The Radical Center
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The Radical Center

Middle Americans and the Politics of Alienation

Donald Warren

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The Radical Center

Middle Americans and the Politics of Alienation

Donald Warren

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About This Book

Drawing on extensive research and national survey data, sociologist Donald I. Warren here presents an in-depth analysis of the Middle American Radicals, who they are, what they believe, the major targets of their grievances, and the likelihood of their political mobilization. The evidence indicates that as many as one in five Americans shares the Radical Center perspective, including people who outwardly seem to have very little in common by way of economic, occupational, or education status. Of particular significance are the findings concerning potential support for the various presidential candidates and for a third national political party.

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1.    WHAT IS A MIDDLE AMERICAN RADICAL?
There is a distinct force in American society which is both volatile and pivotal in its activism. The word radical has many connotations, but its basic meaning is “going to the root of the problem.” From such a denotation emerges the paradoxical reality of this potentially decisive force—the Middle American Radical (MAR).3
Their perspective does not fit readily the traditional molds of liberal and conservative ideologies. Moreover, the definition of this social group stems from considering ideology itself as a component in a chain of thinking in response to institutional forces on the individual. As such, ideology becomes—for the purposes of this analysis—the basis for predicting patterns of social mobilization, not simply as a means of determining the strength or coherence of social beliefs. Ideology, then, is a grouping of the elements defining how people perceive problems and then choose to act or not to act on those problems.4
On some issues, MARs are likely to take a “liberal” stand, on others a “conservative” one. For example, the MAR expresses a desire for more police power. He feels that granting the police a heavier hand will help control crime, i.e., Wallace’s Law and Order program. However, MARs are also adamant about keeping many social reforms, often wrought by the left, such as medicare, aid to education and social security.
Often MARs feel their problems stem from the rich and the government working together to defraud the rest of the country. They blame the situation on defects in the system such as bad taxes. However, their causal analysis does riot suggest what effective remedial actions they can pursue as individuals.
Areas in which MARs take the most individual action include local government, schools and race. Whether the issue is inflation, depression, Watergate, neighborhood racial change or crime, many people in the MAR group have highly individualized definitions of the problem. Thus crime is seen as being caused by the permissiveness of parents, and the growing welfare rolls are regarded as pampering those who are lazy and do not wish to work.
Even if a problem is a very severe one for the MAR, it is often ascribed to human nature, the inevitable failings of character, or simply the unavoidable cycles of good and bad times. Such attributions make it hard to see how engaging in political action will make changes.
What is of critical importance, however, is to understand that lack of political action stems from two major belief systems of the MAR: one is that action is useless because individuals are powerless to effect changes in society or its major institutions. The other is the MAR’s unwillingness to get involved at the national level because of distrust of national leaders. Analysis of the belief system of the MAR helps to understand such enigmas as the cool reception Ralph Nader receives from the middle income group whom he so staunchly advocates.5 The MAR cannot identify with the elitist strategies of Ralph Nader. By contrast, the meat boycott permitted individual action at the local neighborhood level. People could go to the local meat market and express concern. Ralph Nader operates at the centralized government level, putting pressure on regulatory agencies of the federal government within an elite core of professionals and academics. This style and strategy of action does not particularly respond to the consumer squeeze being felt by Middle America in their local milieu.
The 1973 Meat Boycott is an example of a local effort to strike out at a non-local offender. In this survey, we found that MARs comprised the largest participating force in the consumer “strike.” They refused to purchase meat from their local merchants, thus constituting a local action. But it was really farther reaching than that. This effort can be seen as a stepping stone for action on a larger scale. MARs are beginning to strike out at the national scene, through grass-roots efforts of this type. They do not feel they have the power to jump into the bureaucratic ring in Washington, but they are discovering the influential power they have at home against their offenders.
George Wallace has expressed another important element of the MAR phenomenon: that of contact at the local level on issues that affect everyday life. The MAR often has strong roots in neighborhood and community. McGovern, with his following of the poor, affluent liberals, college students, blacks, chicanos and anti-war dissidents, was the epitome of what the MAR resented on the American political scene.
The MAR consistently sees an unholy alliance growing between the liberal and minority establishment at his expense. White efforts to end racism have forced him to carry out good deeds, through his taxes, that he never felt compelled to institute. The burden falls on his shoulders to carry out the “social experiment” rather than on the affluent suburbanite or on the welfare poor. The Middle American Radical sees the government—local to national—allied simultaneously with minority and idealistic doctrines against his own interests and social survival.
Alliances threatening to the MAR’s existence make him an unpredictable force in American political life. As a result, he is an uneasy ally to either left or right political interest groups.
