Vocation and identity in the fiction of Muriel Spark Book

UPDATE: Rick Perlstein has written an outstanding article, appearing top of the front page of the New York Times: I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved me Wrong. The article reads as Rick Perlstein's mea culpa for underestimating extremism in the development of today's conservative movement, for example ignoring the popularity of groups such as the German American Bund or the Black Legion. For anyone interested in the history behind Trump's presidency this article is a must-read.

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After finishing six hundred and twenty five pages of “Before the Storm” I now know more than any non-American will ever need to know about the US Presidential Campaign of 1964.

Why invest so much time reading a book about an obscure US election campaign more than half a century in the past? Because the parallels between the 1964 and 2016 Republican compaigns are just too interesting not to want to know more.

And it turns out I am not the only one who finds Goldwater’s 1964 campaign interesting. Ted Cruz has been studying the back room work that won Goldwater a majority at the 1964 Republican Convention. If Trump had read this book he would not be surprised to see Lyin’ Ted stealing his delegates.

Encouragingly for Cruz the book shows that Goldwater stood a much better chance of winning the Presidency than LBJ’s landslide victory implies. Goldwater wanted to fight a noble 'campaign of conservative ideas' without resorting to campaign trickery and surrounded himself with cronies from Arizona that were, broadly speaking, incompetent. If Goldwater had been more flexible around policy and more pragmatic about how his campaign was run he stood a good chance of winning. November might tell us whether or not Cruz has done his homework and learnt from Goldwater's errors.

“Before the Storm” is full of places where the 1964 and 2016 presidential campaigns converge or diverge. Here are a few examples.

The mainstream GOP choice was Nelson Rockefeller, a candidate who shared a lot in common with Jeb Bush: son of a famous family, rich, leisured, entitled, mediocre, dull. Understandably, the public was left cold. In 1964 Rockefeller was seen by many as an ‘East Coast Liberal’ out of touch with the concerns with the rest of the country.


Nelson Rockefeller and Jeb Bush: Republican mediocrities.

Rather quaintly in 1964 people used to believe that New Yorkers like Rockefeller exercised malign influence over Wall Street and by extension the rest of the country. Nowadays, of course, we know that Wall Street exercises a malign influence over the rest of the country regardless of what New Yorkers do. But this outlook was another black mark against Rockefeller. Members of more extreme right wing groups such as the ‘John Birch Society’ (the Tea Party of its day) suspected Rockefeller - and even incredibly Eisenhower - of being communists. The tradition of stupefying ignorance on the fringes of the GOP extends back to well before 2016.

So just like Goldwater back in 1964, in 2016 Trump and Cruz occupied the vacancy on the GOP bench left open by the unpopularity of the mainstream candidate. And just like Trump and Cruz in 2016, Goldwater attracted some rather unconventional support:


Strange bed sheets for strange GOP bed-fellows

In 1964 Goldwater’s team had to distance themselves from extremists on the conservative right wing in order to maintain their credibility . In contrast these days Trump and Cruz discretely call out to extremists, blowing on their dog-whistles with as much puff as they can muster. Trump delays condemning his endorsement from David Duke; Cruz shares a platform with religious bigots who call for death to LGBT individuals.

Some things never change in GOP politics. Just like today back in 1964 the GOP were happy to exploit the fears of the electorate in order to win votes. A real difference between 1964 and now was that in 1964 America was facing an imminent threat to its existence: nuclear war with the USSR. Unsurprisingly the Cold War was a major concern of the electorate and focus of the 1964 campaign:
"...Lyndon Johnson understood how souls were moved by dark thoughts that crept up on sleepless nights. 'Men worry about heart attacks', he would say, clasping his chest. 'Women worry about cancer of the tit' (here he jabbed the breastplate of his nearest companion). 'But everybody worries about war and peace. Everything else is chickenshit'..."
In 2016 America also faces clear and present existential threats, but ones very different from those of 1964. These threats are largely ignored by the candidates of 2016: climate change, pollution, environmental destruction. The difference, of course, is that these are not imminent threats but rather threats that accumulate imperceptibly by degrees. They can be safely ignored by a GOP that needs to exaggerate fears to raise votes and can be paid lip-service to by a Democratic party that needs to raise donor money from the fossil fuel industry or polluters.

