The Ascendant New Conservatism

<< < (2/2)

Beet:
Here I classify various stages of the conservative ascendancy since they began to get momentum.

1974-78: "Gestation." Conservatives slowly begin to switch away from the defensive mentality, mainly due to liberalism's crisis. In 1974 for example, price controls were lifted for the last time, and prison sentence lengths bottomed out. By 1976, the first execution in 10 years occured.

Zeitgeist Movie: Taxi Driver

1978-85: "The Paradigm." Conservatives decisively shift to the forward-thinking party and win major battles for the first time. The main importance of Reaganism though is establishing a simple paradigm, a simple way to view the two 'ideologies'-- the contrast between decaying industries and decadent hedonism vs feel-good 'freedom-loving' traditional nationalism-- one that persists in people's minds to this day.

Zeitgeist Movie: Halloween

1986-93: "Momentum Explosion." The ascendancies of Deng, Thatcher, Reagan, Kohl, and Gorbachev nationally in the previous period turn into global triumph of the Cold War right in this period, leading to a momentum explosion for conservatism to capitalize on for decades to come. Characterized by collapse of ideology to the hubris of the technocrats, capitalists and globalists. Domestically however, there is a false lull in conservative offensives, and liberalism uses this to consolidate certain earlier gains.

Zeitgeist Movie: Jurassic Park

1994-2003: "Barbarians at the Gate". The leadership of Newt Gingrich crystallizes the paradigm and the implicit but enormous, unassailable reserve of legitimacy provided by the fall of the Soviet Union, into a movement, and conservatives switch into permanent offensive mode mentality. While having an offensive mentality, they retain an outsider one, and see themselves as "raiding the establishment", symbolized by the attack on "political correctness." From new media to blogs to just pissing off the 'establishment', this was in many ways the most fun period to be a conservative. I had someone tell me they were a conservative just because it was more fun. Liberals on the other hand are in siege mode, and actually thinking conservatively.

Zeitgeist Movie: PCU

2003- "Establishment." Symbolically, the May 1 2003 Bush declaration of victory on an aircraft carrier was the day when conservatives decisively moved away from the raider mode and into establishment mode-- they claimed complete power. Some outsider mentality hung around until the outcome of the 2004 election gave Bush the popular vote majority, but on balance conservatism psychologically entered the establishment on this day after overcoming the final liberal institution of the U.N.. Liberals on the other hand moved into crisis, soul-searching mode. And this is where we are now.

Zeitgeist Movie: ???

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page