funny enough, that attitude brings to mind a Thomas Merton quote “The tighter you squeeze, the less you have.”

The cognitive dissonance needed to believe that you can unring a bell is a staple of wingnut thinking. The question they can’t ever seem to sputter an answer for is just exactly how they plan to get blacks to the back of the bus, gays back in the closet and women back at home barefoot and pregnant. Do they think we are just all going to go along smiling and saying, “Yessuh boss” to their plan to return to 1912?

This is why I think that whoever runs as a republican for president in 2016 is going to make this years clown car look like a bunch of moderates. The blogosphere continues to debate whether or not the shellacking they’re going to get in November will cause republicans to move to the center. Have they met these people? A loss in November will only make them double down that much harder. Even Fox news had a poll last week where a sizable majority of those polled thought that contraception should be covered by insurance. You know you are totally around the wingnut loony bin when your views are to the right of fox news viewers.

This goes right along with the right-wing argument against ObamaCare (and before that, Social Security and Medicare): if people get it, they’ll like it, and then they’ll vote for Democrats.

serious bette: regarding whether conservatives will double down, I think it depends on who loses to Obama in the fall.  If it’s Mitt, you’re probably right, especially if the base doesn’t turn out.  If it’s not-Mitt, I think they move to the center.  People tend to always be fighting the previous battle and not the next one (fighting the next battle was the main reasons the Dems won so handily in ‘08).

This is why the eliminationist rhetoric is heating up.  If you can’t unring a bell, you can certainly murder everyone who heard it.

There’s a pretty good review of “Reactionary Mind” a few issues ago in NewYorkReview of Books. The reviewer’s critique of the book is that author insists there’s no real ‘conservative’ ideology - the only thing they do is ‘react’ to progress.

But issues like this really prove Robin’s point. So much of conservatism today is simply an emotional feeling of upset or violation. And it’s a vicious circle - it’s probably as addictive and as destructive to the mind and soul as crystal meth.

You’d think a ‘conservative’ news station actually might try to lull viewers into thinking the nation is better (more just, more equal etc) than it really is. But FOX doesn’t do that - it’s a constant call to arms and a rousing for the rabble. FOX really is ‘fair’ in the sense that it sells the same emotion to everyone: Outrage. Outrage to progressives in its twisting everything into a bizarre, almost unrecognizable caricature and outraging to ‘conservatives’ who so credulously buy that caricature. 

There was another article in a later issue of NYRB about the New Hampshire primary where the author says a local newspaper editor noticed a stark new trend of letters to the editor that sounded like boilerplate FOX talking points. He believed they really belied authors who had given up even thinking for themselves. I don’t think you can see something like that and not see the insidious reach of FOX agit prop.

If Mitt loses to Obama, it will be because Mitt was not a true conservative. But if Santorum loses to Obama, it won’t be because he was too conservative, it will be because the Democrats stole the election.

Not quite sure what the excuse would be for a Gingrich loss.  Maybe just because he’s Gingrich.

Thanks Kyartist (6), that is the point I was going to make to Dave. They will not move to the center. That is the whole point of screaming voter fraud all the time. They think it makes their claims that Democrats steal elections plausible. They are incapable of the level of introspection that is required for them to move to the center.

First, a heads up: apparently conservatives are planning to battle this insurance compromise by lying and calling it “Obama’s abortion mandate”- http://www.americanindependent.com/211450/at-cpac-leaders-urge-steering-birth-control-conversation-toward-abortion

What surprises me about this debate is that if a religious employer opts out of the evil BC coverage, it makes the health insurance company do it.  It makes insurance companies do MORE.  Everyone HATES insurance companies.  That’s one way of framing this: “Tired of your insurance company overcharging you and then trying to deny you coverage?  Well now, we’re going to make them earn a little bit more of their money by demanding that they to do a little bit more for you.”

Also, I’ve been working on this hypothetical example.  If I had a medical condition where I broke out in an irritating rash after having sex, no one would seem to mind much if my doctor gave me a pill to prevent the rash.  But my doctor giving me a pill to prevent another human being growing inside my body, well that’s beyond the pale.

But since I’m male, I don’t know how well that analogy holds up.  Conservacrazies probably do want women to get rashes after having sex.

