The Goldwater Movement

The Goldwater Movement

Simply by winning the Republican nomination, Senator Goldwater has left a strong imprint on American politics.

Everything now shifts in his direction. The apparatus of a major party lies in the grip of his friends: nor will they easily be dislodged from it. To a notable extent the terms of public debate will be determined not by the authentic and pressing needs of the country, but by the ideological fantasias of the right wing. And the most committed and fervent political activity may be expected to come from Goldwater partisans who now can finally feel they have a cause of their own.

This last seems to me especially important. There is a new political energy surging up in this country, it is an energy of hard-bitten resent...


Socialist thought provides us with an imaginative and moral horizon.

For insights and analysis from the longest-running democratic socialist magazine in the United States, sign up for our newsletter: