"The End of Our Conservative Era"

Are you sure? I'm a Yellow Dog Democrat living in a fairly conservative state. Despite impressive wins at the state and federal levels this year, it doesn't feel like the end of the conservative era to me. Not yet. Not by a long shot.

Oh, yeah, there's this too. Radical Christianism is on the march and being fueled by the religious war with Islam. Don't underestimate the ability of conservatives to bludgeon America into submission using Muslims as the bogeyman.

It's happening before our eyes, despite the election.

The "divide" would be if there were a large no-man's land between the extremes, with few voters swinging. That some do means it is less a divide than simply the continuum of political position.

As to why that line has those particular extremes, it would be that both ends are strategically successful approaches to life, symbolized as cooperation vs. individual endeavor. And note that that line is present in both urban and rural societies, just with more cooperators in the city, and vice versa. Our Constitution preserves both approaches. There are provisions that protect individual freedoms, as well as protections for free association.

Complicating thins is the existence of another line, at some angle to the individual/group line, that shows reflexive authority-followers contrasted with skeptical types.

Re: Oh, yeah, there's this too. Radical Christianism is on the march and being fueled by the religious war with Islam.

Christianists are very much a minority and the voters tolerate them only as long as they are largely impotent. When Christianism begins threatening to actually interfere with ordinary American life (as it did in the Terri Schiavo case) the voters, including even some non-religious conseravtives, react quite strongly against it.
On the larger issue I would have to say we are not seeing the seeing the end of conservatism, but we are seeing an end of the dysfunctional Bushist version of it.

Re: We are the urban America and the non-urban America.

What about the suburbs? They are anything but politically or culturally monolithic. Some are very liberal and Democratic-oriented and these helped put the Democrats over the top this year. Others are rock-ribbed Republican. And for that matter if you look at a by-county map of the 2004 election you'll notice some odd platches of solid blue in some very rural areas (northern Minnesota for example) and some bright red big city zones too (e.g., Houston).

One of the remarkable things about the evolution of the Republican Party since Nixon has been its increasing reliance on resentment and ideology as the defining elements of a tribal identity. In the process, the Republican Party became the Party of the Stupid and the Corrupt.

I know that Democratic politicians are still careful to say that they will "work with" the President on "bipartisan" solutions, but compromise with the Republicans is nearly impossible. You cannot have a sensible political discourse with stupid liars, and you can not make productive compromises with them, either.

The Conservative Era in American politics was built on the "bipartisan compromise" -- the ability of conservative Republicans to lead reactionary Republicans and make governing compromises with conservative and moderate Democrats. That was the art of governance as practiced by Nixon, Reagan and Bush I.

But, the evolution of the Republican Party was in the direction of the Reactionaries leading the Conservatives, and the Reactionaries are Stupid, and that has been the governing philosophy of Bush II. The reactionaries, who provided color commentary in earlier eras by advocating, say, the Impeachment of Earl Warren or complaining about the Conspiracy to sell-out at Yalta, or talked about bombing Vietnam back to the stone age -- these guys have been governing for the last 6 years. The Iraq War is their War, and it is a war "designed" by crazy, stupid people.

The Republican Party will now try to shift its kaleidoscope, putting up "smart" conservatives and even moderates, in place of the reactionaries: hence, Romney, Giuliani, McCain, etc.

The Democrats in Congress will try to govern, with the progressives leading the moderates and conservatives -- something that has not happened for 40 years, since race riots and Vietnam broke up FDR's New Deal coalition, with working class populists resenting the hell out of sanctimonious liberals.

There's a very good chance that the Republicans will be unable to regrow a moderate/conservative wing -- the seedlings are out there in State Houses, but the voting blocs to support them have been driven away.

And, there's a good chance that the Democrats will find that a populist-progressive coalition can govern: there are good issues for them -- economic risk and inequality, health care, getting out of Iraq.

Where I have doubts is in the need for Revolution. I don't think most Democratic politicians believe in either the necessity or the practicality of a Revolution in our politics. In particular, we desperately need to overthrow the Corporate Media, which has served as a Reactionary Propaganda machine.

It is this last task, which will have to be accomplished, before the Conservative Era is over. It doesn't seem likely, at the moment, but Bush has two more years, and he's a Uniter of unparallel power.