Kyarist - the explanation for a Gingrich loss will also be that he was insufficiently pure - in both his personal life and because of things he did while in office that didn’t involve cheating on his wife.

serious bette - agreed, but that’s because their ideological leaders are radio and TV pundits who have the luxury of insisting on purity without having to deal with accountability for actually running anything.

“Conservacrazies probably do want women to get rashes after having sex.”

...well, if the rash was visible, it would make it easier to spot the sluts (defined as any woman who willingly has non-procreational sex) and thus target them for stoning.  As we know, the old ways are the best ways, and sluts need to get what’s coming to them…

An interesting facet of this dynamic is that the right wing—in the guise of the GOP, Fox News, and the teabaggers—is fighting over shrinking territory.  The Democrats, quite notably of late under Obama, have captured and embraced a great deal of what was traditionally considered right wing policy ground.  The ostensibly liberal party has snuggled in deeply with the predatory financial sector, the insurance companies, Big Pharma, Monsanto and the food giants, the Drug War, and the imperial/industrial complex.  That leaves GOP candidates with precious little by which to distinguish themselves.  So they’ve resorted to openly racist and laughably fantastic rhetoric (‘Obama is a Kenyan-born secret Muslim socialist!’), and they’ve gone proudly and completely medieval in their continuing pursuit of the Culture Wars.

I don’t expect the right wing to fold, nor do I expect them to move toward the mythical Center.  They’ll bide their time, keep the crazy stoked, and wait until the republic backs into the rocky sinkhole.  (One might be able to argue that it’s backing more slowly right now, but it’s still moving backward.)  Then the police state that Obama and the Democrats inherited and enthusiastically continued to build will fall into their hands.  The true nature of our country will then make itself known, and it’s going to be ugly.

Reactionaries don’t recognize progress as progress. The world came into existence for them as soon as they became aware of it, so they have no sense of history. They don’t recognize patterns. Everything they don’t like is just another fucking thing they don’t like. Some of them may have a fantasy of the way the world should be, but that’s not the majority. The majority simply don’t know why they believe or think anything. Their only interest is in displacing their own boredom and dissatisfaction with life into pissing off anyone who makes them feel stupid.

”...apparently conservatives are planning to battle this insurance compromise by lying and calling it “Obama’s abortion mandate”...”

I’m waiting to see when the lunacy gets to the point where failing to have sex during her fertile time is also considered “abortion” (because a chance to create a new human being was lost, which is exactly the same as if they were murdered!!!) 

All over the planet there are eggs that die unfertilized.  All over the planet there is semen that is wasted before realizing its homunculoid potential. 

...Gee, I wonder if we can do something to address this great evil?

Then the Masturbation and Menstruation Police get created and we’re all screwed…so to speak…

Yeah, I mentioned something like this in the “Bring it on” thread (a long post which I won’t reprint here) where I said I wasn’t worried about a Santorum nomination because I don’t see any way Santorum could become president running against Obama. I also said that if Santorum was nominated and lost in the general, it might force the Republican party to move to the center, but it was also possible that the Repubs would double down even further in 2014 and 2016.

Needless to say, a few posters replying to me said that it was far more likely that the Repubs would double down even if Satorum got nominated and lost because “conservatism can’t fail, it can only be failed” and the Repubs would come up with any crazy excuse, including massive electoral fraud or Santorum losing “because he’s not a real conservative” or something else even more crazy. I don’t want to believe that the Republicans are that incapable of changing, but if many of them are really dumb enough to believe the obvious lie that Obama was not born in the United States, then maybe they really are so moronic that they can’t change at all.

Well, if we can’t change them, then we have to fight them. I’m glad we got Obama on our side on this. The whole contraception “controversy” is working out in our favor even better than I could have imagined because now Santorum and Gingrich are attacking Romney over covering contraception in Romneycare. Anything that damages Romney now can only help Obama in the general. Once again, Obama has turned the guys running for the Republican nomination into a circular firing squad. It’s fucking brilliant.

There’s a pretty good review of “Reactionary Mind” a few issues ago in NewYorkReview of Books. The reviewer’s critique of the book is that author insists there’s no real ‘conservative’ ideology - the only thing they do is ‘react’ to progress.

But issues like this really prove Robin’s point. So much of conservatism today is simply an emotional feeling of upset or violation.

Damn right. This is the second time in, like, a week that I’ve quoted this Krugman column on Pandagon, but it’s stuck with me ever since I read it.

