I recently finished Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland. It was a riveting work about the most tumultuous and, perhaps, the most meaningful time in American political history since the Founding Fathers—1964 through 1972. The character at the center of this story is Richard Nixon. But there are many other characters. The book begins in unity and consensus and ends in division and chaos. It begins with Nixon exiled to political oblivion after his humiliating loss to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election. It revels in the backstory of Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon revealing the deep divisions that existed even when America did not believe that these divisions were real. In Nixon’s mind one the great division was the divide between “Franklins”—wealthy, educated, people, who went to the right schools, were members of the right clubs, and who generally held power. The other class of people were “Orthogonians”. These were strivers who relied on moral uprightness and sweat to reach their goals. (Nixon actually started a group in college called the “Orthogonians”.)
The America of John F. Kennedy was an America of growing agreement. This agreement led to an unprecedented flurry of political activity during the 1st 100 days after the election victory over Barry Goldwater of the Johnson administration. He passes sweeping civil rights legislation by overwhelming margins. All is well (except for the Republicans, but even the liberal wing of the Republican Party is cooperating with LBJ) or so it seemed. Then the world exploded. In the book, this happens first in the Watts Riots. This racial earthquake continues reverberating through the South. As Martin Luther King and non-violent protesters see their movement co-opted by violent radicals like Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown. American soldiers are dying in a far away land called Vietnam because our leaders believe that if we let countries slip into communism eventually it will be knocking at our front door.
Faced with these terrifying facts, American divides into two camps. The first sees the racial injustice and political hubris of our country and its leaders and decides to rebel. Some do this in typically American ways—working for Eugene McCarthy or Robert Kennedy—trying as Americans have done over the generations to make democratic change by making a persuasive argument. Others, despairing of persuasion, began dropping out of a society that, to them, seemed “phony”. They renounced (sometimes) the morality and values of their parents and the past. Others, scandalized by the rejection of morality by the hippies and yippies and the increasing lawlessness of radicals, cried out for law and order. These people (Nixon’s “Silent Majority”), however, subtly and out of fear began to reject the values of America as well. They surrendered freedoms and, at times, cheered crushing of radical elements. Both sides stopped trying to persuade. Hell for one side (e.g., grinding Vietnam down in a war of attrition) was the only rational choice for the other side (e.g., we cannot lose a war; we never lose wars). The story of Nixonland is the story of this disintegration of American ideals and American unity.
Richard Nixon was the man who learned to effectively pit one side of this cultural divide against another. He was a brilliant politician. The divisions that he capitalized on still exist today. Today we live in a deeply divided country. I was haunted by the line from Thucydides on the spirit of revolution in Corcyra from his chronicle of the Peloponnesian War. They read:
So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression which it made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur. Later on, one may say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed; struggles being everywhere made by the popular chiefs to bring in the Athenians, and by the oligarchs to introduce the Lacedaemonians. In peace there would have been neither the pretext nor the wish to make such an invitation; but in war, with an alliance always at the command of either faction for the hurt of their adversaries and their own corresponding advantage, opportunities for bringing in the foreigner were never wanting to the revolutionary parties. The sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur, as long as the nature of mankind remains the same; though in a severer or milder form, and varying in their symptoms, according to the variety of the particular cases. In peace and prosperity, states and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough master, that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes. Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been done before, carried to a still greater excess the refinement of their inventions, as manifested in the cunning of their enterprises and the atrocity of their reprisals. Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries. In fine, to forestall an intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of a crime where it was wanting, was equally commended until even blood became a weaker tie than party, from the superior readiness of those united by the latter to dare everything without reserve; for such associations had not in view the blessings derivable from established institutions but were formed by ambition for their overthrow; and the confidence of their members in each other rested less on any religious sanction than upon complicity in crime. The fair proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the stronger of the two, and not with a generous confidence. Revenge also was held of more account than self-preservation. Oaths of reconciliation, being only proffered on either side to meet an immediate difficulty, only held good so long as no other weapon was at hand; but when opportunity offered, he who first ventured to seize it and to take his enemy off his guard, thought this perfidious vengeance sweeter than an open one, since, considerations of safety apart, success by treachery won him the palm of superior intelligence. Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are as ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first. The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention. The leaders in the cities, each provided with the fairest professions, on the one side with the cry of political equality of the people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy, sought prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended to cherish, and, recoiling from no means in their struggles for ascendancy engaged in the direst excesses; in their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not stopping at what justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party caprice of the moment their only standard, and invoking with equal readiness the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour. Thus religion was in honour with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation. Meanwhile the moderate part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not joining in the quarrel, or because envy would not suffer them to escape.
Thus every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by reason of the troubles. The ancient simplicity into which honour so largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow. To put an end to this, there was neither promise to be depended upon, nor oath that could command respect; but all parties dwelling rather in their calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things, were more intent upon self-defence than capable of confidence. In this contest the blunter wits were most successful. Apprehensive of their own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists, they feared to be worsted in debate and to be surprised by the combinations of their more versatile opponents, and so at once boldly had recourse to action: while their adversaries, arrogantly thinking that they should know in time, and that it was unnecessary to secure by action what policy afforded, often fell victims to their want of precaution.
I hope to write more on this in upcoming days. I believe that if this division is not healed in our nation that darker days will face us. I also believe that classical Christian education is the most hopeful path out of Nixonland and its divisions. It promises a return to an older and more permanent tradition in the Western world. One that is based on persuasion and reason. One that is flourish as the moral sway of the gospel blossoms in the West. One that could lead to brighter days. More on this to come.