So whereas the 1964 Campaign focused on the pressing issue of nuclear holocaust and the end of the world the 2016 campaign focuses on marginal threats such as the danger from ISIS terrorists infiltrating across the Mexican border or from shariah law in Arizona. Sadly neither the Democrats of today nor LBJ in 1964 did much to put these issues in a proper perspective.

It is interesting from a purely historical perspective to take a closer look at how the GOP and the Democrats dealt with the real threat of global nuclear war in the 1964 campaign.

Goldwater’s weakest spot was being seen as a warmonger who might trigger a nuclear exchange. One has to wonder whether this would be a weak spot in a candidate today. His background included flying planes from the US to deploy on the front line for WW2 and he loved to talk about military equipment, which didn't do much to dispel the warmonger image. His support for allowing military commanders the authority to launch nuclear strikes didn’t help much either. Neither did his advocacy of weapons systems such as the ‘Davy Crockett’ – the atomic warhead mounted on a portable recoilless rifle which had the drastic design flaw of sometimes including within its blast zone the infantry men firing the weapon.


The Davey Crockett: pulling the string launches the atomic warhead.

In 1964 LBJs campaign produced ads that were pioneering in their day in exploiting the fears of the electorate. These ads didn’t mention candidates by name and favored raw fear and emotion over rationality - a tradition adopted by political ads to this day. The ads are good enough to warrant a look at even now:

The “Daisy” ad, only thirty seconds long. Do you want your children counting down to a nuclear holocaust? This ad was so effective at fear-mongering it was only broadcast once.



“Test Ban” an effective reminder from the Johnson campaign that Kennedy’s test ban might have saved humanity from nuclear destruction



So in 1964 the Democrats were able to effectively counteract GOP fear-mongering by pointing out that the GOP itself was something justifiably to fear. This is something that most of the Democrats have conspicuously failed to do in 2016. Instead of explaining to the electorate that ISIS are many thousands of miles away and present much less of a threat to the average American household than keeping a gun in the home, they have let the fear-mongering go unchecked.


In 1964 the Democrat’s attack ads were amusing and effective

The legacy of the Goldwater campaign that is felt most strongly today in the moral sphere. It was in 1964 that the GOP began holding the Democratic Party accountable for most of the social ills of the day. Just like Trump in 2016, back in 1964 the GOP was waging war on political correctness - although it wasn’t called political correctness at the time. Just like today, victory over political correctness meant having the right to speak your prejudice out loud:
"...Goldwater had said back in January that the reason most people were on relief was because they were stupid or lazy...when he asked those who criticized him if they thought what he said was right, they invariably responded, 'Oh, yes, you're right, but you shouldn't have said it'..."
The Republican party’s first attempt to capture the moral high ground was a film called “Choice” in which LBJ is the driver of an out of control Cadillac as a metaphor for out of control moral decline. It’s worth watching just for some entertaining examples of what passed as immoral behavior in the sixties.


At the time the advert was a failure. Mentions of ‘men for sale’ and shots lingering over pictures of young women in bikinis left the electorate with the impression that the Goldwater campaign had, for their own strange reasons, decided to produce a porno movie. But ever since 1964 the GOP has taken up the fight for moral righteousness and, for the time being, has won the issues vote. Cruz has valiantly picked up this fight for American moral purity with his legal attack on dildos, vibrators and other marital aids (which are illegal in Texas). This will no doubt win him as many votes in 2016 as Goldwater’s film did in 1964.

So what did I learn from reading this immensely detailed book? I learnt that things are going to get ugly.

If you've been thinking that - with its talk of carpet bombing, delegate theft, small hands and menstruating TV reporters - the campaign is already ugly, well - you ain’t seen nothing yet. Just wait until the 2016 Republican Convention. If it is anything like the Republican Convention of 1964 it will be a doozy.

Fortunately help is at hand. An enterprising political pundit has produced a guide to candidate selection that could help keep both Republican and Democratic Conventions civilized.

If this flowchart is converted into a flyer and handed out in Cleveland and Philadelphia, delegates will be able to focus on the key election issues in a way that they haven’t done to date. Using this America can elect the President it deserves in 2016.