Whereas the conventional radical is likely to see the need to reduce the scale of schools and government to make them more accessible, the MAR is, by contrast, concerned with the way institutions are run and complains that many individuals are not given enough power and autonomy to do their jobs properly. To the MAR, the failure of welfare agencies to diminish poverty, of police to decrease crime and of government to increase services despite increased tax revenues substantiate this view.
Middle American Radicals see formal organizations as not holding to clear-cut rules (due perhaps to rule-bending minorities) and as not being responsive to their concerns (due perhaps to confused goals established by both government and minority influence). They do not want these organizations to become smaller or to be restructured. Instead, they want new leaders who will seek broader goals by an equal application of the rules. Out of this desire stems a strong concern for action of some type on the part of the MAR.
The Truckers’ Protest in the winter of 1973–1974 is a type of action that the MAR can identify with. It occurred in an industry that is highly decentralized, it required very little local action to get underway and only in the protest sense was it part of an “organizational effort.” This was evident to the negotiators on the government side who were not sure that they were dealing with real representatives of the group.
To the MAR, the alliances arrayed against them are made up of people who possess defective character traits such as laziness, immorality or hedonistic life styles. For instance, the MARs who assert that race problems have occurred because the Supreme Court consists of Justices appointed for life and is, therefore, unresponsive to popular wishes are making a “system” complaint. Those who believe racial problems are caused by blacks who are lazy, immoral or possess other such stereotyped characteristics are suggesting that personally defective individuals are responsible.
It has been found that people assign different causal factors to different substantive problem areas. Most Middle Americans indicate both system and individual components as the source of their problems.6
Middle American Radicals have special complaints about the way government is run, but believe that many of the solutions need to start and end with individual action, rather than in traditional channels of institutional participation such as the major political party structures. Areas in which MARs are willing to take most individual action were found in our study to be those of local government, the schools and neighborhood racial problems. Wallace’s grass-roots political philosophy confirms the validity of our studies in that for the MAR to be involved action must be linked to the local neighborhoods and communities.
This individual approach, which yields the effects of collective action, is clearly an important political force. The critical point is that MARs are no longer relying on the organizations to which they belong for representation of their grievances and desires.
In the past, the Middle American Radical was amply represented by the church and labor unions. It is interesting to note that both institutions are very large scale and committed to universal rules and procedures. They tend to operate on the notion that there is an important set of principles that apply to everyone. The MAR is particularly concerned with the need to have a very structured type of orientation to the world. As these traditional organizations and the world around them have undergone changes, Middle American Radicals no longer take them for granted as their special advocates. They now feel that they themselves—as individuals banding together—can be more effective and powerful. Yet their style of protest ultimately aims not at destroying the system but at changing its leadership and expanding its immediate effectiveness.
Recent surveys have shown an increase in independent voters and a decline in the traditional committed party voter. The Middle American Radical phenomenon fits this trend, and it may be a long term pattern. In addition, this group has become extremely volatile in terms of being more likely to participate than formerly. People in general are demanding much more from public officials in policy accountability and, unless government delivers, we can expect some very strong action. The success of our institutions is not going to depend on whether experts are advising the leaders and coming up with solutions to pressing social problems, but whether people out in the grass roots have some say in those solutions. MARs may not be radicals in the conventional sense, but they are increasingly radical in expressing their demands for participation and recognition through action.
This was clear during the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon. By and large, MARs did not think that impeachment would be a healthy, cleansing thing for the country since it would be an unprecedented threat to the presidency. Nixon’s resignation caused no such problem in that it did not alter the structure as such. MARs viewed the Watergate mess as reflecting the character defects of individuals more than an inherent problem in the executive power of the presidency or in the interrelations of the branches of government. To some extent, media coverage of Watergate tended to focus on personal rather than structural deficiencies. Although the MAR is often at odds with the news media, in this case the media did not advocate change in the basic structures, but only asked for new, responsible leadership and the MAR did contribute to bringing about such a change. Recent congressional elections seem to support this fact.
As the education level rises, we can expect that people in some of the lower status jobs in the society are different from the people who used to hold these jobs. Their consciousness is higher and, therefore, they are much more critical and expect more from their public officials. The MAR is already participating in this revolution of rising expectations and is not likely to drop out. In addition, MARs have some very special viewpoints which are bound to clash with those of other groups who are also part of this radicalization in American society.
