Walter Lippmann — McCarthyism and The Public Philosophy (1955)

1. 1. Lippmann argued in 1959 that India's future should be a priority for US foreign policy, and that its development was a political not technocratic project.
2. 2. Lippmann was a 'conservative liberal' who supported the midcentury liberal consensus but was suspicious of robust progressive reform and the civil rights movement.
3. 3. Lippmann argued that Vietnam was not in the American interest, that Europe was more important, and that fighting a war in Southeast Asia was a big strategic error.
4. 4. Lippmann saw McCarthyism as a threat to the liberal consensus because it revealed the limits and problems of US constitutionalism, particularly the separation of powers.
5. 5. Lippmann accepted key aspects of McCarthyism, including supporting Eisenhower's loyalty program and backing congressional investigations of un-American activities.
6. 6. Lippmann's 'The Public Philosophy' (1955) was a jeremiad about democracy in general and Joe McCarthy in particular, arguing for natural law and traditions of civility.
7. 7. Lippmann argued that free speech depended on civil discourse and that it could not extend to telling voters that the opposition candidate is a Soviet agent, as McCarthy had claimed of Stevenson.
8. 8. Lippmann's 'public philosophy' was an elite project, arguing that 'men of light and leading' should recover and transmit its values across society.
9. 9. Lippmann supported the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling against school segregation but argued that integration should be slow to conciliate white southern opinion.
10. 10. Lippmann argued for greater public investment in social welfare and infrastructure, influenced by John Kenneth Galbraith's 'The Affluent Society' (1958).
11. 11. Lippmann advocated neutralization of Vietnam from 1961, arguing that the US had inherited the French imperial position and should seek a political settlement.
12. 12. Lippmann argued that the Vietnam War was destroying the liberal consensus at home by wasting affluence, fracturing public opinion, and distracting from domestic reform.