A yellow streak
Matthew Parris
TO RENEW AMERICA by Newt Gingrich HarperCollins, £18, pp. 272 Ifirst caught Newt Gingrich on CNN in the small hours of the morning, in a hotel in Chile. Impressed by his combination of silky fluency with iron certainty, I was won over fast. Reading this book has proved the antidote.
Ten minutes of Newt is spellbinding. After 20 minutes you are giving him the benefit of a niggling doubt. After 30, the doubt has grown. Within an hour a name- less anxiety irks you mightily. Before your evening with Newt is out you are gripped by the horrible suspicion that you are in the presence of something bad.
And it's not the banging of the national- ist drum I mind, though on page five the word 'America' or 'American' occurs 16 times. Nor is it the crude faith in the Amer- ican spirit which unsettles: the American dream, American values, self-boasting American history or the guiding hand of an American God (Gingrich believes God helped the colonial rebels beat the British). Those faiths, like all faiths, though they may be primitive — even misplaced — are 'Right, last thing — test your eyesight — can you read my bill?' positive things.
And it's not the snake-oil remedies, the economic panaceas and spontaneously combusting, tax-shrinking, revenue-expand- ing miracle cures, the magic education sys- tems, the gee-why-didn't-I-think-of-that? business plans and the 'cheap hawk', cost- free, defence-boosting strategies that dis- gust. Every nation needs its optimists, and sometimes optimists prove us wrong.
No, it's not Newt the Conqueror, Newt the Conjurer, Newt the Teacher-Healer or Newt the Provider who give me the heebie- jeebies. It's Newt the Coward. Right down the spine of this book runs a big yellow streak.
What is so disgusting about Poujadism, whether you encounter it in Copenhagen, Cuzco or Colorado, is its essentially craven quality. Four streams mingle in these waters: fear, resentment, suspicion, and the carping self-pity of the small man.
You see, according to Newt it's all a plot. `Since 1965 . . . there has been a calculated effort by cultural elites to discredit this civilisation and replace it with a culture of irresponsibility.' Almost every contempo- rary ill is put down to liberals in universi- ties. Gingrich never really explains where all this wickedness comes from — but it is not from his readers, the American people. It is being foisted — for reasons which remain obscure — on the American peo- ple.
Politicians who externalise evil give me the creeps. Afraid to tell their electorate the one truth no voter wishes to hear that his cake is short because he has eaten it, not because someone else has taken it they retreat into conspiracies. Benn, Glistrup, Gingrich — the parallels are uncanny.
Blithely unaware of the irony, Newt warns his readers that 'by blaming every- thing on "society" contemporary liberals are really trying to escape the personal responsibility that comes with being an American'. Indeed? And by blaming every- thing on contemporary liberals, who is Newt Gingrich trying to escape?
The old, for a start. The book is in inde- cent haste to assure the elderly that, what- ever else may be for review, 'social security' (pension-entitlement) 'is off the table'. He does not say why. Gingrich is also quick to reassure another large sector of the elec- torate: blacks. And I note his silence on the subject of gays. Too many voters there as well. Also included as potential beneficia- ries of his Contract with America are the deserving poor, immigrants (as long as they are legal and learn English) and drug addicts (as long as they're trying to beat the habit).
By process of elimination we conclude that nobody has anything to lose from Newt's Contract, except illegal immigrants, unreformed drug addicts and the undeserv- ing poor. It seems a narrow base to bear so great a weight.
No thinking section of mankind has ever been more cruelly or consistently betrayed than has the thinking Right by the in-house politicians. The thinking Right knows the limitations of the state as an agency for human change. The politicians of the Right prate with the grandiosity of Marxist social engineers. The thinking Right knows that no great shift in wealth or opportunity is effected without creating millions of losers. The politicians of the Right pretend it can he done by kicking out immigrants and throwing stones at beggars. The deeper you plough into this contemptible, cheating, craven book, the bigger woman Lady Thatcher looks, by contrast.
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