Think of it this way: there was a time when you could say that the right had a model of how the economy worked. A silly model, yes, since it depended on implausibly large effects of marginal tax rates on incentives. Still, supply-side economics had a point of sorts.

But can you discern any model in what Malpass wrote, or for that matter in almost anything on the WSJ editorial page? I can’t. All I see is a bunch of prejudices, strung together with some vaguely economistic-sounding phrases, something like someone talking gibberish that sort of sounds like Swedish. In the world according to the WSJ, low taxes are good (unless the people involved are low income lucky duckies), regulation bad, low inflation good, low interest rates bad, strong dollar good — and don’t ask why.

Krugman put more bluntly something that I (and all of us) had been noticing for a long, long time: Conservatives don’t really “do” science or philosophy or even ideology, because a consistent, coherent point isn’t really what they’re going for. They pretend they’re doing science or philosophy or whatever, and wrap their reactionary ramblings in a veneer of those things, because they understand on some level the value of them. But they don’t themselves value them. What they value is traditional power structures, and whatever rationalization serves those power structures at the moment is Truth, even if there’s a new Truth five minutes later. Which is, of course, just as True.

functionally arguing that if you work for someone who is against contraception, you should be blocked from getting free contraception from a third party, even though it doesn’t involve your employer at all.

I get the feeling that when a wingnut hears “I Sold My Soul to the Company Store,” (s)he laments the days when working class people really were shackled in virtually every aspect of their lives to their employers.

Reminds me of the fiasco over the censorship of Lady Chatterly’s Lover in England. The attorney for the state was a clueless rich guy, and at one point during the trial, he said, “Would you let your servants read this book?” He took it as a given that an employer can act like his/her employee’s mommy or daddy*, a notion which the middle-class jury (who didn’t even have servants) wasn’t quite so comfortable with.

*But say “nanny state” and watch wingnuts shit their pants. ^_^

The ostensibly liberal party has snuggled in deeply with the predatory financial sector, the insurance companies, Big Pharma, Monsanto and the food giants, the Drug War, and the imperial/industrial complex.  That leaves GOP candidates with precious little by which to distinguish themselves.  So they’ve resorted to openly racist and laughably fantastic rhetoric (‘Obama is a Kenyan-born secret Muslim socialist!’), and they’ve gone proudly and completely medieval in their continuing pursuit of the Culture Wars.

Sam: I would give Michelle Obama some credit for at least raising the topic of obesity and junk food - that Superbowl ad that had the beverage producers talking nice about decreasing calories and serving sizes is probably directly attributable to her efforts.

About the MIC and drug war, FDR, if you really think about, started both. First there was the drug war which was just an extension of the FBI’s pursuit of prohibition liquor. After prohibition ended, they didn’t want to just let all the “G men” go - hey JOBS man! Under FDR IIRC both cocaine and marijuana were made ‘controlled substances.’

Then of course the military buildup for WWII under FDR essentially never ended.

Liberals love FDR, but we have to admit he had a role in creating these monsters. 

I am not so convinced (though certainly hopeful) that things will work out as strategically well for the Dems as it does in the rosy picture Sutehp paints.  A couple of issues:

(1) the GOP has historically been very good at, as parodied by The Simpsons, running against Mayor Quimby for releasing SideShow Bob even though (a) releasing SideShow Bob was a GOP push in the first place and (b) SideShow Bob was the one the GOP ran against Mayor Quimby.  I have no doubt that the GOP will have at least some success even running Romney against Obama on the issue of “Romneycare” (even if they don’t actually win)

(2) While Santorum is less “electable” than Romney, a Santorum run could work two ways in terms of popular opinion: (a) people look at Santorum and realize just how crazy the GOP is, shifting the balance of power further toward the Democrats or, alternatively, (b) a Santorum run, while futile in the short term, will be yet another Barry Goldwater in 1964 event for the GOP as it will shift the Overton Window (even further) right.

Given “eventheliberal” media’s tendency to frame every issue as “the GOP says X, the Democrats say Y, so the truth must be somewhere in between”, having Santorum define the right side of acceptable debate, just shifts even further rightward where “eventheliberal” media considers where is the middle, which will be, for many people, their reference point for center-left.  Of course, what happens next could unfold one of two ways: (i) if I actually consider what my actual views are on many issues and discover that my reference point for center-left is actually to the right of me, then I will begin to identify as “liberal” and thus start drinking Democratic kool-aid.  OTOH, (ii) if I am wedded to my own self image as “notaliberal” (since “liberal” is a bad word in our discourse now), I will just shift my own views to the right and be even less likely to vote for even an actual centrist like Obama but will be even more likely to vote for the GOP.

