R.I.P. social conservatism: Why it’s dying — and the coming realignment

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

The idea of inevitable and linear progress is a terrible myth that needs to die.

[Deus Naturae]

It's literally impossible for social conservatism to die. As others have said, it just changes form.

Also, I think Starwatcher raises a good point. OP, what makes you think that fewer women needing abortions will make people less anti-abortion?

I see no reason to think abortion will decline as an issue for social conservatives.  Furthermore, while same-sex marriage, pornography, and intoxicants are likely to decline as issues I think social issues such as prostitution, gambling, and more could easily take their place.  The specific issues that social conservatives fight on will change, but I see nothing to indicate that the mindset that leads to their being a political fight on social issues is changing. (I mention gambling because it is one of those issues that historically waxed and waned in importance, and I think society is at a point where we could start to see yet another backlash against legalized gambling.)

I think abortion is going to decline in importance for both sides, simply because fewer women will need abortions.  Whether Roe will still be law in the next fifty years, I can't say, but social conservatives will lose their momentum on this issue as abortion becomes less and less of a factor.  Even if the birth control mandates are repealed, the pill is going to become more accessible, though that will take much longer absent those mandates.

As Aruca said, the teen pregnancy rate has already plummeted without a corresponding decrease in abortion.

Also, I think you are misunderstanding how the activists on both side view the abortion debate. The pro-choice activists view abortion restrictions as putting women back in the kitchen. The pro life activists view legal abortion as genocide. Neither of these views will be mitigated by fewer women having unplanned pregnancies. On top of that, the pro-life view hasn't declined like other socially conservative views, so there won't be a structural decline in abortion's importance like there has been in gay marriage.

Actually, the abortion rate has decreased.  I think you both are missing the point, however.  The moral arguments for and against abortion will not change, but the less abortions that take place, and the less women that are affected by it, the less significant it will become in political discourse.  A common anti-abortion talking point is, "There are X amount of abortions performed each year, X performed each month, X performed each day," etc., etc.  If current trends hold up, abortion will become so rare that not even hardline social conservatives will see much point in banning it.  There will always be a pro-choice camp.  There will always be an anti-abortion camp.  But, the debate will become far less amplified as time goes on.

Again, what makes you think that less people being affected by it will make the anti-abortion side any less zealous? They view abortion as murder. They're not going to care less about it until their church tells them to.

[MaxQue]

No, but it will defend different things. There is nothing in common between social conservatism in 1900 and in 2014.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Social conservatism never dies. The goalposts just get moved.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Europeans were moving in that direction with the 3 term govt of Tony Blair. Now, it is the US turn in ending Social conservatism. That's why Jeb and Paul are trying to reinvent Reagan's sunny disposition. Which may or may not work. GOP dominance is over though.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Conservatism will never die.
Social progressivism and social conservatism are always evolving.

This is the key point. No one was talking about gay marriage when divorce was deregulated. Who knows what social issue will appall today's social liberals in 2040.

If this is all based on the idea that Millennials are near-universally liberal on social issues, I'd guess it'll be something about trigger warnings and trans issues.

It'll be transhumanism I suspect.

The thing about transhumanism is that while one position on it is pretty clearly more 'liberal' than others, pretty much any position could be construed to be the 'leftist' one depending on how pessimistic you are about people's capacity to just use it to reinforce preexisting power structures and how closely you link it conceptually to things like the Californian Ideology and even neo-eugenics. I, as it happens, am pretty damn pessimistic about all of those things. 'Techno-progressivism' isn't.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

1864: "R.I.P. social conservatism: Why it's dying--and the coming realignment", an article discussing the inevitable end of slavery and the realignment of parties along economic rather than geographical lines.