Much that the Middle American sees operating in the country today causes him to call the idealistic notion of democratic government into question. One might predict, therefore, an increase in political participation among this group. We would maintain that this is unlikely to happen because of the second factor involved in keeping the Middle American out of political action groups. If our perceptions and interpretations are correct, the lower middle class male defines all organizations which demand verbal skills and organized political activity as incompatible with his self-image. His “ideal self” is a physically strong, hardworking, dependable person. Social aggressiveness and verbal ability are seen exclusively as feminine attributes. This was widely observed in the earlier exploratory interviews. The wife usually took the initiative in inviting the interviewer into the home, getting seated, and also usually was the most anxious to answer the questions. The male maintained his dominance by the fact that his wife showed deference to him whenever he did wish to speak. However, his answers were almost always short and to the point, whereas the wives often went on at considerable length and with considerable articulateness. Naturally, some political activity among this group will be conducted by women. The overall level of activity is likely to be quite limited because it is only the exceptional woman who is free enough from family obligations to do much outside the home.
This is not to say that there will be no organized activity by the Middle American. We can indicate that whatever activity takes place will have the following characteristics:
1. It will be of the “ad hoc” variety—directed toward a current issue or problem, rather than designed simply to gain advantage in the political arena. There will not be continuous, on-going activity.
2. It will lack traditional organizational form. There will be no meetings, little discussion, either no leaders or only generally acclaimed leaders (no formal elections).
3. In many cases, it may even be apolitical, in the sense that it will not work through established mechanisms for redress of grievances. Vigilante-type actions are a very real possibility.
No wonder the labor union leadership, the academic liberal establishment, the new left and even former energy czar William Simon have been unable to anticipate and be responsive to the frustrations and anger that is borne of the unique self-interests of the MAR. Over the next few years no one is easily going to slip this group into his political column. Survey data in the 1971–1972 study indicated 30 percent support for Nixon when we interviewed people before the presidential primaries. What he was able to draw upon in the intervening period before Watergate and after the attack on George Wallace closely corresponds to the proportion of Middle American Radicals found in the national survey. The “mile wide and inch deep” support gained from this group has now been dissipated. The most recent data from the March 1975 Cambridge Survey shows a heavy Wallace support and a lukewarm response to the Ford administration. MARs appear to initiate and epitomize the mood of national anger and distrust of dishonest “politicians.”
Some Essential Questions About MARs
What causes the perspective and ideology we have described as Middle American Radical? How contagious is this philosophy? Who is immune, who is most vulnerable to it? How deep-seated are its manifestations in American society? What are the levers for change in this orientation? How dangerous is the Middle American Radical to our society? How closely linked is this phenomenon to the serious economic deprivations which many Americans have felt in the last several years?
In subsequent portions of our analysis we shall examine fully the several distinctive facets that express what the Middle American Radical is all about. For now we can set forth the following conclusions as the keystones of our analysis: first that both rising as well as declining economic horizons can foster Middle American Radicalism. That many individual characteristics of people in our society can simultaneously produce a common perspective—a bridge across religious, ethnic and regional barriers—appears to be a response to the most important antecedent factor in the spread of this ideology. The epidemic is based not on economics alone, or intergroup conflict as such, or levels of education or job alienation, or a sense of social isolation or individual status. Yet all of these are implicated. Each is a pathway to the same conclusions about our society.
But at the very core of the MAR perspective appears a set of harsh indictments about the way formal institutions such as schools, government, labor unions, corporations, churches, the police and social welfare agencies function in our society. Thus, “organizational alienation” is the common denominator which binds together the Wallacite Georgia farmer with the Polish or Italian industrial worker of our urban centers, the low income retiree, the isolated suburban housewife, and the white collar civil servant of WASP origins who feels the pressure of minority group employment pressures. Yet, the MAR is not created in a long political socialization out of family or hometown mores and prejudices. Nor is the sting of unemployment or economic insecurity more than a partial explanation at best. The MAR perspective can arise with a sudden and shocking realization about the implications of neighborhood change and the decline of services in one’s local community. Unswervingly local in orientation, the MAR does feel deeply about the quality of his environment and the state of the nation.
His anger and concern are not uniformly, nor consistently, nor even visibly, translated into effective social action. Nor can we say with certainty that any given historical moment or leader can respond to the needs which MARs have. But we certainly can and must seek to comprehend what has evolved up to this moment in the political and social consciousness of the MAR. This task is a critical challenge to those who must seek to respond to the MAR phenomenon or to measure its implications for our society.
2. WHO ARE THE MIDDLE AMERICAN RADICALS?
Demographics and the Middle American
One of the difficulties in coming to grips with the concept “Middle American” is in defining who is being talked about. Labels do not help much. According to the press, the individual who makes up the “silent majority” is a white, lower middle income, lower middle class, blue collar (but perhaps also white collar clerical or service) worker. Other descriptions suggest he is an “ethnic” and “alienated,” “forgotten,” “angry,” “troubled,” “disillusioned,” “relatively deprived” and “reacting.” He ...

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