1. So. Richard Hofstadter. Where to start?
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8. So: what's wrong with the idea of having a smart bipartisan elite that marginalizes extreme voices of the right and left? Isn't that an attractive approach to politics? Don't we want stability and continuity?
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9. One way to see the limits of Hofstadter's vision of consensus is to say that he saw the dangers of the extreme left and extreme right but not the dangers of the extreme center: the way in which a bipartisan elite, unchecked, can carry out mad policies: Viet Nam war.
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10. Hofstader's brother-in-law, the socialist novelist Harvey Swados, read his essay on "the Paranoid style" and said: yes, you got Goldwater and the Birch Society down, but isn't what LBJ is doing in Vietnam also an example of the paranoid style.
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11. Hofstadter responded to Swados saying, LBJ's policies are wrong, but not irrational. But Swados was right: LBJ thought North Vietnam was puppet of Red China & anti-war movement simply created by communists. That was pure paranoia, as unhinged as any Birch fantasy.
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12. In our own day, the biggest disasters have been centrist policies: the Iraq War, the 2008 meltdown followed by quick turn to austerity. Iraq was creation of neo-cons, the most "centrist" part of GOP coalition (many are now Never Trumpers) & supported by Clinton/Biden etc.
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13. Hofstadter's widely influential anti-populism encourages an elite complacency that has repeatedly led to disaster. More thoughts here:https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/richard-hofstadter-library-america-review/ …
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End of conversation
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