@17, Triplanetary,

Oh, I remember that case.  Only the question was “Would you let your wife read this book?” (because husbands had to guard women’s fragile morals, of course.)

As I recall, the reply was “Yes, I would let my wife read it.  I just wouldn’t let my gamekeeper read it.”

Touche!

For what it’s worth, I don’t think many liberals would disagree with Maistre’s analysis, but rather his conclusions: Maistre would say that the problem was that the Ancient Regime didn’t fail, but that it was failed ... sound familiar?

A little off-topic, but wingers like to talk about how great “entrepreneurs” are, how we need to encourage them by cutting capital gains taxes, etc.  (Although Snopes calls it false, it was quite believable at the time when it was reported that W told Blair that “the problem with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.”)  What wingers won’t acknowledge is what a boon universal health care would be for entrepreneurship, because people are afraid to leave a job and start a business when it means losing their health insurance or paying really high prices for individual coverage. Then if the business fails, they’re stuck with all their pre-existing conditions, etc.  I think they’re in reality happier with people being stuck with their jobs and a little fearful of entrepreneurship because it might lead to competition.

Triplanetary @ 17-

I get the feeling that when a wingnut hears “I Sold My Soul to the Company Store,” (s)he laments the days when working class people really were shackled in virtually every aspect of their lives to their employers.

One could see the entire history of the United States since April 1865 as a series of efforts by the defeated Confederate states to get as close as they think they can get away with to recreating slavery, with varying degrees of opposition and acquiescence by the non-former Confederate states.

I’m sure many conservatives read that anecdote in the NYT about the Foxconn employees being roused from their dormitories in the dead of night, given a biscuit and a cup of tea, and forced to work a 12 hour shift fitting iPad glass and thought about how oppressed the 0.1% are that Evil Big Government won’t let them do that to their workers in the United States. The closest we get is migrant labor in agriculture.

Maistre would say that the problem was that the Ancient Regime didn’t fail, but that it was failed ... sound familiar?

Dolchstosslegende is a favorite trope of wingnuts (and their equivalents) throughout history.

The issue I see now with the Republican party is that the principled moderates of the business class have simply died.  This is something we collectively forget but as a historian I can’t.  Barry Goldwater and his group are long dead, the current leaders of the GOP went to college in the late 50’s through the 70s.  They rode a generation of white backlash into power in the 80s and 90s and has that generation grows old and begins to die off the baby boomer generation combined with Gen Y are altering the landscape substantially.  The rug is literally being pulled out from under their base.  So they need to resort to the last vestiges of their cultural votes as their economic support dwindles in the face of the end-game results.  Thus we have them drifting farther and farther right trying to reclaim the white backlash group that simply isn’t alive to vote for them any longer.  The demographics of this country are changing and they’re trying to continue with the old program.

They will have to change though, within the next two decades the old dog whistles are going to collapse as demographics and then we’ll be left with a Ron Paul base of libertarians keeping the republicans in minority position.

Not hard to take away freedom. Look at the patriot act. You just need a good, scary enemy and people will beg you to take their freedom away.

Not hard to take away freedom. Look at the patriot act. You just need a good, scary enemy and people will beg you to take their freedom away.

This has largely been the project of the Pentagon ever since it was built. They got a nice run out of the Communists - an enemy that kept Americans shitting their pants for practically half a century - but if they ever run out of mileage with their current enemy, you can be sure they can produce a new one.

This is why 9/11 conspiracy theories are unnecessary to explain what’s going on. We don’t need to blow up our own buildings; our international adventuring pisses off enough people who are happy to blow up our buildings for us. And that’s a feature, not a bug.

@27, Thing is whether they can find a proper enemy now. Inventing enemies to go to war is easy because nobody knows those foreigners, they’re strange and alien and therefore scary. This however is a domestic thing. They used to scare people by saying negroes will rape your daughters and homos will recruit your sons into their lifestyle and bitches will take all your hard earned money. The change in perception we’ve seen about gay people in recent years has been amazing, and now they aren’t as scary as they used to be. How has that happened and is it applicable to other groups?

