I just finished a whole new book on why Conservatism and Liberalism exist. Each is an intellectual manifestation of a primitive Darwinian psychology which you see in nature, everywhere. Conservatism is designed to confront resource shortage, while Liberalism is designed to exploit resource excess. (see my profile for more detail on this and the r/K Theory behind it.) You see this in microbiology all the time. Place bacteria in a tough, demanding environment, and they will evolve all sorts of complex adaptations. Remove them to an environment of ease and free resources (in a petri dish) and they devolve, losing all of their complex adaptations as they evolve to simply convert free resources into more and more simpler organisms.
The problem now is that we have had a very long period of resource excess, where there has been essentially no competitive selections for any type of fitness, competitive drive, honor, loyalty, etc. In biology, that is an r-type environment, and it produces an r-type, Liberal psychology. As r-selection is wont to do, today the unmotivated, entitled welfare idiots are producing 10 less capable children a pop (all government subsidized and single parented), while we produce one or two. It's Idiocracy in action, and it is fueling a rise in Liberalism and entitlement.
I mean, you want to blame this on the Hippies, but where did you think the Hippies came from? Take every honor-bound, competitively driven male out of the populace (through drafting them for WWII), and twenty years later the children of the dregs that were left behind are the Hippies of the 60’s. This is a genetic effect.
We will continue to see Leftism increase for a bit more, until the coming debt collapse, when people will either have to compete and produce on their own, leave for somewhere else, or die. It won't be fun, as we will all have trouble supporting ourselves just like in the Depression. But the welfarites are going to find out what it is to not be able to blackmail half of the populace into paying all of their bills. I suspect a lot will leave for Venezuela, Canada, Cuba, Britain, or some other more socialist environ with free stuff for nothing. If we're smart, we'll pay for their plane ticket.
Just as in history, our successful society will gradually decline into failure, undergo an uncomfortable period of competitive selection, and then we will re-emerge without all of the unproductive dead weight or the idiotic r-type Liberalism. Think of the WWII generation coming out of the Great Depression. We'll be competitive, patriotic, loyal, and Conservative. We'll innately view Liberals as inferior, and reject their mindless ramblings as the moronic drivel it is.
If you understand evolutionary biology, it is funny how we are all just like big animals, despite all the intellect and personality. Apply r-selection pressures by providing free resources, and see a gradual diminution in competitiveness, monogamy, high-investment two-parent child rearing, and sexual chastity. All of a sudden you have a lot of cowardly, promiscuous, single parent favoring Liberals, railing-at-the-heavens-angry that they aren't just given free birth control, control over the nation, and loyal spouses.
Apply K-selection pressures, forcing competition for limited resources, and all of the goodness returns, and suddenly the populace is loyal, competitive, monogamous, chaste, polite, and desirous that children be reared properly in a two parent home. It's coming, and there is nothing Liberals can do to stop it.
“Take every honor-bound, competitively driven male out of the populace (through drafting them for WWII), and twenty years later the children of the dregs that were left behind are the Hippies of the 60’s. This is a genetic effect.”
Actually, no. The Hippies, largely, were born after 1945 - they were the kids of our war heroes. The war heroes wanted, I suspect, just wanted to make life as easy as possible for their kids, so they didn’t bother being parents to them. Then you add TV, birth control, and God knows what else, and you have the mess we have today.
this cycle if you are correct could take a very long time to play out. Look at the roman empire their end days they got lazy with nature helping them they literally starved to death with. Food that they might have had was worth more then the whole empire.
The empire fell Islam moved in and it took centuries to pick up the pieces. that is a long cycle with a huge risk of losing all of civilization for good.