ABSTRACT
The traditional moralism holds that the United States is a uniquely good nation. The new moralism holds that the United States is an immoral nation, racist, militarist, and counterrevolutionary. According to the traditional moralism, it is wrong to "bad-mouth" America. Traditionally in politics, Catholic voters have been on the "wrong side" of moralism. "Reform" and "morality" are uncomfortably close to being traditional code words for "anti-Catholic". The new moralism seems to attract the old Republican elite and to make common cause with the liberal universalists of the airwaves and the universities: not just a few "eggheads" but millions on millions of "long-hairs" supported by the "knowledge industry". The high moral language of the 1960s—civil rights as a moral issue, Vietnam as a moral issue, amnesty as a moral issue—suffered the fate of all moral language in politics. Moral language was converted to the political uses of some constituencies.
