11-14-2018, 04:34 PM
(11-08-2018, 11:50 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Welcome to the forum.
I was with you, until your conclusion. I think the Democrats already tried going economic conservative, in the 1990s. That is over. The only solution to this unprecedented gridlock is for one side to win and the other side to lose.
The combination of economic conservatism and social liberalism is libertarian. That philosophy leads nowhere; Americans cannot create a workable society by means of libertarian principles; we are too greedy, and in any case, since libertarians want to tear down government, it has no means to enforce social liberty either.
There is no clockwise movement with any precedent. Economic liberalism did not exist in America until the 1890s populist shift.
This isn't an intuitive conclusion and it doesn't line up with how things appear to be going, but it has never happened in American history for a party to go counterclockwise (hopefully this makes more sense now with the pictures in my prior post). The best example of this is TR running as a third party candidate trying desperately to keep the Republicans Progressive but he lost. The "flank" of a party has never been able to pull a party back in its direction. We could be at a unique moment as this is the first time that the "Conservative-Conservative" voters are set to become Democrats and the "Liberal Liberal" voters are set to become Republicans. Very much feels like immovable object/unstoppable force, which helps explain the extreme partisanship and gridlock we're seeing.
As for libertarianism, it doesn't neatly fit onto this. I would tend to agree with your assessment, but as a voting block they just aren't a big factor. For the most part, social libs and econ cons are already Democrats. Trump pretty much got that sorting to 100%. I think most of this cycle breaking is dependent on the Con-Cons, the highly educated wealthy white Republicans who for moral and logical reasons are feeling "left behind" by the Trump Republican Party.
And thanks for the welcome :
