Reply #5: many of them will never "realize they've been wrong."

[phantom power]

As Kunstler says, "there may never be any moment of clarity, only new forms of confusion."

Oh, and see this:

George W Bush has won two elections with the unquestioning support of conservatives. Yet, in his first term he made it quite obvious that he was not a conservative in any sense that I understood conservative. From out of control spending to federalizing education to nation building and messianic foreign policy, he has simply not been conservative by any common definition of the term. None of that stopped conservatives from virtually worshipping the man. It is only now that he has become unpopular and his policies are failing that his brand of conservatism is being criticized on the right.

George W. Bush will not achieve a place in the Republican pantheon. Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. By liberalism.

Dave Neiwert chimed in on this discussion yesterday and wrote a very intriguing post in which he posits that the modern Republican party might more aptly be called a political religion, which, as it happens, is an acknowledged sociological designation.

(...)

We hate ourselves for losing and hate our leaders for failing us. The conservatives just put theirs out to pasture and move on, secure in the knowledge that their greater faith will prevail. It must be very nice to live in a world in which you can never, ever be wrong.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#114027531212392066