Posted on 01/03/2013 12:09:45 PM PST by SeekAndFind
In case you've forgotten, many conservatives had sought to explain away Mitt Romney's loss by reasoning that we had finally reached a tipping point where Americans were voting for candidates who supported the welfare state, based solely on their own pecuniary interests. And I argued that voters do want to be given something by Republican politicians: Hope, optimism, and vision.
But while I dismissed that premise, there may be an even larger fundamental problem that should alarm conservatives even more: Too many Americans simply no longer agree with them on the merits.
We should have seen it coming. Back in 1999 — on the cusp of George W. Bush's presidency, and as Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress — conservative leader Paul Weyrich issued a controversial open letter declaring that conservatives "probably have lost the culture war."
As Weyrich wrote:
In looking at the long history of conservative politics, from the defeat of Robert Taft in 1952, to the nomination of Barry Goldwater, to the takeover of the Republican Party in 1994, I think it is fair to say that conservatives have learned to succeed in politics. That is, we got our people elected.
But that did not result in the adoption of our agenda. The reason, I think, is that politics itself has failed. And politics has failed because of the collapse of the culture. The culture we are living in becomes an ever-wider sewer. In truth, I think we are caught up in a cultural collapse of historic proportions, a collapse so great that it simply overwhelms politics.
In recent months, it has been especially depressing to be a conservative. In the past, one could more easily endure the ranting of liberal commentators by taking solace that — outside of New York City and Washington, D.C. — most of the country was center-right. Thus, whenever an elite liberal commentator said something fringy, one could always console himself by saying (or at least thinking): "I hope you push that idea, because you'll keep losing elections in real America."
Today, conservatives have made a shocking discovery: They are the ones in danger of appearing out of touch with middle America.
Weyrich, it turns out, might have been a Cassandra. At the time, of course, his letter was criticized by many of his conservative friends, who had, after all, toiled in the trenches for years to elect Ronald Reagan. They were still optimistic that we were on the verge of some sort of permanent governing majority that would allow a new leader to finish what Reagan started. But today, it looks as though Weyrich was quite prescient.
To be sure, his idea wasn't entirely original. Years earlier, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed, "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society." Years later, Andrew Breitbart would popularize this notion, and introduce it to a new generation of conservatives. But Weyrich was making an observation at a time when it would have been easy to dismiss such reflection as premature — or even pessimistic. (Indeed, many of his contemporaries did exactly that.)
Predictably, conservatives tended to ignore this inconvenient truth about the culture, persuading themselves that winning elections — and ostensibly passing conservative laws (though they did that less frequently) — were what mattered. (Or maybe it was that they convinced themselves that because they could win elections — because the American public supported their politics — it implied a "silent majority" of Americans were still traditional, salt-of-the-earth types.)
In the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, Republicans did quite well electorally. Simultaneously, however, our society became coarser, more permissive, less traditional, and more socially liberal. And while politicians won elections, our young people turned to Hollywood for guidance. For every Republican elected, there were 10 films or songs (many of them quite good, actually) selling sex, drugs, and violence. Of course, this all comes down to that clichéd line about the breakdown of the family unit. It's clichéd because it's true.
Now: In the wake of the House GOP's capitulation on the Senate-passed fiscal cliff bill (which does nothing to rein in entitlement spending), some prominent conservatives are beginning to notice that today's electoral and public policy defeats are a natural byproduct of having lost the culture war.
For example, over at Red State, conservative commentator and blogger Erick Erickson argues, "Republicans should turn their attention toward — family." Erickson quotes Rick Santorum, who, during a 2012 Republican primary debate said:
The bottom line is we have a problem in this country, and the family is fracturing.
Over 40 percent of children born in America are born out of wedlock. How can a country survive if children are being raised in homes where it's so much harder to succeed economically? It's five times the rate of poverty in single-parent households than it is in two-parent homes. We can have limited government, lower tax — we hear this all the time, cut spending, limit the government, everything will be fine. No, everything's not going to be fine.
There are bigger problems at stake in America. And someone has got to go out there — I will — and talk about the things.
Democracy, of course, requires individuals who are moral and responsible. Strong families are the cure for much of what ails us. You pick the problem, and stronger families would probably render the solution moot. Consider a recent debate: We can put warning labels on violent games and movies, but that won't replace mom and dad being involved in their children's lives and being aware of what they are watching.
Conservatives have largely lost the culture, and it can't be won back by passing some landmark piece of legislation. Instead, it's going to be a long, hard slog. The good news is that, though conservatives typically hate the term "reactionary," most conservative victory is first predicated on liberal overreach.
It may be that if things get bad enough, America will finally start looking inward.
Matt K. Lewis writes for The Daily Caller and co-hosts The DMZ on Bloggingheads.tv.
Bless you, LLS, and those who have the fight IN them TO fight!
The few critical votes? Hussein won by a shade under 5 million votes. The election wasn't even really all that close now that most of the votes have been counted. It would have been far more bizarre if Romney had won the election while having lost the popular vote by so much.
This article is awful tasting medicine, but it's true. You can see it in the younger generations even more clearly. This country is becoming far more libertine - and it is very likely that the Republican party will move in that direction as well. We haven't completely lost the debate over fiscal issues even with the younger folks, but on social issues it is not even a close call anymore. Just look at something like gay marriage. It would be unthinkable even 10 years for gays to be serving openly in the military and states approving homo marriage, but that is exactly what is happening. Conservatives have lost this fight by not contesting on the media and entertainment front. Breitbart was making that point over and over again and he was right.
But we may have lost one of our children to that worldly lure. their reasoning is twisted, they seek council from like minded fools, not sage advice from loving parents........heart breaking.