How has that happened

TV, mainly.  People’s attitudes change on what they know - while many paople change because of gay friends or family, the role of such programmes as “Queer Eye” shouldn’t be overlooked.  Once they stopped being the ScarySodomiteMonster and became ThatGuyWhoIsFunny, the fear seemed a bit pointless.

and is it applicable to other groups?

Only if the media falls out of love with the idea of Muslims as the new BigScaryAlien.

Thus we have them drifting farther and farther right trying to reclaim the white backlash group that simply isn’t alive to vote for them any longer.  The demographics of this country are changing and they’re trying to continue with the old program.

They will have to change though, within the next two decades the old dog whistles are going to collapse as demographics and then we’ll be left with a Ron Paul base of libertarians keeping the republicans in minority position.
Comment #25: Xeranar

Interesting. The “Emerging GOP majority” of Kevin Phillips in ‘69 would have run its course. Seems like they’re now shifting gears from racist populism into being straight up oligarchy.

Romney basically can’t lose, barring some kind of weird delegate wrangling

Don’t forget about an expectant scandal.

He had 3M stashed away in a Swiss bank account until ’10. He did not report this on disclosure forms and hasn’t released his ’09 returns. The US government fined Romney’s bank, UBS, for helping Americans evade taxes via their offshore accounts.

http://ataxingmatter.blogs.com/tax/2012/02/more-on-swiss-banks-romneys-wifes-trusts-swiss-bank-account-until-2010.html

Known unknowns explain why Hillary once reminded us of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination…perhaps hoping the Whitey tape was for real. You never know.

Tax evasion is a fairly solid disqualifier. Nonetheless, if this pans out, the R establishment could still take the Timothy Geithner route. But worry not, we have Newt on our side. Does anyone doubt that he will to go the full Spiro on Mitt?

and is it applicable to other groups?

Latin@s/Hispanics, trans people, Muslims, Chinese (again).  We’ve a way to go before they’ve run out of available boggarts.

Prop 8 alienated and demented me for exactly this reason. Never having had a right recognized is such a different thing from getting equality and having it taken away. I wasn’t emotionally prepared for the difference. I wanted Reinhardt’s recent ruling to be broader, but the way in which it is narrow spoke to me directly: those 143 days happened, those 18,000 couples are now married, and you don’t get to handwave them away because they don’t fit into your worldview.

I guess my point is: you can unring exactly as many bells as Anthony Kennedy lets you.

The change in perception we’ve seen about gay people in recent years has been amazing, and now they aren’t as scary as they used to be. How has that happened and is it applicable to other groups?

In addition to other things, there just aren’t that many gays in the world. We are thoroughly outnumbered. Straight people are perfectly free not to think about us at all if they don’t want to. The same can be said for many racial minorities. Women are trickier, because they’re constantly underfoot and it’s hard to ignore them and their concerns entirely, because they never stop bitching and nagging.

@Comment #33: twoleftover on 02/13 at 04:55 PM

I guess my point is: you can unring exactly as many bells as Anthony Kennedy lets you.

Supreme Court Justices: the ICBM’s of the culture war.

@ KingElvis:

About the MIC and drug war, FDR, if you really think about, started both. First there was the drug war which was just an extension of the FBI’s pursuit of prohibition liquor. After prohibition ended, they didn’t want to just let all the “G men” go - hey JOBS man! Under FDR IIRC both cocaine and marijuana were made ‘controlled substances.’

Then of course the military buildup for WWII under FDR essentially never ended.

Liberals love FDR, but we have to admit he had a role in creating these monsters.

1. US drug prohibition started with the Harrison Act all the way back in 1914.

2.  I think we can excuse the military build up - there was an actual shooting war going on.  Blame lies with those that followed.

Another column about this: http://mdwp.malibulist.com/2012/02/women-this-is-your-last-chance-by-mike-gold-brainiac-on-banjo-262-a-k-a-chicken-littles-polemic/

I’m waiting to see when the lunacy gets to the point where failing to have sex during her fertile time is also considered “abortion” (because a chance to create a new human being was lost, which is exactly the same as if they were murdered!!!)

