Between now and November, conservative leaders will dutifully try to rally the troops to stave off a Democratic victory. But their hearts won't be in the fight. The decline of conservatism leaves a vacuum in American politics. An unhappy electorate is waiting to see who will fill it.
Could he be correct about conservatism?
I think that there IS a vacuum in American politics, which stems from lack of leadership and direction under the majority rule of Republicans in the House, Senate, White House and Judiciary. The mood for change in this country is becoming more and more palpable.
Most conservatives oppose the minimum wage on principle as a form of government meddling in the marketplace. But moderate Republicans in jeopardy this fall desperately wanted an increase in the minimum wage.So the seemingly ingenious Republican leadership, which dearly wants deep cuts in the estate tax, proposed offering nickels and dimes to the working class to secure billions for the rich. Fortunately, though not surprisingly, the bill failed.
The episode was significant because it meant Republicans were acknowledging that they would not hold congressional power without the help of moderates. That is because there is nothing close to a conservative majority in the United States.
Yet their way of admitting this was to put on display the central goal of the currently dominant forces of politics: to give away as much as possible to the truly wealthy. You wonder what those blue-collar conservatives once known as Reagan Democrats made of this spectacle.
Indeed, the sensible Republicans have determined that their party has been hijacked by a bunch of hacks, incapable of delivering fiscal control, or guarding the national security. All that leaves of the conservative movement is a bunch of crackpot Neocons, and their religious right groupies. Not a majority.