"Taser Tuesday"

Over at TPM Cafe, I kick off a discussion of NIXONLAND with an argument that liberals are no longer, as they were during the period I write about in the book, knee-jerk snobs on the subject of conservative ideas, and argue further that today's conservatives have been strikingly deficient in recognizing the fact, much to their political detriment.

There's been a lively discussion in the comments, and I welcome it, with people pointing out something quite reasonable, and even obvious: that much of the appeal of conservatism rests on nothing so grand as "ideas," but instead exploits human beings' ferally sub-rational hatefulness.

Well, I agree. But one of the tricks in doing the work I do is distinguishing, with whatever analytical precision, humanity, and grace I can muster, between perfectly morally legitimate conservative grievances, and morally illegitimate ones.

An example of the former, from the book: by 1967, Central Park in New York City was falling to wrack and ruin—crime, desolation, drug use, open fornication. People, reasonably enough, were complaining to August Heckscher, the parks commissioner hired by New York's very liberal Republican mayor, John Lindsay. Heckscher's response was that people complaining about the thrilling new dynamism his live-and-let-live policies had brought to the park were "scared by the abundance of life."

The complainants were making a perfectly morally legitimate conservative grievance, and Heckscher's response was unacceptably condescending in a way that was, in fact, a woefully typical of some liberal responses to the legitimate grievances of ordinary, conservative-minded Americans in the 1960s.

But: an example of the latter, illegitimate greivances, from the book. August 5, six hundred activists in Chicago, many of them blacks who lived in atrociously overcrowded slums whose boundaries were so violently policed by ordinary, conservative-minded Americans they may as well have have had flaming moats around them, marched through all-white Chicago neighborhoods behind Martin Luther King for the right to buy homes there. (In the neighborhoods where they were allowed to "buy" houses, they couldn't actually buy them at all: banks would not write them mortgages, unscrupulous businessmen sold them contracts that gave them no equity or title to the property, so they could be evicted the first time they were late with the payments.)

The six hundred marchers were met by ten thousand counter-demonstrators. Some wore Nazi helmets. Others waved Confederate battle flags, carried George Wallace banners, Swastika placards that helpfully explained, "The Symbol of White Power." Police trying to keep the two sides apart were screamed at: "Nigger-loving cops!" "God, I hate niggers and nigger-lovers," a reporter overheard an old lady say. A chant went up: "Roses are red, violets are black, King would look good with a knife in his back." Instead he got a baseball-sized rock above his ear. Then someone did throw a knife at his back. King's famous response: "I think the people of Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate."

Long story short, one I hope to revisit in greater detail within the week: this was three days after the Republican Policy Committee, led by Gerald Ford, came out against a bill pending in Congress to guarantee precisely the right King was marching for—open housing. The open housing movement "has created confusion and bitterness," Ford announced. "It has divided the country and fostered discord and animosity when calmness and a unified approach to civil rights problems are desperately needed."

Shortly afterward, handbills started appearing in the sort of Chicago neighborhoods where people threw rocks at Martin Luther King:

OUR SLOGAN: 'Your Home is your castle--Keep it that way by Voting STRAIGHT REPUBLICAN.
VOTE STRAIGHT REPUBLICAN IF YOU ARE:
AGAINST--violence, riots, and marches in the streets;
AGAINST--disregard for law and order;
AGAINST--The 3 Rs of today--Riots, Rape & Robbery...
"Did Mayor Daley make a secret deal with Martin Luther King to stop the marches until after the election?... This is you chance to show where you stand on FORCED HOUSING.... Renters, as well as homeowners, would be effected for the law applies everywhere, including the suburbs. WHERE WOULD YOU GO TO BE SAFE?
The only way to stop this program is by you, your family, and neighbors voting Republican on November 8th.

I hope the moral is obvious. It is not beyond the wit of intelligent, humane, and politically savvy liberals to draw distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate conservative appeals. And to argue that condescension is never a particularly useful electoral argument—but that will have to be a subject for another time. My intention here is merely to acknowledge that, yes, much of conservatism consists of cynically and evilly appealing human beings' ferally sub-rational hatefulness.

And that it's alive and well. As in this Orlando-based radio show on which I appeared on twelve days ago to promote by book, but which I surely would have not graced with my presence had I done my due diligence and checked out their website before hand. Scroll down, below the "A National Drive for Immigration reform" banner, and learn all about "Taser Tuesday! Tell us who you want to be tased! Click here to email your suggestion!"

Distinguishing between what is morally illegitimate and morally legitimate among conservatives is an ongoing struggle, which demands care and seriousness. Figuring out a way to respond to ordinary Americans' reasonable expectation for a modicum of bourgeois order in their daily lives, without falling prey to relativism in the face of feral viciousness, is one of our jobs as progressive activists.

It's hard. There are no easy answers. Stop pretending there are.

As always, my North Star in this struggle, my inspiration and goad, remains the late Paul Cowan.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future