doubtedly be in for a drubbing from thenremaining Democrats (or someone else),nthe likes of which will make RalphnNader’s laying-waste look elementary.nAnother type of reaction, this morenshrill and less Utopian, is typified in a bylinednpiece on the editorial page of thenDetroit Free Press on November 20,n1980. Reese Cleghorn, associate editornof the Free Press, opens the opinionnpiece that’s headlined “The RadicalnRight Has an Agenda for Us” with thensentence: “The New Right needs anNew Left, and if it isn’t there it will bencreated.” Basically, Cleghorn says thatnthe “extreme right-wingers”—and hensingles out John T. Dolan, chairman ofnthe National Conservative Political ActionnCommittee, and The HeritagenFoundation—must be stopped. Theynhave “From one trench after another…nsounded their battle cries,” so Cleghornnsounds a call to arms, warning that therenmay be a “return to witch-hunting bynCongress. The witches to be huntednrange from the New Left… to antinuclearnprotesters and certain opponentsnof more military spending.” Nonpunches are pulled by Cleghorn; thenpiece ends: “A revival of McCarthyism,nlong after it was unmasked and discredited,nmay seem farfetched. But obviouslynit still has influential admirers, andntheir teeth are bared.” Indeed.nFor the most part, Changing of thenGuard is nothing more than a heavily annotatedn”who’s who in American politics,”n1980. Broder presents a balancednportrait of each individual, or at leastnhe seems to. There is no obvious tilt tonone side: pro- and anti-ERA women haventheir say; business and labor are bothnwell represented, and so on. It is the kindnof evenhandedness that one should expectnfrom a reporter, which, essentially,nis what Broder seems to be. But morenthan a mere reporter of the facts, he wasnthe one who made the selections ^nd henis responsible for the transitions betweennpresentations, chapters and sections,nand although his views and opinionsnare generally overshadowed byn30inChronicles of Culturensome of the more striking comments ofnsome of the new guard, they are, nevertheless,nthere.nBroder characterizes himself “a thoroughgoingnconservative when it comesnto the structure of our democracy.”nWhen it comes to other things, he isn’t.nCase in point: his handling of the liberalnRepublican Ripon Society and the conservativenYoung Americans for Freedom.nThe Ripon Society is presented bynBroder as an elite group that “first attractednnotice by the quality of some ofnits policy papers.” He goes on to saynabout Ripon and other “progressive Republicans”:nWhere they have criticized their party,nthey have, more often than not, beennright…. They were right in theirncriticism of the Vietnam war, and theynwere right when they said that mediocritynwas not the criterion for selectingnSupreme Court justices.nBroder notes that many of these astutenpeople “flocked to the presidential banner”nof John Anderson.nThen, 65 pages later, on the first pagenof the chapter entitled “The NewnRight,” he describes the founding of thenYoung Americans for Freedom in 1960:nThey adopted a manifesto called thenSharon Statement saluting the Constitutionnand its division of powers,nthe market economy, and the importancenof achieving ‘victory over, rathernthan coexistence with . . . internationalnCommunism.’ And theynwent forth to tilt at their own favoritenwindmills [ellipsis is Broder’s].nSeveral pages later he lists the failuresnof YAF—e .g. the retention of the HousenUn-American Activities Committee andnthe Panama Canal—and notes that therenare also “a few dozen more losingncauses” to its credit. Ripon wrote policynpapers; YAF wrote a manifesto. Riponnwas right in its criticisms; YAF backednlosers.nSuch editoriahzing can be subtle; thenmere size of the book allows Broder toncouch his opinions. Of course, in hisnnnconclusion Broder openly editorializes,nbut this candor is really more of thensame: throughout he is a columnist, notna reporter.nOroder asserts that the next generationnof leaders was molded by the experiencenof the civil-rights and antiwarndemonstrations of the 60’s. He contendsnthat because of their protests and activistnorganization and the like-mindednessnthey involved, “network links,” orn”spiritual and emotional bonds,” werenforged among the participants. Thesennetworks comprise the new guard, innBroder’s view. That, essentially, is hisnconclusion. He notes, “At the end of thenproject, I find myself distinctly hopefulnabout the coming change.” If he is correctnin his conclusion, then peoplenlike Tom Hayden and Reese Cleghornnshould also be hopeful. In Broder’s opinion,nmembers of the New Right generallyndidn’t take part in such demonstrations,nso, as a result, they didn’t formnnetworks. Broder suggests that “the lacknof those spiritual and emotional bondsn… to the shaping experiences of thisngeneration may ultimately deny the NewnRight the long tenure in power that itsnintellectual energy would otherwise benlikely to earn it.”nIt’s commonly noted that even thenmost crusty reprobate begins to thinknabout the Unknown as he nears his end,nno matter how much of a depraved blasphemernhe had been in his earlier days.nAs one—even the most pure—moves towardnthe end, things incorporeal beginnto have a greater significance. What wasnonce familiar, material, day-to-day hfenwill be replaced by—.? Hayden talksnabout the Democrats’ need to be “inspired”;nCleghorn fears witch hunts andnwhat sound like werewolves; Broder isndepending on “spiritual” bonds. Couldnall of this indicate that the liberals andntheir supporters have ghmpsed the End.?nCould Changing of the Guard be nothingnmore than a kind of whistling in thendark while walking through a cemetery:n”Everything will be all rightnwon’t it?” Dn
January 1975April 21, 2022By The Archive
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