He doesn’t have a mandate, but he has power and he is wielding it with out opposition from the House.
Nixon once refused to spend money that Congress approved so they went to court and forced him to spend it. This guy on the other hand is spending money that has not been appropriated by congress and no one says a word. Ten fighter planes and 100 tanks promised to Egypt? What budget would a conservative include those item in?
Unless you are willing to recognize that your friends are not really your friends then you will be loaded onto that train soon enough. I am a life long Reublican and all they have given me since Reagan, is someone that was less bad than the other guy and that includes the New World Order presidents GHWB and his spawn GW.
Soon up to bat will be Jeb the Bush, the one that refused to save Terri.
with respect most of that is sagebrush or elvis country.
No, we're still on our winter solstice hiatus.
The key word here is culture. We have to grab hold of the leftist culture that has grabbed tight-fisted hold of those people who follow obozo and his ideology. I also agree with you that it will be a never-ending fight that won’t see immediate results. Andrew Breitbart was a gem, he was the right man to spearhead a culture fight and he knew how to do it and win. And now he is gone, and it is crushing to think about it still. BUT, we must continue to move onward and achieve what we set out to do. We do need Conservative leadership..we have no leader, and we need to organize. And the beat goes on....
Well, I hope that we can count on you to join us in our fight for social conservatism.
The only problem with the story you are trying to paint with that map is that the blue counties are the ones with most the people, i.e. voters, in them and the red counties are the ones with the fewest. So basically there are a lot of wide open, empty spaces in the red counties.
I'm talking about the few swing precincts in the few swing states.
I believe someone analyzed that it came down to about 450,000 votes across Ohio, Virginia, and Florida.
Obama could have gotten most of his 5 million lead from California and New York - heck, he could have doubled that amount, and it would still have come down to that half a million in 3 or 4 swing states.
-PJ
The geographic argument is really an urban vs rural argument. Obama won by a few hundred thousand votes in 3 battleground states due to dominating the urban vote in major cities for their states. Somehow that has been exaggerated into a “mandate” and the end of the cultural war. People need to understand that the densely populated urban cities embrace socialism and are the driving force to our country heading this direction.
Really? You come to that conclusion exactly how?
Source? If it is false why has it not been removed from this forum?
You need the 3d version.
Those red squares? Mostly empty. Those blue ones are urban areas stacked with breeding parasites.
The goal of libtards is to destroy the institutions of marriage and family. Libtards desire equality of results and if they can't get that then they will settle for equality of opportunity. Equality of opportunity involves equality of both nature and nurture. One way to achieve equality of nurture is to destroy the family and marriage enough so that the government can take over and raise children equally. Libtards are behaviorists who are constantly and continuously trying to build the society they want by controlling the environment.
It is a skank world out there and the numbers who partake are many. One good fact to come out of what you are reporting is that these people are WORKING! They are not part of the generational welfare crowd who live off welfare, from one generation to the next, are nothing more than sperm donors and slut-abouts, who make babies for the all the freebies they can get from oboma’s government, like a section 8 roof over their heads at a very young age, free food, phones, healthcare, education etc, and in the case of those who thug for pocket money, they also are responsible for the high crime rate, courtesy of the green light oboma gives them to plunder and be feral animals on the street, with no punishment..after all oboma is trading them the goodies for their votes. And then there are the bum-we-don't-want-to-work punks who live off welfare and work for the left, the anarchists, communists, marxists, revolutionaries who are hard-core believers, and the college crowd, who are leftist-educated and who follow the pied-piper oboma like the lemmings they are.
I am so thankful to read about people like yourself, who mirror my values. I pray that the pendulum swings back, but none of this will ever happen without the fight of our lives to be fought, for sure.
Yep, about the same time we started asking women to help run things.
Like I tell my son, in secret, the key to a happy marriage is to understand, she doesn't want to HEAR the truth.
So don't bother.
"Today, conservatives have made a shocking discovery: They are the ones in danger of appearing out of touch with middle America." -- Paul Weyrich, 1999. True then. Truer now.
To be sure, his idea wasn't entirely original. Years earlier, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed, "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society."
So true it's worth repeating in bold font:
For example, over at Red State, conservative commentator and blogger Erick Erickson argues, "Republicans should turn their attention toward — family." Erickson quotes Rick Santorum, who, during a 2012 Republican primary debate said:
The bottom line is we have a problem in this country, and the family is fracturing.
Over 40 percent of children born in America are born out of wedlock. How can a country survive if children are being raised in homes where it's so much harder to succeed economically? It's five times the rate of poverty in single-parent households than it is in two-parent homes. We can have limited government, lower tax — we hear this all the time, cut spending, limit the government, everything will be fine. No, everything's not going to be fine.
EGGS-ZACTLY. As opposed to liberals like Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich who argue that Republicans need to "get with it" and allow same-sex marriages.
Conservatives have largely lost the culture, and it can't be won back by passing some landmark piece of legislation. Instead, it's going to be a long, hard slog. The good news is that, though conservatives typically hate the term "reactionary," most conservative victory is first predicated on liberal overreach.
It may be that if things get bad enough, America will finally start looking inward.
Correct again. America is like a junkie. Only when (not if but when) liberalism drops America into the gutter fiscally, culturally, socially, and literally, will conservatism bring America back to it senses.
What most of the people commenting on this thread fail to recognize is that a society without a strong family basis cannot continue very long into the future, perhaps not even for another generation.
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I’ve always said; “As goes the American Family - so goes America.” Of course, this isn’t new. Rome and Greece were once great too. But culture rot sets in and no republic, no empire, no democracy or kingdom can or should endure.
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