The "youth movement" theorizing sparked by Charles Reich's Greening of America, the indictment of reason, the populist appeals to defeating "the system," the table thumping for a new Volk-centric community that would replace capitalism with a more organic and totalitarian approach, was too much for some leftists with a clear understanding of the historical roots of fascism. The fascistic "overtones," Stewart Alsop wrote of The Greening of America, "are obvious to anyone who has seen those forests of arms raised in unison by the revolutionary young, or heard their mindless shouted chants. Professor Reich is certainly a good and kindly man, without a fascist bone in his body," Alsop continued, "and most of the 'liberated' young he worships are good and kindly too. But surely anyone with a sense of the political realities can smell the danger that these silly, kind, irrational people, in their cushioned isolation from reality, are bringing upon us all. The danger starts with the universities, but it does not end there. That is what makes the mush so scary." No less a socialist icon than Michael Harrington declared Reich's sweeping indictment of modernity — he called it "elite existentialism" — to have much in common with the Romantic roots of Nazism.
Today the liberal left's version of the 1960s makes about as much sense as it does to remember Hitler as the "man of peace" described by Neville Chamberlain. In its passions and pursuits, the New Left was little more than an Americanized updating of what we've come to call the European Old Right. From Easy Rider to JFK, Hollywood has been telling us that if only the forces of reaction hadn't killed their Horst Wessels, we would today be living in a better, more just, and more open-minded country. And if only we could rekindle the hope and ambition of those early radicals, "what might have been" will turn into "what could still be." This is the vital lie of the left. Western civilization was saved when the barbarians were defeated, at least temporarily, in the early 1970s. We should be not only grateful for our slender victory but vigilant in securing it for posterity.
Such vigilance is impossible without understanding the foundations on which contemporary liberalism stands, and that in turn requires a second look at the 1960s — this time from the top down. For while the radicals in the streets were demanding more power, the progressives already in power were playing their parts as well.
It is understandable that the 1960s is viewed as an abrupt change or turning point in our history, because in many respects the changes were so sudden (and in some cases for the better). But there was also a profound continuity underlying the events of the decade. When Kennedy said that the torch had been passed to a new generation, he was referring in no small part to a new generation of progressives. These men (and a few women) were dedicated to continuing the projects of Wilson and Roosevelt. When the torch is passed, the runner changes, but the race remains the same.
In the chapter that follows, we will show that John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson represented the continuation of the liberal quest begun by Woodrow Wilson and his fellow progressives — the quest to create an all-caring, all-powerful, all-encompassing state, a state that assumes responsibility for every desirable outcome and takes the blame for every setback on the road to utopia, a state that finally replaces God.
6
From Kennedy's Myth to Johnson's Dream: Liberal Fascism and the Cult of the State
FOR GENERATIONS, THE central fault line in American politics has involved the growth and power of the state. The conventional narrative has conservatives trying to shrink the size of government and liberals trying — successfully — to expand it. There's more than a little evidence to support this understanding. But much of it is circumstantial. Liberals often argue for restraining government in areas such as law enforcement (the Warren Court's Miranda ruling, for example), national security (opposition to the Patriot Act and domestic surveillance), and that vast but ill-defined realm that comes under the rubric of "legislating morality." While disagreements over specific policies proliferate, virtually all conservatives and most libertarians favor assertiveness in government's traditional role as the "night-watchman state." Many go further, seeing the government as a protector of decency and cultural norms.
In short, the argument about the size of government is often a stand-in for deeper arguments about the role of government. This chapter will attempt to show that for some liberals, the state is in fact a substitute for God and a form of political religion as imagined by Rousseau and Robespierre, the fathers of liberal fascism.
Historically, for many liberals the role of the state has been a matter less of size than of function. Progressivism shared with fascism a deep and abiding conviction that in a truly modern society, the state must take the place of religion. For some, this conviction was born of the belief that God was dead. As Eugen Weber writes, "The Fascist leader, now that God is dead, cannot conceive of himself as the elect of God. He believes he is elect, but does not quite know of what — presumably of history or obscure historical forces." This is the fascism that leads to the Fuhrerprinzip and cults of personality. But there is a second kind of fascism that sees the state not as the replacement of God but as God's agent or vehicle. In both cases, however, the state is the ultimate authority, the source and maintainer of values, and the guarantor of the new order.
We've already touched on statolatry as a progressive doctrine; later we will examine how this worldview manifests itself in what is commonly called the culture war. The hinge of that story is the 1960s, specifically the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
While not a modern liberal himself, JFK was turned after his death into a martyr to the religion of government. This was due partly to the manipulations of the Kennedy circle and partly to the (much more cynical) machinations of LBJ, who hijacked the Kennedy myth and harnessed it to his own purposes. Those purposes, consistent with the "nice" totalitarian impulse of the progressive movement in which Johnson had cut his political teeth, were nominally secular, but on a deeper, and perhaps unconscious, level fundamentally religious.
On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. As if on cue, Dallas was christened "the city of hate." A young TV reporter named Dan Rather heard a rumor that some Dallas schoolchildren had cheered when they heard the news of Kennedy's death. The rumor wasn't true, and the local Dallas CBS affiliate refused to run the story. Rather made an end run around the network and reported the story anyway.
Rather wasn't the only one eager to point fingers at the right. Within minutes Kennedy's aides blamed deranged and unnamed right-wingers. One headline proclaimed the assassination had taken place "deep in the hate of Texas." But when it became clear that a deranged Marxist had done the deed, Kennedy's defenders were dismayed. "He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights," Jackie lamented to Bobby Kennedy when he told her the news. "It's — it had to be some silly little Communist."1