Beyond the gloom.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Republican sweep in 1994 midterm elections - Editorial

In the weeks and months after the elections that brought the Republicans to grimy power, many liberals and left-wingers and just plain decent folks have felt despondent over the direction this country is going in. I must have been asked dozens of times by friends and subscribers, "Aren't you depressed? Aren't you discouraged? Aren't you scared?"

And I don't blame them. There is much that's depressing, discouraging, and scary out there--the all-out assault on government, the scapegoating of welfare recipients, the hostility toward immigrants, the murderous violence by the anti-abortion fanatics, and a crude, homophobic, anti-Semitic nativism all sloshing around in the shallow septic tanks of the far right.

I read the recent cover story in The New York Times Magazine on the extreme right in Idaho, and it was, indeed, chilling. Whenever people start blaming the Rothschilds for the ills of this world, I can't help but take it personally. I'm not related to the famous European family, but I am Jewish, and I squirm when I hear the conspiracists on the hoof. The New York Review of Books had an equally disturbing piece exposing Pat Robertson for his anti-Semitism; Robertson, too, has it in for my namesakes and me.

But I do not despair, for I believe there is a vast reservoir of good will in this country. I simply do not, cannot, will not believe that most Americans will buy the wholesale bigotry of the far right, or the retail revanchism of Newt Gingrich. Maybe I'm naive, but I believe that shared democratic values and fundamental fellow-feeling will eventually do in the hate-mongers and their next of kin.

It helps to take the long view. After all, we made it through the Red Scares and the McCarthy period; we survived a depression; we've overcome many obstacles of bigotry and bullying.

Today, actually, I'm more hopeful than I was before the election, because the Republicans have finally crawled out from under their rocks, and their sliminess and their viciousness are there for all to see. This has already had a salutary effect. Many well-meaning people had won records for holding their tongues for two years, fearful that criticizing Clinton would only serve to weaken the cause. (This was not a contest that we entered here at The Progressive, as you know.) But now, thanks to Newt Gingrich and the disciples of Social Darwinism--their "new" ideas are only 120 years old--people are beginning to stir, to clamor, and to agitate.

That's what we need to do...