Please, read the whole of my post.
The decline of the so called happened precisely after 1994, when the GOP decided to employ the Biblebeltical Strategy Full-Throttle
Cause and effect.
The decline of the Republicans happened after 1994, when Democrats embraced what they always were all along - the Party of State-guided developmental capitalism. Why vote for social reactionaries when the Democrats are promising you technocratic capitalism, if all you want is technocratic capitalism?
And why people all over the world (not only Americans) grew so disenchanted of free market and with such a strong belief upon an enlightened Ivory-Tower elite which magically knows what is better for ourselves much better than we know? Media indoctrination and colleges played a prominent role upon this. It didn't happen overnight. Its a process that takes DECADES. That's why we hardly notice it in the short term.
Except that your entire narrative is false. (It's also, interesting, based on an inverted Marxian analysis of society, with the "ivory-tower elite" in the place of the exploitative bourgeoisie - I'd guess you know somewhere that what I'm getting at is true.)
The Democrats aren't hostile to capitalism - and capitalism, as you know, is not synonymous with the 'free-market'. They're mere technocrats who want to administer it in a way as to promote stability (they take inequality as threatening to the system, and rightly so).
There's no room whatsoever for genuine class analysis or alternative modes of political economy within the Democratic Party.
I didn't say they were not capitalists. Actually, Mises proved a century ago that there CAN NOT exist a "socialist marxist economy".
Of course Liberals aren't hostile to capitalism. They depend upon it to survive. The point is, the brand of capitalism they promote is CRONY capitalism.
And I wasn't talking about Marx. I was talking about Gramsci.
What brand of capitalism does the Republican Party promote, then?
And before you go on about how "Bush wasn't a real conservative" and "The Tea Party is different" look at all those Tea Party representatives who've taken Ag Department subsidies and the fact that they have no problem pushing money into government contracts for Raytheon and BoozAllenHamilton and others.
