The transition is under way.
The President-elect is doing all he can to build consensus behind his policies, and his new Administration, making promises on bipartisanship we will have measured by Christmas.
But there are millions of people outside the consensus. They are outside of their own choice. Given the nature of the Nixon Thesis, which was that "the other" was illegitimate, this is no surprise. Add to that the toxic brew of race hatred plus a Republican campaign meant to cast doubt on the person of the new President, and you have potentially the most dangerous period since the Civil War.
I call this new enemy Haties. They are polar opposites of the Hippies we feared 40 years ago, but they are far more like the Hippies than they realize. They have developed their own counter-culture, a shared set of identities. They also feel a sense of abandonment by the larger society which is literally palpable. They have a host of organizations and support groups fueling their hate and fear, both online and offline, and legitimate media figures egging them on.
It does not help to make fun of such people. They deserve to be taken seriously.
There is one more ingredient, a commitment by some of our major religions to disregard the teachings of Jesus and preach fear instead. Fear of gays in the case of Mormons. Fear of women in the case of Catholics. And this is breeding a natural reaction on the left. Not everything we have to fear will come from the other side.
We are fortunate in that, over the last 40 years, we have built some important institutions focused on tracking these people, and in tracing their links to the mainstream. I am thinking of the Southern Poverty Law Center in the first case and groups like Media Matters in the second. Whenever we consider the question of political violence, we need to distinguish between what is truly dangerous on the one hand and what legitimate political action may be enabling it on the other. The latter may be monitored — it is seeking an audience after all — but it should not be stopped.
My point is that there is much here which is truly dangerous. We only have to recall the history of the Clinton years, events like the Oklahoma City bombing and the Atlanta Olympics bombing, to know that there is something real to fear. Multiply that by ten, at least, and perhaps square it as well.
This is as serious as a heart attack.
The greatest irony of this decade is that the laws liberals
fought most avidly, such as the Patriot Act, are going to be essential
tools under Barack Obama. Operation of those laws must be completely
overhauled, not just to overcome Bush-era incompetence but to protect
the civil liberties of those suspected. But they must be used.
As I said, there are real links between the hard-liners whose
violence must be prevented for all our sakes and legitimate political
dissenters. Regardless of the care taken by the Administration to
separate the legitimate from the illegitimate, the legitimate will use
every action of this Administration to goad on the illegitimate and
seek to overturn the verdict of November 4.
Minimizing this political
damage in the name of protecting the national security will be the key
to success. Maintaining the support of a consensus in favor of a firm hand against extremism will be the measure.
Remember what I learned about how wrong Barry Goldwater was. Extremism in the defense of liberty is a vice, for with extremism there can be no liberty. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is a virtue, because without moderation there is no justice.