You’re behind the times.  This is already a belief among some of the most extreme FLDS groups.  They believe that babies are given souls, and they are just floating around and waiting to be conceived.  If God wanted to give that soul a body that month and you didn’t have sex, it is determined to just spend all eternity floating around without ever becoming human and without ever having a chance to take the test of life and earn the reward of heaven.

the issue I see now with the Republican party is that the principled moderates of the business class have simply died…Barry Goldwater and his group are long dead, the current leaders of the GOP…rode a generation of white backlash into power in the 80s and 90s…

“principled moderate” is an odd positioning of Barry Goldwater. He wrestled the nomination from Nelson Rockerfeller, the quintessential representative of the business class and principled defender of civil rights.

On economics, Goldwater was the prototypical libertarian republican. His votes in congress and his stated ideology marks him as a clear free-marketer…wheras Rockerfeller, Nixon, and Ike were part of the Keynesian consensus, albeit the distinctly right-flank of it.

The most obvious white backlash occurred in ’64, with most (I think) Dixiecrats endorsing Goldwater. The 80’s were much more iffy. The south was still a democratic stronghold on every level except Presidential and you had 2 Dixiecrats as leaders of more progressive party…one as Senate Majority Leader and another as Speaker of the House. Neither had publicly repented afak at the time of their ascension.

“You’re behind the times.  This is already a belief among some of the most extreme FLDS groups.”

True, but I’m anticipating it will go mainstream.  Something that Sunday morning talking-head shows would discuss in a grotesquely simplified black & white way, as if it was something all serious people should be concerned with and not something utterly insane. 

Throw in a few misleadingly-edited O’Keefe videos of a nurse in a medical care facility telling a guy, who looks like a white-guy’s idea of a pimp, and his GF they can track her cycle and wait a few days to have sex, as needed, to avoid an addition to the family.  This will then become another Reichwing excuse to eliminate all women’s health programs and make the practice of gynecology illegal…

Somewhere in America, a woman named Serena Joy is getting ready for her big moment…

True, but I’m anticipating it will go mainstream.  Something that Sunday morning talking-head shows would discuss in a grotesquely simplified black & white way, as if it was something all serious people should be concerned with and not something utterly insane.

I actually agree here, especially with the mainstreaming of the Duggar family.  They like to say that they should have as many kids as possible because one of them might cure cancer, yet they fail to provide any more than a basic education, especially in science.  They seem to believe that careers are handed out by some cosmic lottery and a good education isn’t necessary to achieve something.  And within their cult-like movement, wanting to use birth control is actually blamed on the “abortion mindset”.  Unless you unequivocally think all children all the time is the best possible outcome for every situation, then you might as well be murdering toddlers in their eyes.  And of course, Evangelicals are always trying to one-up the Catholics, so this will score them a point in that game.

  Serious bette at 2: It really isn’t that hard to unring a bell. Just study Jewish history in Central and Eastern Europe during the period between the First and Second World Wars at one point with deadly results. More recently, the Iranian regime and Taliban really did much damage to the place of women in their respective countries among other groups. If reactionary forces want it enough and are well-organized enough, they can get what they want. Anti-liberals and reactionaries are generally rather adapt at representative politics to reach their goals. See Prop 8 for example. See also current Hungarian politics for a European example.

  The reason why reactionaries have generally been less successful in America is more of a happy accident IMO than a sign of permanent liberal success. The Madisonian system can frustrate rightists as much as it does leftists. I also think that our reactionary elements are a bit more unsure of what they want than other, more disciplined reactionary groups. This makes it harder for them to work in concert.

    I really should read the Reactionary Mind because I have several qualms about the basic thesis. Generally, I think that American conservatism is a bit of a different beat than non-American conservatism. Non-American conservatism is generally traceable back to protecting the privileges of the elite and usually has a very privileged class base. This is true whether its in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East or Latin America. Even Political Islam can be seen as a class based conservatism since its trying to preserve the traditional powers of the Islamic clerical class and keep society static. Non-American conservatism is usually able to accept at least some measure of social welfare legislation because, in theory, aristocrats are responsible for the well-being of their social inferiors in conservative ideology. Its why Bismarck instituted the first modern welfare legislation.

    American conservatism never had this class basis and there were always millions of working class Americans who identified as conservative. American conservatism is rooted in strange combination of strident individualism and rampant patriotism mixed with some more questionable and evil elements like racism, xenophobia, and sexism. Lip service to free market capitalism and individualism is much more important to American conservatism than it is to any other type of conservatism. While American conservatives tout about small town values, non-American conservatism is more communalistic in nature.

“principled moderate” is an odd positioning of Barry Goldwater. He wrestled the nomination from Nelson Rockerfeller, the quintessential representative of the business class and principled defender of civil rights.