The danger is that faith in government will have been eroded durably.

Take FEMA. The torrent of abuse it's received will outlast the Bush-Brownie years. And it'll be very difficult for a Dem to stand up and say: "I'll triple the budget of that fine institution, FEMA." People will laugh.

People also don't seem to realize the giant hit the US military has taken. The words Pentagon and incompetence have been juxtaposed too often not to leave a trace.

I think that Democrats have to hammer home the point that they are the ones who believe that Government can support the Common Good, and that they actually have a record that supports that argument.

-Dave Adams-

Your points are well taken; I will add, though, that around me, I see signs that those issues are beginning to resonate with a lot of ordinary Joes (and I live among a lot of solidly Republican moderates).

Perhaps Winston Churchill's words after the Allies defeated Rommel at El Alamein are appropriate to the point at which we now find ourselves: "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

INCOMPETENCE! It's not Katrina OR Iraq, it is Katrina AND Iraq. Almost all Bush supporters applauded the invasion of Iraq, they believed that Cheney and Rumsfeld knew what they were doing. It is only the incompetence in Iraq that is lethal to Bush.

I can imagine a competent invasion of Iraq. The endpoint -- Sunnis completely disarmed, a religious Shiite strongman as leader elected by acclamation, would have satisfied most Bush supporters.

A competent response to Katrina is not hard to visualize. Likewise the many lesser hits Bush took -- Schaivo, the deficit, the Ports deal, Harriet Miers, jobs, gas prices, climate change, scandals -- we can imagine a competent response to each issue.

The GOP would still have strong majorities in Congress had they only been more competent. The US people seem to like conservative, even faith-based, policies in principle. They didn't reject the GOP policies, they rejected the leaders who could not make the policies work.

But of course I am skipping something essential! The GOP policies could never work! Because there is a fundamental contradiction between faith-based policies and competent action. By faith-based I mean the opposite of fact-based, the desired conclusion determines which facts are admissible. Competent action, on the other hand, requires understanding the facts first, before deciding the best response.

Nixon didn't have the radical Christianists supporting him. Before they were mobilized by Pat Roberston and the Moral majority, they didn't vote and saw no reason to participate in the political arena.

Remove the support of the radical christianists, and Bush's polls would be at least comparable to those of Nixon, maybe lower.

Well I am hoping that Norquist's influence is the only thing that has/will be drowned in the bathtub Howard.  Having an airport named after Reagan is bad enough...that is where the line must be drawn, lol.

Happy talk of the "end of conservatism", doesn't get me past the points made by Red Planet in the second and fourth comments.

It remains to be seen if the outcome of one election will result in changes that America so desperately needs. Maybe I'm cynical after promises that a very bad situation had "turned a corner" as the result of an election. We already see that the voters are ignored.

Would it help if I hold up a purple finger?

I just read Digby's post about Gerald Ford, which expresses many of my feelings about the man. In it, talking about his initially positive reaction to the Nixon pardon, Digby says this:

"I did not understand the zombie nature of Republicanism and had no way of knowing that unless you drive a metaphorical stake through the heart of GOP crooks and liars, they will be back, refreshed and and ready to screw up the country in almost exactly the same way, within just a few years." (The entire post, at digbysblog.blogspot.com, is a good read, relative to the discussion here.)

That is part of what concerns me. That, and a feeling that we do not yet have the conviction and strength of purpose to fashion the stake and drive it home.

Opposition to the threat that Churchill faced was slow to mount. I wonder if enough of us have yet been convinced of the existential danger to our way of life posed by the radical brand of conservatism that still controls the majority of the levers of power in government, law enforcement, the courts, business and media in modern America.

Without Iraq, would the Dems have won Congress?

Hmmm...  Without Iraq, what might have limited the Republican Juggernaut?  On the other hand, without Iraq, would Bush even be president after 2004?  We can toss these balls in the air and see where they fall.

In May 2004, Bush looked to be a one term president.  For the first time in his presidency, his unpopularity exceeded his popularity (average all polls for the whole month).  Over the next six months a campaign prevented this result from recurring. 

What kind of campaign?  Was it the campaign run out of the Republican Party and the Bush Campaign headquarters?  Or was it the one run out of the "Code Red" Department of Homeland Security?  Without the benefit of the Iraq war, only one of those campaigns would have been viable. 

