Democrats versus Democracy

The Left has always bred a special kind of Tartuffery: Those who base their appeal for votes on the argument that they represent “a higher morality” rather than their opponents, emerge ignominious when their practice belies them. The McGovernite delegate from the Village Voice reported ruefully a series of incidents at the 1972 Democratic Convention: A New York reformer offered three prostitutes to his friends, then rose the next morning to deliver a speech in a caucus denouncing sexism and male chauvinism; the gallery passes of “guilty” New York liberals were turned over to the National Welfare Rights Organization—later, the staff of that organization could be seen selling them for a good profit; McGovern, of course, would not accept a plank to legalize marijuana, but, reported the Voice, “there was enough grass to satisfy Man O’War. . . .” The New York delegation, now that the McGovernites were in control, were demanding “loyalty oaths,” once anathema to the Left. “It seems it’s a short route from Gene to Joe,” wrote one disillusioned leftist, but, after all, is this not a route that intellectuals in politics have been taking for a long time?

The 1972 Democratic Convention was the first in American history that could be called the “Convention of the Intellectuals.” Far from being the founding-place of a new people’s party, Miami saw the transformation of the Democratic into the Intellectuals’ Party. A common denominator linked such disparate personalities as Arthur Schlesinger and Abbie Hoffman: Both looked to academic intellectuals for their backing. In George McGovern, the only PhD in the United States Senate, and, much more important, a man congealed in 1948 Wallaceite vintage, the author of a thesis which conveyed the emotions of the “revolt against capitalism,” a William Jennings Bryan, though without the silver tongue, they found a natural candidate.

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Lewis S. Feuer

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The Left has always bred a special kind of Tartuffery: Those who base their appeal for votes on the argument that they represent “a higher morality” rather than their opponents, emerge ignominious when their practice belies them. The McGovernite delegate from the Village Voice reported ruefully a series of incidents at the 1972 Democratic Convention: A New York reformer offered three prostitutes to his friends, then rose the next morning to deliver a speech in a caucus denouncing sexism and male chauvinism; the gallery passes of “guilty” New York liberals were turned over to the National Welfare Rights Organization—later, the staff of that organization could be seen selling them for a good profit; McGovern, of course, would not accept a plank to legalize marijuana, but, reported the Voice, “there was enough grass to satisfy Man O’War. . . .” The New York delegation, now that the McGovernites were in control, were demanding “loyalty oaths,” once anathema to the Left. “It seems it’s a short route from Gene to Joe,” wrote one disillusioned leftist, but, after all, is this not a route that intellectuals in politics have been taking for a long time?

The 1972 Democratic Convention was the first in American history that could be called the “Convention of the Intellectuals.” Far from being the founding-place of a new people’s party, Miami saw the transformation of the Democratic into the Intellectuals’ Party. A common denominator linked such disparate personalities as Arthur Schlesinger and Abbie Hoffman: Both looked to academic intellectuals for their backing. In George McGovern, the only PhD in the United States Senate, and, much more important, a man congealed in 1948 Wallaceite vintage, the author of a thesis which conveyed the emotions of the “revolt against capitalism,” a William Jennings Bryan, though without the silver tongue, they found a natural candidate.