No. of Recommendations: 4
I had to agree. Even with albaby's comparison to Czervik, it still is bewildering to me. This isn't remotely the same party I left over 20 years ago. They may have the same name, but they would be unrecognizable to conservative luminaries like Goldwater.
Parties shift from time to time. I doubt a Democrat from the 1970's would recognize the Democratic party in the 1990's, for example. It happens.
We're not just seeing it here - right-wing parties across the globe are becoming far more populist than they ever were. Conservatives are jettisoning some of the policy positions that were disliked by working class social conservatives. They're abandoning the business class on issues like free trade, immigration, industrial policy, government austerity and entitlement programs, and military interventionism. They are fighting for - and winning! - the votes of people who are fiscally liberal and socially conservative.
It's the conservative solution to the dilemma in What's the Matter With Kansas?, where the title referred to Kansans' propensity to vote against their economic interests in order to get (often illusory) commitments to the social conservatism they wanted.
They accepted a Devil's Bargain - the social conservative positions they wanted were tied to a fiscal conservatism that was horrible for them. Thomas Frank thought those Kansans should prioritize their economic needs over social issues. Instead, the GOP has now shifted away from the hardcore fiscal conservatism that motivated the Goldwater Republicans, and instead embraced some big swatches of leftist fiscal policy - untouchable entitlements in Medicare and Social Security and protectionist trade policy.
