An End to the Republican Conservative Era?

[RedEarth]

AN END TO THE REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIVE ERA. That was Bruce Bartlett's reaction on hearing about the new Pew Research Center survey on the political views of Americans. Bartlett is a conservative analyst but also the author of an anti-Bush book. And what caused his strong statement? This:




Increased public support for the social safety net, signs of growing public concern about income inequality, and a diminished appetite for assertive national security policies have improved the political landscape for the Democrats as the 2008 presidential campaign gets underway.

At the same time, many of the key trends that nurtured the Republican resurgence in the mid-1990s have moderated, according to Pew's longitudinal measures of the public's basic political, social and economic values. The proportion of Americans who support traditional social values has edged downward since 1994, while the proportion of Americans expressing strong personal religious commitment also has declined modestly.

Even more striking than the changes in some core political and social values is the dramatic shift in party identification that has occurred during the past five years. In 2002, the country was equally divided along partisan lines: 43% identified with the Republican Party or leaned to the GOP, while an identical proportion said they were Democrats. Today, half of the public (50%) either identifies as a Democrat or says they lean to the Democratic Party, compared with 35% who align with the GOP.

Survey findings can be tricky to interpret. As an example, one of the questions used to elicit information about the support for traditional social values asks whether the respondent believes in "traditional family values." I have never been able to find out a list of those values anywhere and I'm not sure what the responses might mean.

Setting that problem aside, the survey findings are good news to the Democrats, for the time being. For the time being, because the shift in attitudes it portrays has two separate causes: the long-term, slow change in general social attitudes, and the disastrous consequences of the most recent Republican administration. It is the latter which most likely created the increased support for a social safety net and the decreased tolerance for war-waging, not some fundamental shift in the underlying attitudes of the respondents. If I'm right about this, the attitudes could shift back once a Democratic administration is elected and has finished the needed spring cleaning. Which means that I'm not quite as optimistic as Bartlett about this signaling the end of an era for the conservatives. Heh.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/03/post_3233.html#016012

[enid602]

1. conservatism

Yet, as so many in our society age, inflation management will be the top priority for society and for the government. This often translates into smaller government, a more conservative approach to the social safety net and conservative fiscal management. The era of the Republicans may well be over, but I think conservatism will continue to flourish in our country. People (and societies, I guess) tend to get more conservative as they age. And, whether we like to admit it or not, the current maladministration has squandered so much of our national treasure that expanding the safety net appreciably does not seem likely.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. I would dispute that people get more conservative with age.

People get more conservative with possessions and position.

Generally people gain possessions and community standing as they age, so they increasingly have more to lose for going against the grain. It's the stuff, not the age that makes the difference.

There's no radical like an old radical.

[enid602]

4. yes

I think you're right. I'm just saying that anything that brings back considerable inflation (including the misdirected and disastrous programs of the current administration) will erode the wealth of those who have, and make the position of those who don't have even less desirable. It's really a matter of demographics; a smaller percentage of worker bees.

[ElboRuum]

3. I am puzzled by the conclusion he draws...

The charts he provides tend to lend to the notion, not that the Republican conservative era is ending... but that there never WAS a Republican conservative era. Even more puzzling, the last six years are not easily explained if, indeed, they do accurately reflect the public sentiment.

For example, the graph in the upper left may indicated a greater public tolerance for government programs, but the tolerance never dipped below a majority for tolerance. In fact, at the height of Reagan Republicanism, tolerance for government programs was at 71%. The upper left graph never was very high to begin with, and, to me at least, represents the omnipresent American aversion to taxation, moreso than any real swing in attitude.

Social conservatism, in the center, represents not a noticeable downtick in acceptance of so-called "traditional" values, but a continuation of tolerance for "other than traditional" values. This hasn't changed, but has continued steadily since Reagan left office. For this to have any value, I'd like to see the statistics from about '55 to the present to draw any real meaning from it. But given the information, there has been a continuation of the trend even in the modern climate.