I didn’t mean for the the moderates and Goldwater to be equated.  I was writing quickly and didn’t explain well enough.  As for the 80s being iffy?  Reagan more or less won on the image of white backlash.  Pretty much the same occurred in the 90s with unnecessary “welfare” reforms.  The generations that put them into power were responding to the loss of perceived privileges due to the shift in civil rights.

While Romney basically can’t lose, barring some kind of weird delegate wrangling that I suppose is always possible but seems unlikely…

I don’t know how likely it is to work, but Rachel Maddow was reporting that the Paul campaign is trying to make sure all the delegates that are appointed are Paul supporters, since the GOP rules basically let delegates vote for whoever the hell they want to, regardless of primary voting outcomes. She was interviewing someone from the Paul campaign Friday night who basically said, “Yeah, we’re trying to game the system, but it’s okay because the GOP gamed the system first in setting up the current rules to try to insure Mitt would win the nomination.”

As for the 80s being iffy?  Reagan more or less won on the image of white backlash.  Pretty much the same occurred in the 90s with unnecessary “welfare” reforms.  The generations that put them into power were responding to the loss of perceived privileges due to the shift in civil rights.

Its iffy in comparison to 1964 because Reagan won all but 3 States, and lost 2 confederate ones. In contrast, Goldwater only won the racist states. His electoral map looked like George Wallace’s, or Adlai Stevenson’s.

Reagan was up against a Southerner with a history of dogwhistling, including a jawdropping moment during the ’76 election when he all but said he wouldn’t enforce the ‘68cra (Fair Housing).  During that decade, Dems had a Speaker and a Majority Leader who both voted against the 64cra. In 1980, of the 33 Governors and Senators of the 11 confederate states, only 10 were Republican.

That leaves us with the notion that White Supremacists put Reagan into power due to his racially charged anti-welfare State rhetoric. That is likely a factor but you waaaay overstate the case and neglect the fact that Dems still had civil rights opponents who were also welfare statists on their side.I mean, even freakin’ George Wallace was Governor (as a Dem) during the 80’s.

Manju, look up the town where Reagan formally kicked off his Presidential bid in 1980, then get back to us.

American conservatism never had this class basis and there were always millions of working class Americans who identified as conservative. American conservatism is rooted in strange combination of strident individualism and rampant patriotism mixed with some more questionable and evil elements like racism, xenophobia, and sexism. Lip service to free market capitalism and individualism is much more important to American conservatism than it is to any other type of conservatism. While American conservatives tout about small town values, non-American conservatism is more communalistic in nature.

I agree with all of this, but I still think American conservatism’s ultimate goal is the preservation and benefit of the ruling class. It’s just that American conservatism is remarkably adept at convincing a bunch of lower- and middle-class people that their interests are the same as those of the ruling class. The individualism you point out is a major vector for doing so.

“I agree with all of this, but I still think American conservatism’s ultimate goal is the preservation and benefit of the ruling class. It’s just that American conservatism is remarkably adept at convincing a bunch of lower- and middle-class people that their interests are the same as those of the ruling class. The individualism you point out is a major vector for doing so.”

The ability of our overlords to manipulate lower- and middle-class voters to vote against their own interests is reminiscent of previous examples of fascism, at least in the sense of promoting the interests of the few against the interests of the many while convincing the many they were benefiting themselves…

On the Chatterley trial, the full quote refers to both wives and servants:

“You may think that one of the ways in which you can test this book, and test it from the most liberal outlook, is to ask yourself the question, when you have read it through, would you approve of your young sons, young daughters - because girls can read as well as boys - reading this book? Is it a book you would even wish your wife or your servant to read?”

It wasn’t the only thing that sunk the prosecution case, but the defence counsel knew its worth and quoted it in the closing address.

re: A Santorum nomination

My worry with that is not that people will finally see what a frothingly theistic lunatic Santorum is, but that the Dems will assiduously avoid pointing this out knowing that the Repubs and the media will immediately paint any critique of him as an anti-christian attack on sacred religious values. If there’s one thing the media adamantly refuses to be “both sides” about, it’s religion. You are absolutely not allowed to question religious belief (or its policy implications) in this country. This also allows the tea-partiers to continue screaming about Obama being a muslim/atheist/antichrist.

