re: #278 Jay C

Well, not be too much of a downer, but while you are certainly right about the first bit, the “catching up” part seems to have been definitely shifted to the “later” category, at least in the US. Hopefully not permanently…

The problem isn’t that “the voters” (as a whole) aren’t as rabidly “conservative” as perceived, but that *just* enough of them are - considering that the right-most tend to vote regularly, consistently, and in blocs - to skew the perceptions (and realities) of the political structures of this country. Yeah, poll after poll shows most of the right wing’s political/cultural obsessions (abortions, guns, gay issues, etc.) are “unpopular” by about 2-1 margins; usually at worst 60-40. But unless “the voters” get off their backsides and actually translate those opinions into electoral results, we’re still going to to be stuck with, effectively, minority rule for the foreseeable future.

An unfortunate fact of life in a democracy: a cohesive and committed minority will [?usually? ?often? ?sometimes?] be able to direct the political scene no matter what the apathetic majority might think. And even more unfortunately, too many of that minority just want to simplify the political scene by getting rid of democracy altogether…

But what is popular about right wing politics is that it plays into American understandings of “freedom” as “freedom from social obligation as a product of community.” This is a hyperindividualist culture, to a degree that’s unhealthy and personally destructive, particularly when paired with a fascination with applying moralism to individual bodies through schemes of punishment and negative reinforcement.

Also…and I don’t know how to say this nicely…Americans are so individualist that many of them feel attacked when you propose that a problem could be systemic, that society constructs the facility in which the specific Bad Things happen. When you propose a systemic analysis, Americans tend to see a challenge to their personal virtue and get offended; when you talk about a specific bad person as a phenomenon only possible within a system that makes their behavior easier, they see it as making excuses.

Everyone’s waiting for a hero, for a guy that intuitively rises to be in charge and solve the problem. Each American is not just a temporarily embarrassed millionaire, but a temporarily embarrassed Byronic hero.

It’s a language of morality and governance that’s impoverished, Orwell-like, and conservatives prosper by playing into these cultural base assumptions: they will happy provide an endless roster of internal and external enemies, delight in their suffering, tell their audience that problems can be solved through the effort of singular Great Men that simply need the space—no accountability, no skepticism—to work their miracle.