re: #14 sagehen

I blame Ronald Reagan.

It was a devil’s bargain when he brought Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson into the process — they’d agree to get all their followers on board with conservative economics and foreign policy, in return for the Republican party adopting their version of Christian Values (tm) on social issues and lifestyle matters. I don’t think RR anticipated that the early 80’s purge of liberals from the party would advance endlessly, chipping away rightward toward the fringes until all that’s left of the GOP is wild-eyed fanatics.

That was compounded by Rove’s ‘permanent Republican majority’ by appealing to the evangelical base. They stitched together social conservatives with fiscal conservatives but the wheels came off the wagon when they sold out the fiscals for the socials under W.