In November, the crucial month, Bush's popularity exceeded his unpopularity by a mere 1.7%, and by April, 2005, he had gone permanently under sinking to a 23% gap at present.

So the Juggernaut was probably dead by April, 2005.  But, let's suppose it wasn't Iraq.  What if they had not gone there?  What if Bush could have been reelected without that ugly year of fear mongering?  Would they still be going strong today?  Would no one care about DeLay?  Would no one care about Abramoff?  Would no one care about the arrogant Social Security proposal?  Would no one care about Katrina followed by Rita?  Would no one care that we appear to be losing in Afghanistan, where all this stuff started?

Just perhaps the Juggernaut was killed by more than Bush.

At the national level, NOT A SINGLE Democrat running for reelection was turned out.  Not even the clearly corrupt ones (this bothers me).  Not for Senate.  Not for House of Representatives.  Not for Governor.  NOT ONE.

The Republican way of doing things was rejected.  Sure, Iraq had a role, but I think the big thing was arrogance.  Think about it.  The Republicans knew DeLay would be indicted, so they CHANGED the rules to avoid having to do anything about it.  News stories abound that reflected 10 minute vote periods extended for hours to force vote switches.  "Bridge to nowhere" is the new state motto for Alaska, a state that DOESN'T HAVE most normal taxes because of it's windfall income off of oil severance.  The thread that sticks together for all the Republican disasters is arrogance.

Let's hope the Dems don't catch the arrogance disease too fast. 

Jo-Ann

You state: "Iraq was the big issue this election. While good government, while a more populist economics (Jim Webb as poster boy) was certainly high on the list--in my mind, it was the Iraq war..."

Certianly, you are correct that Iraq was "the big issues" -- however, I think a case can be made the Iraq war was something more: a symbol of Republican failures on many fronts... and of the failure of the various right wing ideologies (no-new-taxes; no-big-government; family values and religion in the public square; and the neo-cons oversees adventurism). I would argue that collective failures have taken the wind out of the rightwing agendas -whether at the local, state or national levels.

For example, here in Minnesota Republican Party (which has been moving regressively to the right for a number of years) had a major in the Minnesota House in 2002 of 30 seats!!! In 2004, that majority was reduced to 2 seats. In the fall elections of 2006, our Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (the DFL) capture 19 additional seats had now has 85 to 49 seat majority!!! In an attempt to prevent a rout, the Minnesota Republican Party sent out multiple negative (and, I am told, often dishonest) multiple mailings (one DFLer was target with 8 different "attack" mailings). And wedge issues -- such as gay-marriage -- were on the Republican table. The DFL House candidates ran positive, forceful "let's-get-the-job-done" campaigns addressing nuts-and-bolts issues (health care, education, property taxes, transportation, the environment, etc.) and undercut the wedge issues by implying that such issues were a distraction from the real business before the state legislature. The fact that Republicans lost 19 House seats (whereas the DFL lost none) and the fact that every freshman DFLer increase his or her margin of victory over 2006), is evidence that the Minnesota State Republican Party and its wingnut agenda is losing currency.

One telling sign of the weakness of the wedge issues is evidenced by the fact that Minnesota State Senator Paul Koering, a relatively conservative Republican from a relatively conservative district, won re-elected. Senator Koering happen to out himself as being gay after being questioned why he was the only Republican to break ranks and join the DFLers in blocking an effort to put anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment on the ballot. Dispite that this conservative Republican from a conservative district outed himself as gay, he was never-the-less able to (a) win endorsement at the Republican district convention, (b) win the Republican primary (3,965 votes to 3,779) and (c) go on to win the general election by about 12%. (Oh my, how are the Republicans going to be able to bring up the gay issue when it one of their own is "out front", so to speak?)

More evidence that the wing-nut Republicanism is on the decline is suggested by the fact that soon after so many our state House and Senate Republican candidates went down in defeat, our Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty (who himself narrowly escaped defeat) retreated to the political center (deserting what remains of the right-wing of the Minnesota Republican Party) and began talking about how to make sure that all children in Minnesota are covered by health insurance.

