241�From Kennedy 's Myth to Johnson 's Dream�policy of "benign neglect" on racial

issues. The subject of race,�Moynihan had told Nixon in confidence, "has been too
much talked�about... We may need a period in which Negro progress continues�and
racial rhetoric fades."69 To this end Moynihan urged the president�to avoid
confrontations with black extremists and instead invest his�mergies in an
aggressive class-based approach to social policy. To�this, liberal editorialists,
activists, and academics responded in horror, calling the memo "shameful,"
"outrageous," and "cruel" on its�face. The reaction was instmctive. Liberals had
so thoroughly imbe<j| the assumptions of the God-state that to suggest the
state�could, never mind should, tum its back on the chosen people#for�who could be
more anointed than the poor black victims of slavery�and segregation?#was
tantamoum 10 saying that God had ceased�being God. When it comes to the state,
neglect could not be benign,�only malign. The state is love.�A more practical
irony of the transformation of American liberalism is that it had fallen into the
pre-fascist logic of the Bismarckian�welfare state. msmarcK nad pioneered the
concept of liberalism�without liberty. In exchange for lavish trinkets from an
all-powerful�state, Bismarck bought off the forces of democratic revolution.