The Landslide Before

ROY A. CMLDS, JR. "Landslide. Yes, landslide—stunning, startling, astounding, beyond the wildest dreams and nightmares of the contending camps, beyond the furthest ken of the armies of pollsters, pundits, and political pro- fessionals," gushed Time magazine. "Af- ter all the thousands of miles, the millions of words and dollars, the campaign that in newspapers across the land on the very morning of Election Day was still headlined TOO CLOSE TO CALL turned out to be a landslide." Not all the me- dia reports were as breathless as Time's, nor as Pollyanna-ish as Time's resident pontificator, Hugh Sidey, who chirped "We Are Off on a Special Adventure." But they were com- parable. "Reagan Era Begins, New THE LANDSLIDE BEFORE 12 THE LICENSEDSTOR TO UNZ.ORG M THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Committee; Warren If Ronald Reagan's landslide victory was a Magnuson (D- mandate, was the mandate for traditional Wash.), the big- spending chairman conservatism, the Moral Majority, or some of the powerful Ap- propriations panel; new shade of the political spectrum? etc." [November 15, 1980] Deal Era Ebbs," trumpeted the Christian Democratic socialist John Judis, writing Science Monitor. The national conservative in the independent socialist weekly, In weekly Human Events seemed to agree: These Times, summed it up: "It's 'No' to "Victory at Last!—How Sweet it Is," it ex- Liberalism by a Landslide." And the liberals ulted. Newsweek merely headlined, "The seemed to have got the point: "What hap- Republican Landslide." pened in the 1980 election reflected a pro- And a landslide it looked to be. Reagan found and general turn to conservatism in beat Carter by more than eight million this country," Anthony Lewis wrote in a votes—43,201,220 to 34,913,222—swept column called "The Tidal Wave." (The away the incumbent's support in 44 of the New York Times, November 6) And, com- 50 states, and swamped Carter in electoral menting on the lame-duck session of Con- votes—483 to a mere 49. The percentage gress, a liberal House Democratic leader points looked equally decisive. Fifty-one said woefully, "It's the last drink before percent for Reagan to Carter's 41 percent. Prohibition." (The New York Times, No- The Republicans gained an impressive 33 vember 11) seats in the House. Even the incredible Almost before the votes were cast, key happened; for the first time since 1952 the figures of the New Right and Moral Major- Republicans grabbed control in the Senate, ity who claimed to have worked long and throwing 12 Democrats into the streets. hard to elect Reagan had begun issuing The voters brutally punished prominent threats to the incoming Administration. liberals and Democrats, defeating even The morning after the election, New Right George McGovern, the very symbol of lib- kingpin Richard Viguerie, Paul Weyrich, eralism, who took a dive by an astounding head of the Committee for the Survival of a 20 percent. Free [sic] Congress, and Moral Majority Human Events, ever gracious in victory, leader Jerry Falwell launched attacks on gloated: "All those big-name liberals who Bush and other moderates surrounding had so bedeviled conservatives over the Reagan, taking credit for Reagan's victory to years were gone. Frank Church (D-Idaho), themselves and promising to make life dif- the extremely dovish chairman of the ficult for him if he didn't appoint conserva- Foreign Relations panel; George McGov- tive hardliners to top Administration posts. ern (D-S.D.), the dyed-in-the-wool radical, The evening after the election, Weyrich and who always seemed to be singing hosan- Falwell appeared on ABC's late night news, nahs to some Communist or leftist dictator; gloating about their victory and sassing de- John Culver (D-Iowa), the ex-Marine feated Senators Church, Bayh, and Mc- turned unilateral disarmer; Birch Bayh Govern, who feebly attempted through a (D-Ind.), the pro-ERA, pro-busing, and television hook-up to fend off their attacks anti-military power on the Judiciary and In- and their threats to the few remaining lib- telligence panels; Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.), erals in Congress. Terry Dolan, head of the the anti-business member of the Finance National Conservative Political Action 13 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED JANUARY 1981 Committee, released a list of target Senators and Con- Why Reagan won gressmen for 1982, including not only obvious political enemies like Senators Edward Kennedy and Daniel Patrick Reagan's mandate has been most loudly claimed by the Moynihan, but hawks like Senator Henry Jackson, as well. "Reaganites," as James Q. Wilson called them in Commen- And when Ronald Reagan began choosing moderate Ford tary, employing a long familiar word in a special limited and Nixon-type conservatives for key transition positions, sense, to designate