I remember riding
Sen. Goldwater had himself made little effort to shed this label. His well-known declaration, offered during his convention acceptance speech, that “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice; and moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue” had galvanized the newly emboldened right wing of the Republican Party that was just beginning to find its voice. The party fissures that emerged from that election laid the groundwork for the later emergence of Ronald Reagan and of the Nixon “Southern strategy” that sought to peel off dependable white southern voters from the Democratic base — thus beginning the party’s descent into pandering to the religious right and its thinly veiled prejudices and fears. It also marked for extinction the Republican Party’s liberal wing — the so-called Rockefeller Republicans, who had gamely held on to what had been, up to then, historic Republican commitments to civil rights, the environment and social progress.
Fourteen years later I found myself a newly minted legislative aide to Sen. Jacob Javits from New York, himself a liberal Rockefeller Republican and stalwart defender of civil and labor rights. In 1978 the U.S. Senate was still a motley stew of rock-ribbed conservatives like Goldwater, Southern segregationists like James Eastland of Mississippi, moderate conservatives like Charles Percy of Illinois and liberal lions like Frank Church of Idaho. Party affiliations were less an indicator of political philosophy then than they are today; both parties were an assortment of odd bedfellows that mixed a broad spectrum of conservatives and liberals. This tossed salad of political persuasions led to relatively frequent across-the-aisle compromise, as party loyalty often gave way to the need to get things done.
Two weeks into my Senate tenure I was summoned to the Senate floor to support Sen. Javits on debate of an amendment to a piece of pending legislation. I have absolutely no recollection as to what the subject of the amendment was, but the fear of making my debut on the floor of the U.S. Senate is still fresh in my mind 37 years later. In those days when a Senate aide was assisting in a legislative debate a Senate page would bring a chair so the aide could share space at the senator’s assigned desk. A detail about these chairs: they were about 3 inches lower than the senator’s seat, thus assuring that the senator’s profile would appear to rise, even if his oratory didn’t.
As I took my seat on the aisle and tried to make sense of the pile of paper I had brought with me, my eye immediately caught Sen. Goldwater, who sat across the aisle and one tier down from Sen. Javits. Much to my consternation, I could see that he was slowly rising and making his way toward Sen. Javits . . . and me. I was stuck. I thought I was about to have to physically separate one of the Senate’s extreme conservative firebrands from one of its liberal champions. Instead, Goldwater stopped next to me, put a hand on my shoulder, leaned over me and embraced Sen. Javits in a hug that I thought would never end. Apparently the two hadn’t seen one another in some time and actually liked each other. How was this possible? Reconciling this sort of friendship required a hasty recalibration of what separated the good guys from the bad.
In that 1964 election year, Goldwater caused considerable indigestion among the Republican Party poobahs with talk of exfoliating Vietnam with nuclear weapons and making Social Security voluntary — views that not only put him at odds with President Johnson’s Great Society programs, but with a clear majority of Americans as well. A catastrophic defeat was awaiting the Republicans and, come November, Goldwater duly delivered it in spades. However, predictions of the demise of the Republican Party were greatly exaggerated. Within four years a more cynical and divisive electoral strategy had propelled Richard Nixon to the White House and wed the party to disaffected white voters, unhappy with the country’s changing demographics and the increasing secular drift in American society.
Ironically, Senator Goldwater didn’t think much of this turn of events, even as he bore considerable responsibility for setting things in motion. By the time of my initial encounter with him on the Senate floor, he had already begun to mellow and rethink some of his more extreme positions. By the time of his retirement from the Senate in 1987, he was becoming an early advocate of gay rights and eventually supported allowing gays to serve in the military. He was especially disturbed by how conservatism had been led astray by the evangelical wing of the party, saying at one point: “When you say ‘radical right’ today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye.”
As we witness the fracturing of the Republican Party today, with mind-bending campaign utterances about torture, mass deportation and turning our country into a theocracy, it almost makes the heart yearn for extremists of old. But before anyone assumes that the implosion of the party will cleanse it of its extreme elements, let 1964 be a guide. A massive electoral repudiation of today’s Republican brand could perversely provide it with further evidence of the people’s will being frustrated, thus driving the party toward further obstruction and isolation. A far more optimistic scenario would have a wholesale electoral defeat igniting a Republican reformation, leading to a return to traditional conservative values geared to governing and problem solving. But history doesn’t provide much encouragement in this regard. The danger of further division and bitterness persists.
It is not by chance that Republicans find themselves today dealing with conspiracy theorists, science deniers and religious zealots. The party entered into a devil’s bargain many years ago that traded truly conservative values for a new electoral base driven by fear and resentment. The devil’s bill must now be paid. If he were alive today, Sen. Goldwater would likely admonish the country that political extremism licenses the darkest elements of our nature. The old firebrand would no doubt still be a cantankerous thorn in the side of the party, but I suspect would urge respect and dialogue over fear and ignorance, the same spirit with which he embraced the liberal senator from New York all those years ago.
Peter Clark is an international financial consultant, most recently working for the Asian Development Bank in the Philippines. He lives in Hanover.