There’s Nothing Ideological About Voters’ Real Fears : Politics: Buchanan is only the vanguard of a revolution against the ruling forces that have stolen the American dream.

In the years between presidential elections, politicians conspire with commentators and pundits to describe the desires of the citizens. We are continually and torrentially bombarded with analysis of public opinion--what concerns the American people, how they view their country, their government and the circumstances of their lives. But once every four years, the people get to express their views directly. It is then that we find out what is really going on in America.

As Pat Buchanan moves toward his probable victory in New Hampshire, we are once again being offered that evanescent illumination. The issue of a balanced budget that so engrosses Washington is not worth 10 votes in a primary election; it is little more than a political science abstraction to a people far more worried about the precarious state of their own family budgets. The so-called “populism” of Buchanan is a response to these fears of the voter. Indeed, were it not so weighted down with demagogic if sincerely felt exploitation of social issues, there is little doubt that Buchanan’s attack on corporate power would sweep the country.

For this issue, unlike the “deficit,” is based on reality. It is a fact that the living standards of the American majority are in decline. It is also a fact that the wealth of upper-income Americans is mounting, that the fruits of economic growth are going to an ever dwindling number. In other words, the principles of American economic justice are being flaunted and transgressed. The result is that Americans are fearful about their own well-being and pessimistic about the possibilities for their children. And that fear and that pessimism are firmly grounded in the ominous and outrageous conditions that confine the American dream to a small number of Americans.

This was also true four years ago. It was responsible for the rejection of Bush and the election of Clinton. It was still true in 1994 when it powered an overwhelming repudiation of the Democratic Party that had abandoned its traditional roots to become the party of Wall Street and the wealthy. How this potentially revolutionary discontent will manifest itself in 1996 is still uncertain, since both parties share divided power and thus responsibility for the deteriorating conditions of American life. And neither offers any realistic hope for an attack on economic injustice. For Republicans and Democrats alike are now firmly in the pockets of organized wealth, owned largely by those who are the beneficiaries of present injustice.

Yet even though the form that protest will take is uncertain, we can be confident that anger and frustration will out, that the year has more surprises in store. Perhaps it will take the form of a Buchanan candidacy; perhaps through an assault by the forces of Ross Perot, whose potential is greater now than it was in 1992. But it is inconceivable that discontent of such magnitude and intensity can be suppressed indefinitely. It must work its transforming power on the political structure, if not this year then next or the year after that.

Nor can we assume that its direction will fit into traditional categories--progressive or conservative, liberal or reactionary. For anger, fear, distress are nonideological. Like the waters of a rising flood, they will seek outlet wherever an open channel appears. Buchanan’s candidacy is a vivid illustration, blending economic populism with a rigidly conservative position on social issues. Yet the two wings of this movement are not unrelated. Both involve an angry assault on the ruling forces of American life: economic power and those who are felt to be responsible for social corruption and dissolution--the privileged and the elites (an anger that, in Buchanan’s case, is not contrived but strongly felt by the candidate). It is a powerful combination, but one that is flawed in its foundation. For populism and social reaction, although appealing to similar emotions of resentment, are distinct and their fusion limits the reach of the Buchanan movement.

But that flaw cannot be exploited by those of progressive convictions until they offer an alternative outlet for grievances--a populism of the left that seeks to restore justice to economic life and is willing to mount an assault on those who benefit from injustice. It may seem ironic to some that a right-wing candidate is attacking large corporations, free trade and exploitation of workers. But his ability to mount that assault successfully flows from the disgraceful silence on the left, from the intellectual and moral collapse of a once vital liberal movement. Unless that vitality is restored, the future will indeed belong to the passionate and determined voices from the right.