the members of a broad social and politi- the New Right panicked and began to howl. "New Right cal movement which wants the government off our backs in Angered by Reagan Choices," thundered one headline, economic matters, which is driven into a rage by "permis- while Human Events worried publicly over the old-guard siveness" and by what it regards as increased "immorality" nature of top figures in the transition team. They were in American society, and which wants a hawkish, interven- bothered, too, by the bluntness with which George Bush tionist, "get-tough" foreign policy. At the core of this move- took them on, after their brash attempt to intimidate him. ment stands the New Right, an aggressive group which had At a news conference on November 10, Bush said that con- a significant impact on the 1980 election. servative religious groups would not over-influence Ronald In his essay on "Reagan and the Republican Revival," Wil- Reagan when he took over the White House, and snapped: son put it this way: "the Reagan candidacy is a candidacy "I take violent exception to certain individuals in some of based on issues, issues which the candidate has developed those groups, some of their positions, and have stated it pub- over the better part of two decades and which now, taken as licly and am not intimidated by those who suggest I better a whole, command the assent of a very large proportion of hew the line. To hell with them." In the offices of Richard the American people...." (Commentary, October 1980) Viguerie and Associates, the National Conservative Political Wilson spelled out the beliefs of this new movement thus: Action Caucus, and Moral Majority, there was audible Reaganism stands in opposition to those who believe in the un- gnashing of teeth. restrained right of personal self-expression and the need for gov- Meanwhile, some very worried people on the left were ernment to rationalize all other aspects of human affairs by rule and sweating out Ronald Reagan's ascension to power. Writing procedure. Reaganism opposes those who would legalize in the leftwing San Francisco Bay Guardian, sixties veteran marijuana, abortions, and pornography and tolerate or encourage Alan Kay mused: draft resistance, all in the name of personal freedom, and who would support court-ordered school busing, bans on gun own- It's scary, this visceral sense that we can't trust the world. It hit me ership, affirmative action, and racial quotas, all in the name of ra- with much the same impact as did that first assassin's bullet, a long tionalizing and perfecting society. 17 years ago. And it seems to me I recognized echoes of this same Or, as Richard Viguerie put it in an interview with The New anguish in the heavy, empty faces and darting eyes I saw on 24th York Times, the establishment Right "began to reach out Street, on Telegraph, on Columbus, and on Cortlandt last week. and strike an alliance with social conservatives" and the People—at least the ones I've been able to check in with—have been a little crazy. Maybe I have also. "whole movement began to come alive." How could America have done it? [November 13] And the Reaganites have succeeded in persuading some interpreters that their values do lie behind the Reagan man- "How could America have done it?"—the anguished cry date. David Broder, for example, wrote in the Washington swelled into panic, as the left took to the streets in Berkeley, Post of "two different agendas for the new administration." in a symbolic, nostalgic gesture. As Broder conceived it, "the economic mandate is to reduce Barely an hour after Jimmy Carter's concession speech, several government spending, taxation and regulation and give thousand Berkeley residents were marching in the streets to protest people more room to seek their own goals. The social man- Reagan's election, in what turned out to be the kickoff of a 24-hour date is to expand government's efforts to prescribe and regu- spree of anti-Reagan protests. By 7:30 Wednesday evening, 54 late individual behavior." people, many of them UC Berkeley students, had been arrested.... Yet in fact, the contradiction here—between relaxing gov- 3500 people marched through the streets of Berkeley, led for much ernment control in one area and simultaneously expanding of the way by a man carrying a poster of Ronald Reagan and state power in two others (foreign policy and personal free- George Bush with the words "The End is Near" inscribed on it. dom)—is what ultimately will wreck the Reagan mandate, [Bay Guardian, November 13] and leave it in ruins. What can we make of an election whose results have Consider the facts about Reagan's election. Reagan panicked both the New Right and the remnants of the New reached his peak shortly after the Republican convention in Left, both the Moral Majority and the Permissive Minority? Detroit, and then began to fade.

Load more