The late 1950s and 1960s saw a merger between government and business. This occurred mostly during the Eisenhower administration. This new political climate seemed to be too powerful for many of the beatnik generation. One of them is Ken Kesey, whose views on the "new government" are reflected in his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Dubbed the "Combine", this idea acts like a ruling power in a mental asylum. The hero's (or antihero's) struggles against the Combine parallel the struggles of Kesey and his colleagues against the policies of the Eisenhower administration. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay One of the most powerful platforms of the Eisenhower administration was the fight against communism, which was reflected in the Combine. The administration's main concern was containing communism. This is clearly reflected in the setting: a mental institution. Just as the United States (and other countries) worked to keep communism limited to the Soviet Union and surrounding countries, as a society we seek to keep the sick separate from the healthy by equipping our institutions with mosquito nets like those “one technician chose take a chair... and beat the screen until the chair was nothing but firewood" (108). The clash between idealism and practicality is also visible in the novel. Remembering the differences between democracy and communism, the nurse tries to serve the majority despite the patients' desire to serve everyone. After a vote to allow the Acutes to watch a baseball game, he notes that this cannot be done because “Forty patients and only twenty voted. You need to have a majority to change the policy of the ward" (124). It can also be noted that Nurse Ratched's group meetings clearly suggest McCarthyism. During the McCarthy era, people registered as communists were asked to provide the names of everyone else they knew were communists. Ratched promotes the same disloyal tendencies in his ward by having the men write in a book when someone says something revealing and rewarding them accordingly. McMurphy presents the analogy of a party of pecking, where "the flock sees a bloodstain on a chicken and everyone goes to peck it... until they tear the chicken to pieces" (55). It is easy to find similarities between the operation of the Combine and the domestic and fiscal policies of the Combine he Eisenhower administration, when Eisenhower, a famous World War II general, was elected, much of the previously national funding was diverted to the military is like the Combine in that the institution depends on having clear rules and structure of authority pyramidal (it may also be noted that Eisenhower used this method to organize his cabinet and departments). As with the diversion of funds, the institution moves away from a personal approach to solving patients' problems, preferring to remain methodical and cold. The Combine's inhumane practices are explicitly described in a conversation between Harding and McMurphy in which Harding explains that "if she [Ratched] can't cut below the waist, she will above the eyes" (165). It can be said that Eisenhower was something of a "lame duck" president; he has proposed very few bills in Congress. Like Eisenhower, the Combine encourages its patients to leave politics alone, creating an atmosphere in which change is feared. This attitude is stated by an aide who denies McMurphy toothpaste: “It's department policy, Mr. McMurphy, that's why” (85). Policies are not questioned simply because.