I have been arguing since George W. Bush's quasi-victory in the 2000 election that we are witnessing a decline of the modern conservative movement. People to whom I expressed this opinion, having witnessed that election as well as the two that followed it in 2002 and 2004, often gave me a puzzled look. Granted the 2002 election took me a little by surprise...and of course the 2004 election took me a lot by surprise...and neither really supported my thesis...which is to say that they appeared to entirely undercut it...But finally, finally, I think I'm on the road to my ultimate vindication.
As I've become such a slacker, this post is only going to cursorily present my arguments, but at least they'll be out there...6 years late...making me look like a band-wagon jumping pretender...but...well, screw you anyway.
The conventional wisdom for the last 10 years at least - to hear talk-radio and the news tell it - is that this is a conservative country. I disagree; I hold that it is a progressive country - I would even say "liberal" had the word not been so abused by the pundit class for the last 30 years - and here's why I say so: the Republican party has been barely beating the Democratic party in presidential elections and held the teeniest of margins in the House and Senate despite vastly superior organization, vastly superior financial resources, vastly superior political machinery, and a vastly superior propaganda machine (these things are easily verifiable by Google searches, so I'm not going to back them up unless forced).
In short, despite the apparent march of conservatism from the humiliating days Barry Goldwater to the triumphs of Reagan and Gingrich to its ultimate consummation under the Cheney/Bush, conservatism, has actually just barely been staying afloat. It has only been through intense discipline, enormous amounts of corporate money, an absolutely brilliant endless public relations campaign, and a willingness to lie unabashedly that the Republicans have managed to fool just enough of an already cynical electorate that they are responsible stewards of the public trust.
But finally, finally, the electorate is waking up. Credit what you want - the rise of the blogger class, the egregious incompetence of this particular conservative president and his administration, the natural swing of the pendulum - I personally choose to credit Jon Stewart, whose tour de force ass-kicking of Tucker Carlson provided the seed-crystal necessary to solidify public opinion against the woeful performance of the mainstream media for the last decade - but whatever the cause, people are finally demanding accountability, from politicians, yes, but more importantly, from the media. And under the strain of people questioning the spin, this loose collection of failing ideologies that banded together in a desperate bid for survival is finally falling apart.
Conservatism ain't over, and as a libertarian myself, I wouldn't want it gone, at least not the small "c" variety, but it's back on the defensive, and unless the Democrats do something utterly ham-handed, it should remain on the wane, and that's a good thing. I'm looking forward to my children growing up in a more reasonable zeitgeist than I did.
And because it makes me cry with patriotic joy, here is Jon Stewart brow-beating Crossfire to win Burke's "Man of the Decade" Award. Please watch this masterful performance:
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Perhaps you've said it all.
ReplyDeleteI think that there is a disconnect in American politics that Republicans exploit, and it is bad for everybody.
ReplyDeleteFor example, most people in the country want universal health care. Most people, if you laid out what the estate tax is, would be for maintaining it. Most people would be for increasing foreign aid if they knew the real numbers (people think it is about 10% of budget, in fact is about 0.9%).
Republicans tend to be shamelessly skillful in obscuring the facts while pushing some hot button relentlessly. The media abdicates from reporting on policy, prefering to report on the politics as sports contest / celebrity gossip. The Democrats have belatedly countered with their own "never mind the facts --stay on message" style. The bloggers have indeed hopefully begun to do the media's job and conform the debate back to actual policy.
As the makers of the World's Shortest Political Quiz point out, the _policy_ that the plurality of Americans wants is actually a libertarian policy. The Democrats and Republicans are camped in the liberal and conservative camps, though, and only give the libertarians what they want by alloying it with economic or social restrictions, respectively.