The New Welfare Consensus by Darren Barany

Author:Darren Barany
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2018-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

PART III

MOBILIZING A

COUNTERMOVEMENT

AND CONSTRUCTING

THE WELFARE POOR

IN THE 1960s, 1970s,

AND 1980s

Chapter 5

ELITE MOBILIZATION AGAINST THE SAFETY NET

There should be no hesitation to attack the Naders, the Marcuses and others who openly seek destruction of the system. There should not be the slightest hesitation to press vigorously in all political arenas for support of the enterprise system. Nor should there be reluctance to penalize politically those who oppose it.

—Lewis F. Powell Jr. ([1971] 2004)

FROM THE EARLY 1960S INTO THE 1980S, THE CONSERVATIVE ATTACK ON WELFARE would reframe its rhetorical approach from attacking “Socialism-through-Welfarism” to addressing “destructive social behavior” by “requiring welfare recipients to take personal responsibility for the decisions they make” (Goldwater 1960:70; Gingrich, Armey, et al. 1994:65). The latter quote is found in the infamous Contract with America, published in 1994, but the fundamental basis of the behavioral critique of welfare could be found in the work of key intellectuals and organizations from the mid-1960s onward. During the 1960s, the conservative movement would acquire a considerable degree of organization and momentum as well as respectability to the body politic. While its constituent ideological features were inharmonious, the movement was operating with an apparent coherence and redoubled political competence. As had been indicated in previous chapters, it had been newly energized and refashioned along fusionist lines, and the New Right was enjoying a gradually expanding influence. Anticommunism, red-baiting, and the attack on welfarism as domestic collectivism were narratives that consolidated different types of conservatives into a practical political configuration.

While the effort to elect Senator Barry Goldwater to the office of president did not achieve its objective, it was successful in securing the power of the conservative movement within the Republican Party (Hofstadter 1964; Brennan 1995; Brennan 2003; Dallek 2004). Goldwater had failed to win the Republican Party’s nomination in 1960, and though nominated to run in the 1964 election, he had lost by a large margin against the Democratic incumbent, Lyndon Johnson. However, Goldwater’s contributions to the conservative movement were important, even though he never became president. First, the major push behind him had been comprised of a grassroots, conservative base, and conservative operatives had learned from each of the campaigns (Brennan 1995; Brennan 2003; Dallek 2004). Second, the Arizona senator was not known for reserved, moderate rhetoric. While he alienated and scared off many voters, he had succeeded in exposing the public to a platform of conservative ideas on a very broad scale, even if their political realization was improbable (Brennan 1995; Brennan 2003). Goldwater enjoyed full support from and occasionally appeared in the conservative journals of opinion in circulation at the time. Goldwater’s populist appeal plus an emergent New Right conservative press was accessible and inspiring for that silent, conservative majority of Americans to which Nixon famously referred, as well as to conservative corporate elites who saw an opportunity to begin financing and organizing conservative ideological and political efforts.

Neoconservatism, on the other hand, and the entrée of the neoconservatives into the world of think tanks and politics underpinned and encouraged greater funding for conservative scholarship and activism by the corporate elite.

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