Are Conservatives Getting Crazier?
http://prospect.org/article/are-conservatives-getting-crazier
Are Conservatives Getting Crazier?
Paul Waldman
March 19, 2012
It depends on how you look at it.
Every four years, presidential candidates from both parties say, "This is the most important election of our lifetimes." Reporters predict that this will be the most negative campaign in history. Partisans say that if their side loses, the disaster will echo through decades, and we believe that our opponents are more dastardly than they've ever been. And over the last couple of years, we liberals have looked at conservatives and thought that they have reached levels of craziness unseen before.
So historian/author/smart guy Rick Perlstein, who knows more about the conservative movement of the last half-century than pretty much anyone, warns us that what we're seeing now is really nothing new:
Although Perlstein acknowledges that "What's changed is that loony conservatives are now the Republican mainstream, the dominant force in the GOP," this is what makes all the difference. You can still make the case that conservatives are crazier now, because the key factor isn't the craziness of the craziest idea circulating among themsay, that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and successfully engineered a massive conspiracy to cover it up, as opposed to the idea that Dwight Eisenhower was a communist agentit's how widely those ideas are held, and by whom. The conspiracy theories and hate-driven beliefs find purchase not just on the fringe, but among elected lawmakers, influential media figures, and in many cases, a majority of Republican voters.
So when they gain power, real people's lives are affected. For example, many conservatives never stopped believing that women who make their own sexual decisions are dirty sluts, but since so many Republicans won office in 2010, that belief translated into a torrent of legislation. In 2011, a record 92 pieces of state legislation restricting abortion rights were enacted, along with measures to restrict access to contraception and renew the failure that is abstinence-only sex education.
And in the Republican party of today, looniness practically operates on a ratchet, moving only in one direction. That's because there are almost no moderates left in the party to push back. In order for a party to undergo an ideological shift, it needs an internal force willing to champion that shift. Let's say the GOP suffers a big defeat in this year's elections. Who is going to successfully argue that the party needs to turn its back on its nuttiest elements? All the moderates who have retired in disgust or been purged in primaries? They're gone, and the Republicans who are left couldn't care less what they have to say. No, if the Republicans lose, everyone in the party will agree that they only lost because they weren't conservative enough, that they didn't take on the hated Barack Obama with sufficient venom and fury. And the center of gravity within the party will move even farther to the fringe.
NAO
(3,425 posts)New out from Chris Mooney next month is "The Republican Brain". You can get a synopsis/excerpt at the link below:
The Republican Brain: Why Even Educated Conservatives Deny Science -- and Reality
New research shows that conservatives who consider themselves well-informed and educated are also deeper in denial about issues like global warming.
http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/154252/the_republican_brain_why_even_educated_conservatives_deny_science__and_reality
other real empirical research (as opposed to partisan screeds) include:
Moral Poltics, George Lakoff (cognitive linguist, MIT)
The Political Brain, George Lakoff (cognitive linguist, MIT)
The Political Mind, Drew Weston (psychologist, Emory)
The Reactionary Mind, Corey Robin (Brooklyn College)
Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics, Marc J. Hetherington & Jonathan D. Weiler
babylonsister
(171,070 posts)chaska
(6,794 posts)Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)I wouldn't have believed they could get this bad so fast. What will happen is moderates, like I was will be totally turned off and will become more liberal and vow to never vote for any Republican ever again under any circumstance. Other moderates will go to the Independent party where it is ok to be somewhat conservative and not actually be bat shit crazy as well. I think there is a real reason to think Republicans will become a fringe party again, because right now their fringe elements are making them look insane and the fringe is taking some of the more conservative portions of the group and infecting them with paranoia I wish I could enjoy watching this party crash and burn. But, I can't I still think we need to opposing yet sane parties. Now we are stuck with one party and no other option.
The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)The content has always been this crazed, and crazed has entered the mainstream of political life.
GiveMeFreedom
(976 posts)And the center of gravity within the party will move even farther to the fringe
I hope the repubs wind up in a black hole that shifts them to a reality from which there is no escape. Left to their own devices, there doing a damn fine job!!
tapermaker
(244 posts)when i find out someone is a republican ,I see it as a character flaw.I no longer even want to listen to what they have to say. Its always the exact opposite of what any thinking sane person beleives .