARs were the corenof the Wallace constituency, and it isnlikely they would support a candidatenlike David Duke, baggage or no baggage,nwearing a Klan bedsheet or anDacron suit bought at K-Mart.nBut even outside the Disaffectedncategory, the Times Mirror surveynfound a “significant intensification” ofnfeelings of alienation, mistrust, disillusionnwith politics, and helplessness.nWhile there was little evidence ofnincreasing racial intolerance, “therenhas been a greater proportionate increasenin feelings of economic pressurenamong middle-income whites andngreater indications of personal alienationnamong poor white people thannamong blacks.” One of the most interestingnchanges in opinion was thendecline of the perception of communismnas a threat, but at the same timenthe survey concluded that “the Americannpublic remains as militant andnnationalist as it was a few years ago,”nand there has been an increase innhostility toward Japan, Israel, and Mexico.nNationalism, the survey found, isnlinked with economic pessimism asnwell as with unfavorable opinionsnabout Japan.n