Even if Santorum runs and loses, the mere fact that women’s access to birth control gets debated on television by people running for president entrenches the idea that women’s access and equality are negotiable and in fact illegitimate.

because girls can read as well as boys

They can?! Shit, I need to run home and hide some things now.

Manju, look up the town where Reagan formally kicked off his Presidential bid in 1980, then get back to us.

New York City?

I meant after he was nominated as the Republican Candidate, Manju:

Reagan’s visit

On August 3, 1980, Ronald Reagan gave his first post-convention speech at the Neshoba County Fair after being officially chosen as the Republican nominee for President of the United States. He said, “I believe in states’ rights ... I believe we have distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the Constitution to that federal establishment.” He went on to promise to “restore to states and local governments the power that properly belongs to them”.[5] Analysts believed that his use of the phrase was seen by many as a tacit appeal to Southern white voters and a continuation of Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy, while some argued it reflected Reagan’s libertarian economic beliefs. The speech drew attention for his use of the phrase “states’ rights” at a place just a few miles from a town associated with the 1964 murders of civil rights workers.

Link

  MikeEss, I really disagree with the idea that lower and middle class people who support conservative politics are voting against their self-interest. Its a very paternalistic, in a bad way, view of politics. If a person believes that his or her self-interest is going for the middle to upper class than voting conservative makes sense because they would be able to keep more of their wealth they are in. An individual’s self-interest does not necessarily correlate to whatever groups they belong to and a person might choose to make their politics based on personal self-interest rather than group self-interest. A person is also a member of multiple groups and these groups might have conflicting interests. Lets say you have somebody who is wealthy and a homosexual. If that person views him or herself as a homosexual that happens to be wealthy than they should vote Democratic because that would be their self-interest as a homosexual. OTOH, if they view him or herself as a wealthy person that happens to be homosexual than they should vote Republican, its in their self-interest as wealthy people.

  I also disagree with the idea that the masses who supported the NSDAP where dipped into voting against their self-interest. First, it allows people to avoid taking blame for supporting evil politicians. In a democracy, you can’t let yourself be duped. Second, its to close to the Marxist view of fascism as being a tool of the capitalist class to seduce the proletariat into voting against their self-interest. I find the Marxist take on fascism to be fundamentally flawed. Thirdly, most Germans did quite well from a materialistic perspective under the Third Reich because the Nazis were able to fund a lot of social programs by plundering Jews. This is very well-documentated historically. Since most Germans did well from a materialistic perspective under the NSDAP than it wasn’t necessarily against their self-interest to support them until the tide of WWII reversed.

Lee, delussion that a lower middle class voter is voting his/her self-interest in voting for lower taxation on people who make 10x+ what s/he does that leads to cuts in services/tax breaks for themselves does not make it actually voting self-interest.  The GOP has worked very hard for my entire life, and before, to convience the lower middle class that this delusion is reality as part of getting them to vote against their self-interest.

MikeEss, I really disagree with the idea that lower and middle class people who support conservative politics are voting against their self-interest. Its a very paternalistic, in a bad way, view of politics.

Hardly. Most people are dumbfucks when it comes to politics, just passively absorbing whatever they hear from an hour or so of news every night. This applies to the poor and the wealthy equally*. The point is, conservatives want our political system to benefit a tiny minority of people. This is a democracy, so bending it to that purpose requires getting a lot of people to agree with you that the system should not benefit them, but should benefit that tiny minority of rich mofos. As such, the GOP has made it its project to lie, mislead, and gaslight the lower- and middle-classes. It’s not that the lower class is more susceptible to it; just that there are more of them than there are millionaires, and the GOP needs the numbers. Democracy and all.

*The top 1%, and especially the top 0.1%, tend to be very politically active, of course, for obvious reasons. But somebody making, say, $250,000 a year is just as likely to be politically asinine as somebody making $30,000, in my experience. (The top 0.1% percent are also politically asinine, of course, in their own mendacious way.)

Egnu Cledge @51:

[T]he mere fact that women’s access to birth control gets debated on television by people running for president entrenches the idea that women’s access and equality are negotiable and in fact illegitimate.

Precisely. It’s not that some women are going to have to pay $50 or whatever for their monthly supply of the Pill, although that’s also a problem. The much bigger problem is that the acceptability of contraception is even up for discussion in a way that no other kind of medication is subjected to.

It frames women’s daily lives and normal concerns as public property.