Thread by @HeerJeet

1. The current Thermidorian Reaction we're witnessing (establishment backlash against trans rights, #metoo, BLM) echoes a forgotten moment in history: the widespread elite freak-out over 2nd wave feminism and gay rights in 1969-1973, after Stonewall ignited new militancy.

2. In conventional historical memory, 1960s/1970s backlash is remembered as a few Cold War liberals turning right over Black Power, anti-war movement, New Left. True enough but broader backlash went beyond this faction & opposition to feminism & gay rights was crucial part.

3. Feminism & gay rights, along with the Black freedom movement, challenged fundamental hierarchies that made many people, not just conservatives or Cold War liberals, uncomfortable: in the 1969-1973 moment, it included many mainstream liberals, left-liberals & leftists.

4. Important to remember that many older successful women (precisely because they had risen to the top under the older patriarchy) were uneasy with 2nd wave feminism: see writing of Didion, Diane Trilling, Hardwick, Mary McCarthy in that era (some changed later).

5. And the reaction to feminism (and occasionally gay rights) evident in writers of left who did not become neo-conservatives: Mailer, Irving Howe. Major anti-gay piece of era was written by Joseph Epstein, then a Dissent social democrat, in Harper's, a centrist magazine.

6. Irving Howe is important bellwether of 1969-1973 reaction: socialist editor of Dissent, in that era in Harper's & Commentary he publishes attacks on feminism, Kate Millet, Susan Sontag, Philip Roth & Ismael Reed (all emblems of threatening new social values).

7. The interesting thing about Howe is that he didn't end up as a neo-con. Once the New Left receded (essentially with the winding down of Vietnam War & Nixon's resignation) he returned to being a normal social democrat & even came to acknowledge he over-reacted to 1960s.

8. I think the current reactionary moment will follow the same trajectory as 1969-1973: there are many liberals/leftists in reaction, some will be Podhoretzes & move permanently to the right, some will be Irving Howes & return left once controversies die down.

9. Interesting bit of cultural continuity is that the same institutions that fostered the 1969-1973 freakout against feminism/gay rights (New York Times, Harper's, Atlantic, Ivy League schools) are main venues for current reaction.

10. It is notable that the 1969-1973 social reactionary moment has largely been dropped down the memory hole (you can get a glimpse of it in the great documentary Town Bloody Hall). The cultural success of the liberal versions of feminism & gay rights has made it embarrassing.

11. An interesting example of 1969-1973 reaction is Murray Rothbard. He was left-leaning libertarian in 1960s, allied with Maoist faction in Peace & Freedom Party, very pro-Black Power, collaborator with New Left students of William Appleman Williams. Then shifted right in 1970

12. Post-1970 Rothbard abandoned New Left Alliance, turned to Libertarian Party (and, for a period, Koch Bros.) His shift never adequately explained by Rothbard or his acolytes. Best explanation is from @zeithistoriker, who notes Rothbard's anti-feminism

13. Rothbard (who had a very old-fashioned academic marriage to a Southern belle, who had no professional aspirations & helped, uncredited, with his research) reacted badly to 2nd wave feminism. He turned to ideas of biological essentialism (& praised Howe's anti-feminism).

14. Politically Rothbard, Midge Decter, Irving Howe, Normal Mailer very different (respectively: libertarian, neo-con, socialist, "left conservative"). Yet in 1969-1973 they were united in anti-feminism & in some cases supported or relied on each other. A forgotten moment.

15. To be clear I don't want to suggest that the 1969-1973 elite freak-out had no effect. Was key to formation of neo-conservatism (an important faction) & slowed down social progress. More subtly, blunted the most radical voices of that moment.

https://twitter.com/David_Leheny/status/1551463199051943936

16. If it was liberal feminism (rather than socialist feminism) & liberal version of gay rights (rather than more radical version) that triumphed in 1970s, surely reaction of 1969-1973 played a part. That's part of legacy.

17. Returning to the current moment: current reactants to social change (Yglesias, Signal, Greenwald, etc) are likely to divide along Decter/Howe lines: some moving permanently to right, some making peace as social movements become assimilated into establishment norms.