20 I CHRONICLESnlegitimacy or its basic loyalty and integrity, nor did theyngenerally suggest that it was a distinct social and political, asnwell as an ideological, formation, implicitly and inherentlynalien and hostile to the mainstream of the nation. Hatrednand destruction of McCarthy were the only possible responsesnto this kind of attack. Thomas Reeves says in hisnbiography of McCarthy that he is our King John. It may benmore appropriate to say that he is the liberals’ Trotsky, theirnEmmanuel Goldstein, their Jew. His very existence was anthreat to their interests and power and was ultimatelynincompatible with their dominance in the United States.nIt was McCarthy’s accomplishment to infuse into thenAmerican right the militancy of a counterrevolutionarynmovement, and the large following he attracted tends tonconfirm that there was indeed what Chambers called an”jagged fissure” between the elite and the “plain men andnwomen of the nation” on the issue of the relationshipnbetween the elite and Communism. The militant antiliberalnand anti-Communist movement that McCarthy was thenfirst to instigate also underlay the Goldwater movement ofnthe early 1960’s, the Wallace following of the late 60’s andnearly 70’s, and the “New Right” of the last decade.nEvery time these mass expressions of antiliberalism havenappeared, mainstream conservahves and the RepublicannParty have hastened to take political advantage of them andnfrequently have used them to obtain political office^asnEisenhower did in 1952, Nixon in 1968, and Reagan inn1980. Yet every time also, those who gained office havenproceeded to ignore, to compromise, or actually to betraynthe constituency on which their office-holding was based.nThey have done so because they are themselves part of ornclosely connected to the elite against which this constituencynis mobilized.nIn recent years, particularly under the Reagan Administration,nattempts have been made to formulate a moren”responsible,” a more “credible” and “respectable” versionnof conservatism that pays lip service to the antiliberal andnantiestablishment (populist, if you will) constituency butnwhich in fact seeks to defuse its militancy and consolidate itninto the apparatus of elite power. It is no accident that manynof the older exponents of this newest of the new conservatismsnwere themselves among the foremost critics of Mc-nCarthyism in the 1950’s and 1960’s and that many of itsnyounger exponents take the lead in urging the repudiationnof McCarthyism and other symbols of militancy by “responsiblenconservatives.”nTo repudiate McCarthyism, however, would be to acceptnnot only the establishment but also the premises and agendanon which it operates, for the complex of public and privatenbureaucracies that compose the establishment is inseparablenfrom the environmentalist, Utopian, and social engineeringnfunctions that the premises and agenda of liberalism expressnand rationalize. The American right, then, if it is seriousnabout wanting to preserve the nation and its social fabricnand political culture in any recognizable form, mustncontinue to embrace Joe McCarthy and the kind of militant,npopular, antiliberal, and antiestablishment movementnthat he was the first to express on a national scale.nThere is, of course, such a thing as “liberal anti-nCommunism,” and there is no doubt that such prominentnliberals as Sidney Hook, John P. Roche, and the latennnSenator Thomas Dodd, among others, have long beennuncompromising enemies of Communism within andnwithout the United States. In recent years, anti-Communistnliberals of the Kennedy-Johnson era have played an importantnrole in trying to reshape right-wing anti-Communismninto molds more acceptable to the establishment. Anti-nCommunist adherents of liberalism may bring a morencautious and skeptical assessment to their own ideologicalnpremises than is common with most of their colleagues andnthus refuse to be swallowed up by the enthusiasm suchnpremises more often generate. As a general rule, however,nanti-Communist liberals tend to reflect these premises inntheir opposition to Communism. To them. Communism isnnot, as Lenin argued it was, the result of an organized,nhighly disciplined, and ruthless apparatus, but is itselfnanother deformation of the environment, like crime andnwar, a product of ignorance, poverty, oppression, andnneglect. Hence, they want to fight communism not withnforce but with reform, to remove its “causes” with morenforeign aid, more education, more development, and, mostnrecently, more democracy—all of which “solutions” ignorenthe main cause of Communism but accrue to the advantagenof the educators, economists, social engineers, politicalntechnicians, and professional verbalists who undertake tonadminister the solution.n”The seeds of totalitarian regimes,” said Harry Trumannin announcing his Doctrine in 1947, “are nurtured bynmisery and want. They spread and grow in the evil soil ofnpoverty and strife,” and it was “primarily through economicnand financial aid” that Truman proposed that the UnitednStates resist the expansion of Communism. From Truman’snday through Lyndon Johnson’s “TVA on the Mekong” tonthe present efforts of aging social democrats in the ReagannAdministration to fight Communism by undermining ournbest anti-Communist allies—in the Philippines, SouthnAfrica, Chile—for the sake of “human rights” and “democracynprojects,” the incompetence of liberal anti-nCommunism to defeat Communism is clear. No one whonseriously subscribes to the premises of liberalism can fornlong countenance the thought that the only way to dealnwith Communism is through the timely and efficient use ofnforce, nor can he subscribe to the idea that those who sharenthe premises of Communist doctrine constitute an alien andnhostile presence that cannot be tolerated in a societyndetermined to survive.nAnti-Communist liberalism does not, then, contradictnthe McCarthyite perception of an inherent softness towardnCommunism deriving from liberal premises. These premisesnmanifest themselves even when those who share them arensincerely anti-Communist, and they serve to underminenthe effectiveness of their anti-Communist measures. Yetnanti-Communism has never been a dominant strain in thenideology of the liberal elite that emerged in the early part ofnthe century. It was not dominant in McCarthy’s day, whennthe elite in both political parties did everything it could tonresist, weaken, obstruct, and distract serious anti-nCommunist efforts and was itself the source of the evilnappeasements and retreats that we have long since consignednto oblivion.nAnd it is not the dominant strain in liberalism today.nPrivate efforts by journalists and investigators have shown inn