Garry Wills is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Universal Press Syndicate, and the Henry Luce Professor of American Culture and Public Policy at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He is the author of several books, including Explaining America, Inventing America, and Nixon Agonistes.
Wills is perhaps best known for his impassioned editorial writings during the Vietnam war, which helped to articulate the vision of the peace movement and sharpen opposition to the war. A periodic contributor to Sojourners and a Catholic, Wills was interviewed by Sojourners' staff in early January.--The Editors
Sojourners: How do you assess the results of the fall election? Would you say that liberalism has failed?
Garry Wills: It's hard to know what liberalism really is. In so far as it's an historical body of principles, I think it failed long ago. In the popular sense, liberalism means greater government spending for everything except defense.
I think people are saying that the welfare reform of the '60s, like the New Deal of the '30s, accomplished some things but now lacks the discipline of its original vision. And they want an alternative. But Reagan is not going to cut back significantly on the reforms of the '60s any more than Eisenhower cut back on the New Deal. His "alternative" will be, by and large, a failure.
Unfortunately, the U.S. is in one of those sabre-rattling moods which seems to come from the shocking realization that not only is Vietnam able to defy us, but also the oil emirates, the Iranian mullahs, and the OPEC cartel.
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