The US is moving rightward and shows no sign of correcting the course.
What indications do you see that convince you this is true as a permanent trend?
Bush adopts their issues and governs like a deficit addicted free spending democrat.
But doesn't having the party leadership do this tend to move the Republicans leftward?
As a result, a breach is opening up where a moderate left party should be.
What about RINOs, are they misplaced moderate leftists, and wouldn't they jump ship to a more influential moderate left party making 'Pubs weaker as a result?
Small 'l' libertarianism is the nascent replacement for the Democratic party.
Well it would be better than Green Party-lite which is what it is now. I wonder if a Scoop Jackson wing could ever reform in a libertarian Democrat party. It would be nice to have loyal hawkish center-right opposition, rather than McGovernized socialists.
As a continuing trend, see the FCC's terrorizing of broadcast media, Bush's pressure for religious funding, the move towards charter schools, in-home schooling becoming more popular, the locking in of low tax rates, Ashcroft's ability to traduce the Tenth Amendment at will with little public outcry, and the continued freefall of organized labor. Not to mention loosening of gun laws such as concealed carry spreading, and the outright open carry in Virginia.
The phenomenon of Fox News with more viewers than other cable news networks combined is part of cable's draining of viewers from the liberal broadcast networks into botique channels of narrow interest that is not necessarily as leftist as the big 3.
Liberal print media is losing its gateway to the internet, where news is out before it can be massaged and spun. Circulation of the NYT is dropping by the amount it is going up at the conservative New York Post and the Daily News, and if the experience of Newsday and the Chicago Tribune (?) are any indication, the liberal circulation figures are inflated as it is, meaning they are losing more readers than they will admit.
The experience of CBS being forced by viewers to dump the Ronald Reagan smear job alongside the humiliation of the Dixie Chicks, Linda Ronstadt, and Don Henley is an indication that the silent majority is no longer silent, and is making itself felt. This does not seem to be a temporary condition.
But doesn't having the party leadership do this tend to move the Republicans leftward?
Not necessarily. It means they no longer feel the need to be fiscally responsible which means there are no qualms in running up deficits while enacting their agenda. The agenda hasn't moved leftward, with notable exceptions such as funding the NEH and the CPB. The constraints are off in achieving their goals, even if it means mortgaging the future to buy the silence of the squeaky wheels.
What about RINOs, are they misplaced moderate leftists, and wouldn't they jump ship to a more influential moderate left party making 'Pubs weaker as a result?
Yup. There aren't enough libertarians to do it alone, and there's only one Ron Paul. But there are lots of itchy Rinos willing to abandon an intrusive socially conservative republican party.
I wonder if a Scoop Jackson wing could ever reform in a libertarian Democrat party.
Yes. Fiscal conservatives sufficiently agitated by federal intrusion into schools and construing the commerce clause to regulate every aspect of our lives can be counted on to support a replacement for the Democrats.