THE SPIRIT OF TORQUEMADA,THE FIF-
teenth century friar who headed the Spanish In-
quisition, has returned to haunt the politics of 1984.
Ronald Reagan’s extraordinary assertion that the
Democrats have moved “so far left, they’ve left
America” is only one example of the new inquisito-
rial style in politics, which includes only the radical
Right in the acceptable patriotic spectrum. With the
vital added ingredient of strident Christian fun-
damentalism, the new intolerance of the Right in a
sense goes one step beyond McCarthyism. Reagan’s
tendentious marriage of politics and religion iden-
tifies political dissent, quite literally, as an act of
heresy.
If there were any doubts in anyone’s mind before
the Republican Natipnal Convention, the Dallas
Coronation should surely have laid them to rest. The
tone of the event and the Republican platform,
dominated by men like Falwell, Kemp and Gin-
grich, made it clear that the Reagan revolution is un-
finished.
This most radical of conservative administrations
would interpret re-election as a mandate to give free
rein to its darker impulses, particularly in the realm
of foreign policy. Those impulses have capitalized
alarmingly on a wave of jingoistic sentiment in this
country. One European visitor to the United States
during the Los Angeles Olympics caught the new
mood in a perceptive letter to The New York Times.
The fantasy of subduing a complex and inexplicable
world was first satisfied a year ago, the writer be-
lieved, by the Grenada invasion. (Reagan as Indiana
Jones, suggested another commentator.) The Olym-
pics were a repeat performance-again largely un-
contested victories over a world cast in the role of
enemy.
Precisely here is the danger: the victories of
Reagan’s first four years have been uncontested and
symbolic. For all Reagan’s wishful thinking, in a
second term the number of Grenada-style
knockdown victories will be strictly limited.
U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick-the prime
exponent of the inquisitorial style of politics-once
touched on the real heart of this Administration’s
foreign policy, asking rhetorically why it was wrong
for the United States to help its friends “stand
against the tide of history.” But defying the tide of
history is a dangerous business. The next four years
may take us into uncharted areas of confrontation,
and nowhere are the risks greater than in Central
America.
Since 1981, NACLA staff writer Robert
Armstrong has published a series of Reports posing
major questions about U.S. politics and foreign pol-
icy. The first, entitled Will the Empire Strike Back?,
looked at the coalition that brought Reagan to
power. The second, By What Right?, looked at U.S.
foreign policy since World War II. Now,
Armstrong’s latest Report asks, Are the Democrats
Different?
The odyssey of the Democratic Party since the
New Deal is a complex and fascinating one. The
party’s old Liberal ideology, epitomized by Walter
Mondale, seems finally to have run out of steam, but
its challengers from both ends of the political spec-
trum are unequipped as yet to give the party a cohe-
rent new form. Reagan’s characterization of today’s
Democrats as wildeyed leftists is, of course, absurd.
But we agree with Ronald Reagan about one thing:
the 1984 election is the most important choice of our
lifetime. And faced with a challenge of that mag-
nitude, just where do today’s Democrats stand?
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