George Dukakis.

IN RECENT WEEKS Bush has been positioning himself strangely on the sort of issues that helped him and Ronald Reagan defeat Carter and Dukakis. He not only capitulated on the misconceived Hate Crimes Statistics Act but invited "gay" leaders to attend the White House signing ceremony. His final disposition of the controversy over NEA funding of such exhibits as Robert Mapplethorpe's photos of children's genitals and homosexual practices and Andres Serrano's crucifix-in-urine (the only religious article eligible for public funds, someone has observed) was to declare himself against "censorship."

Whether or not there is, as Henry Hyde said in our last issue, a clearly defined Kulturkampf, there is in some of these works an unmistakable spite against the traditional moral and religious sentiments not only of the American people but of the entire West--indeed of any humanity aspiring to achieve some sort of normality. It is not only the bourgeoisie that the Mapplethorpes aim to epater. Their subsidized efforts would be unlikely to find favor with the Bedouin nomad, the Chinese peasant, or the African herdsman. Some of the works in dispute are intelligible only within Western culture and, therein, only as deliberate blasphemies.

One need not favor closing down museums in order to understand the revulsion ordinary people feel at some of the pet causes of the alienated Left. Those causes are often designed to inspire precisely that revulsion, using the category of "art" as a mere sanctuary for provocation. And even the term "hate" has become ideologically loaded, confusing violent crime with social prejudice and overlooking the fact that the most virulent hatred now afoot is the antagonism of the Left toward the majority culture and ethos. In general, the majority has shown an almost bovine tolerance toward the provocations of Mapplethorpe et al.

But tolerating them is one thing: ingratiating oneself with them is another. George Bush seems as eager to prove he is not a redneck as he seemed, during the 1988 campaign, to prove he was a regular guy. He risks losing the profounder loyalty not only of the conservative core of his support, but of the ordinary voters who are beginning to be aware of the constant insults that are being offered to their way of life.