As of now, the right-wing conservatives have no really voice at the state level. At the federal level, our Republican Senator Norm anyway-the-wind-blows Coleman certainly sees the writing on the wall and will do anything he can to position himself as a centerist. Of course, there will be some right wing-nut voices-in-the-wilderness (Goode of Virginia, for example)who will continue to expouse a wing-nut creed. But I would suggest that if the Republican Party is to become a national party, it will need to shed its wing-nut baggage. Even in North Dakota and South Dakota, the Republicans were not able to run credible congressional races. In South Dakota, Stephanie Herseth (a pro-choice, pro-civil union Democrat) won with almost 70% of the vote. Now it is true that she might not be a Paul Wellstone ---- but neither is she a right-wing nut case like Thune.

From what I have seen, the Republican sails nolonger have much of a wig-nut wind. Iraq may have been an important factor here, but at the local and regional level, it would seem that many wing-nuts were becoming dead in the water.

PS: Many so called Red States like South Dakota are dependant in the congressional delegations to "bring-home-the-bacon" and are for federal programs including Social Security and funds for needed highways (here I am not speaking of pork like "bridges to nowhere in Alaska!) In otherwords, although many of the so called Red States may be for fiscal "responsibility", they are not necessarily "anti-government".

I think this question of whether the right wing agenda has lost its support is an important question and I hope you continue the discussion.

I didn't go on too long.
Stephen from Minneapolis

You can edit your posts before someone else replies--afterward they're fixed as is.

After it posts, your comment should have, at the bottom, "edit/reply/write to author/link". "Edit" brings it back up for fixing typos and the like.

I think a lot of people are putting flowers on a grave that's not occupied yet. The right wing has been building its power for more than 40 years; it's going to take more than the results of one election (as much I enjoyed them) to change this.

Of course, we're in the middle of one great foreign policy disaster (Iraq) now and our idiot-in-chief may be about to launch us into another one (Iran).

Tom

Why make Rex do all the work? Here Bessie, here Bessie.

Say, KJ Liberal
You state: "Even if the Conservatives were marginalized, which is not the current case...". Well, well, what is your concept of marginalization? The America electorate has spoken. The Republicans lost both the U.S. House and Senate. Certainly, in this sense, the conservatives were marginalized -- just watch the committee appointments.

Yes, there are a number of nut cases out there -- like Goode from Virginia. But these nut cases are not in position to maintain party discipline. Expect more and more Republican House and Senate members to declare the independance of mind and begin walking away from the economic/religious right. (And as for those running for President -- they will have some real problems, won't they -- trying to "appeal" to the middle ground voter while obtaining the support of the right-wing base. Bit problems given that the middle ground is moving to away from the Republican right and into the Democratic campaign.

Furthermore, despite the fact that for the last thirty years or so the right wing spin machines (which includes foundation, publications, talk shows, etc.) have been trying to brand (demonize) liberal (the democrats), the election results of 2006 would suggest that the spin machines are not working as well one might have thought.

Despite the millions and millison of dollars spent by the conservative right, the evidence is that many, many (a majority) voters have rejected the overdose of right wing cant. In the above post, I have offered hard evidence that throughout Minnesota, Republican Party (which was taken over by the wing-nuts a number of years ago) where given a thumbs-down by our electorate. (Republicans lost 19 House seats here.) Certainly, here in Minnesota, the Norquist/Follwell right (no-new-taxes, family-values) were routed. Yes, Patty Wetterling (MN CD-6) did lose and so did Cowleen Rowley (the FBI whistle blower running in MN CD-2) but both were weak candidates and ran very poor campaigns. The fact of the matter is that in large numbers the public has turned its back on the wing-nuts ideology and many soft-core (opportunist)wing-nuts (like our own governor here in Minnesota) are beginning to jumb of the wing-nut ship and swim towards the middle. You seem to believe that the right-wing is monolithic. It is not.

J.K. Liberal, you also state "...these folks have already demonstrated their ability to come back from the grave and transform anger and lies into empire." Given the many, many failures of the "these folks" and given that they failures are now beginning to impact voter attitudes and behaviors, how do you think that they will be able to "come back from the grave". I think you attribute to the "these folks" (the wing-nuts) supernatural powers.

One thing to add - the right wing has a hell of a lot of money.

