I've excerpted sections of this. Moynihan was at the time working in the Nixon administration. He later became the Democratic Senator from New York. I don't agree with many of his prescriptions, but he did have a way of stating certain fundamental problems in a clear fashion.
Over last weekend I found myself thinking about our brief discussion of the difficulty the administration seems to have in linking up with competent, respected conservative thinkers. I had not the time, as they say, to write a brief memorandum, and so I send you this, as I felt both of you were interested in the subject. You should be: The presidency is at stake.
You will recall my saying that I thought the President was ill-served by a sequence of administrative acts whereby the liberals of the country, having first been brought to the point of frenzied fear and detestation of us, are then empanelled, in various guises, as formal Boards of Enquiry to pass judgment on the administration record...
You may further recall my impression of Republicans, after living among them as an interested and sympathetic observer for almost two years, as a group you have almost confidence that any serious thinker could be with you on any issue of consequence. Economists, perhaps, but few others. To a Republican a serious thinker is a liberal Democrat or a left-wing anti-Democrat...
In the best universities the best men are increasingly appaled by the authoritarian tendencies of the left. The inadequacies of traditional liberalism are equally unmistakable, while, not least important, the credulity, even the vulgarity of the supposed intellectual and social elite of the country has led increasing numbers of men and women of no especial political persuasion to realize that something is wrong somewhere.
These persons are the President's natural allies. They can be of help to him and to the country. But I do not see them brought into our counsels...
Pragmatism is a noble political tradition. It is vulnerable, however, to a form of oversight which can be calamitous. The pragmatic mind in politics tends to underestimate, even to be unaware of, the importance of moral authority. In a nation such as ours, and especially at a time such as this, moral authority is a form of political power...
... I proposed that American politics were approaching instability and that liberals who understood this should seek out and make alliances with their conservative equivalents in order to preserve democratic institutions from the looming forces of the authoritarian left and right...
When attacked, nobody defends us.... no one writes articles for us, much less books or plays or folk songs.
Nor are we very good at defending ourselves...