The Partisan Divide on Issues

[David Horn]

(10-31-2020, 03:05 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Conservatives made something of a comeback after 1968, but it was a partial one, and after Watergate it went away. Many reform movements continued in the 1970s with important results. The conservative era, which had its forerunners in the mid and late sixties (during a progressive time), really began with Reagan. He instituted trickle-down economics, aka neo-liberalism, which is a racist dog whistle, but is not entirely racist. It appeals to economic libertarians. It was anti-taxation and regulation. Wholly unnecessary, it was brought about because big interests found the movements of the Awakening like consumerism and environmentalism cutting into their bottom line. They hired Reagan to deceive people into following them. He was a master communicator and a brilliant faux-macho charming actor whom Gen X grew up with, and they absorbed the lies and have stuck with him through Bush, Gingrich, Bush Jr., Paul Ryan. Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump. Many Silents and Boomers were persuaded to give up their sixties and seventies idealism and join in the greedy fun. Strauss and Howe called the 1984 victory an all-generational acquiescence into indulgence.

So it was more than the racist vote versus the black vote. There are a lot of concerns around which our current polarization has developed.

Where you live, I think you're right. Where I live, not so much.  Here, and many places less urban than the Blue Coasts, there was a fascination with all things Southern starting with the Nixon era, but really gaining speed under Carter (or perhaps, Carter was another example of the trend).  It's only beginning to wane today.  

Baked-in culture is much harder to dislodge than more superficial and temporary fads, and we baked in that culture for decades.  Of course the 3T ran overly long.  A lot of it was the immense anti-hippie backlash, and some is more mundane, like religion.  But the prime motivator was a fear of an uncertain future ... of progress itself. Moving that toward another belief structure will be many decades in the making.