Tom

Red Planet,

The conservatives "came to town" with "a set of ideological baggage" and claimed to have all the "big ideas". Correct? They also "came to town" demonizing the Democrats and liberalism. Correct? And they had a lot of money and media which they used talk up big ideas and to demonize the democrats and liberalism. Correct?

Here's the problem, as I see it. First, the big mouths who promoted their big ideas did not "bring the bacon home to their "middle-ground" constituents and many of these middle ground constituents began to think they had been sold a false bill of goods. (This is true especially at the state level were the no-new-taxes/family-values ideology did not do anything for "middle ground" concerns: "education", "health-care", "transportation", "the environment" and "property-taxes". As I have noted above, here in Minnnesota our Democratic House candidates campaign on bread and butter "middle ground" concerns whereas the rightwing conservatives continued to campaign on their "big ideas" platform. The Minnesota House Democrats won big time. This win (which built upon big wins in 2004 and special election in 2005)is evidence the voters rejecting the rightwing "big ideas", particularly at the local level.

The second part of the problem is this. The big mouth wing-nuts came "into town" (whether Washington, DC or St. Paul, MN) demonized the Democrats and for a while, many middle ground voters accepted this rightwing cant. But after a while, the shillness of the wing-nut voice began to annoy many "middle ground" voters and they became turned off by the over-the-top negativism. Here in Minnesota, many House Republican candidates were supported by state GOP attack mailings where as many the Democrats ran positive "let's get the job done" campaigns. All evidence suggests that were middle ground voters "turned off" by the negative Republican (and by wedge issues that were did not address "bread and butter concerns". Given the state GOP not only went negative,but also spent more money in support of House campaigns, the state GOP actually helped Democratic candidates!!!!!

There is a third problem and that is that the rightwing big mouths did not even deliver to its own base, either on its economic or moral agenda. At some point, this failure will be realized by the true belivers who now are more turned off by "demonized Dems" than by "failure to perform" wing-nuts.

My accessment is that "the sky is falling" but not on the Democrats. The Republicans have big time problems that cannot be fixed by money. They are intellectually bankrupt and the best thing that the Democrats can due is to point his out on a point by point basis -- but in a civil manner. My assumption is that the congressional hearing will do much to further expouse the rightwing bankruptcy of which many middle ground voters have already become aware.

Time will tell
Stephen from Minneapolis

As someone who spent several years researching and writing about the right wing, here's what I've noticed.

After Pat Robertson's 1988 campaign for President collapsed, the Christian right was declared dead. Then, after Bush Sr. lost in 1992, in the wake of the Christian right's embarassing domination of the Republican national convention, the Christian right was declared dead yet again.

Two years later, with Christian right backing, the Republicans won the House. Four years later the right wing supposedly hurt themselves through overreach with the Clinton impeachment. But two more years later, with right wing backing, Bush won the White House.

In the run-up to the 2004 election, Lewis Lapham published a bizarre piece in Harper's, in which he acknowledged that he had just realized that the right wing had had a long-term strategy for winning power (duh!). After the 2004 election, the political class was all abuzz about the Christian right and "values voters," as though this were not a phenomenon that had been self-evident for, oh, at least a decade.

And now, on the basis of one election, the conservative era is over? Color me skeptical.

I'm hopeful that you are right. But I think it's much too early to declare victory.

See K J Liberal's point below about the rightward evolution of Minnesota politics, even considering the results of the recent election.

By the way, KJ Liberal seems to be confusing Richard Viguerie--the right-wing direct mail fundraiser who went into business after the Goldwater defeat--with Grover Norquist, who began his political career during the Reagan years.

Iraq is not a disaster, at least not of the magnitude I am talking about. Iraq is simply a spectacular failure. It has had zero effect on the public American home life however.
I was talking about something like 9-11, or worse, which leaves people unable to talk or think about anything else. Iraq (regretfully perhaps) is eminently foregttable.

Regrettably, Americans have a taste for blood, so a war that kills and maims, in our name under our "control" is not an American disaster.  An American disaster is when SOMEONE else does it to us, especially by surprise, especially in our centers of power.  Money is our true emblem of power, and for that reason a few hundred feet from Wall Street is about as close to the heart of America as you can possibly be.  If we could ever get to the point of recognizing that the death of others by our hand is just as bad, we would have learned something.