[TJ in Oregon]

The basic premise of this article sounds like it was written by someone who thinks like an Atlas poster: since social conservativism as we know it today is on the decline, the PM will collapse on to a single economic axis. It's essentially saying all social issues forever will completely vanish, which is clearly false. Gay marriage may vanish as a political issue, but something else will rise up to take its place and drive a stake in the heart of American social issue cohesion. What will it be? Who knows? But there will always be disagreements about how society ought to function and what the government's role should be in controlling personal decision making. The author has some point in saying that the entity known today as American social conservatism built around some structure of Christian morality will die a fiery death at the ballot box and make it difficult for the Republicans to win nationally. By this logic in a couple decades I'll clearly be an independent who writes in Mickey Mouse for every office. But the reason why it's not that simple is that it's taking today's set of political issues and projecting them on some future electorate without considering that perhaps something will happen in the next 50 years, not to reverse the trend, but to establish a new trend and a whole new set of issues we haven't even considered yet. It's not a matter of determining a trend line and drawing it out into the future indefinitely. Stuff will happen in the coming decades. Those events that haven't happened yet will shape our understanding of political issues and set our course for what the arguments of the day will.

[courts]

1864: "R.I.P. social conservatism: Why it's dying--and the coming realignment", an article discussing the inevitable end of slavery and the realignment of parties along economic rather than geographical lines.

actual conservatism was dying in the 19th century. the confederate cause was probably the closest the us ever got to an real mass right wing movement. maybe we'll see some sort of right wing backlash emerge this century though

[Meursault]

Some position which is very broadly 'socially conservative' will always exist. But its content need not be the same throughout history: does the Southern revanchist eugenicist of 1924 have basically anything in common with his pro-life, natalist grandson in 2014, beyond a vague yearning for a (mostly illusory) past?

Which is why I am, as accused elsewhere, extremely interested in neo-reactionism, the 'Dark Enlightenment', Droite Nouvelle, etc. as possible emergent alternatives to the tired, stale social and moral populism of the Nixon/Reagan GOP. I will always find myself on the other side of the table from organized Christianity, but in certain contexts I could easily be a Rightist (though not ever a 'conservative').

[Cassius]

Europeans were moving in that direction with the 3 term govt of Tony Blair. Now, it is the US turn in ending Social conservatism. That's why Jeb and Paul are trying to reinvent Reagan's sunny disposition. Which may or may not work. GOP dominance is over though.

I would dispute that Tony Blair's election brought an 'end' to social conservatism, in the UK at least. I mean, the 'socially conservative' credentials of the Thatcher/Major governments are somewhat suspect (Thatcher's efforts to liberalise Sunday trading laws, Major's reduction of the age of homosexual consent, the fact that about half the cabinets in that period fathered children out of wedlock or at the very least had multiple affairs), and voting for the Labour party didn't neccessarily mean a vote against the social conservatism of the Conservative Party. Indeed, during the party's wilderness years, some of its most popular policies (on crime and immigration) could be described as socially conservative. Rather, often what the average voter couldn't stomach was the purported meanness and stinginess of the party's economic policies. Of course, Blair did radically liberalise government policy on 'social issues', though one could argue that there has been something of a backlash against Blairite policies in those fields (largely over crime and immigration rather than personal morality).

Back to the main point of this thread, I think this article is a load of bunk. Whilst I agree it can be a useful categorisation at times, we should be very careful about throwing up a wall between 'social' and 'economic' issues, which are often inextricably intertwined. For instance, the way in which systems of social welfare are run covers is linked to both the moral and fiscal implications of such policies. Furthermore, we should not assume that just because people (particularly the young) are socially liberal on some issues that they are broadly socially liberal upon everything. I for one am something of a liberal when it comes to contraception, and something of a conservative when it comes to abortion. There are other people that I know who are tolerant of gay marriage but not gay adoption; soft drugs but not hard drugs; pornography but not prostitution. Most people that I know tend to favour reasonably harsh sentences for criminals. To say that from now on the sole political cleavage will be between those who favour a small state and those that favour a bigger one is sheer nonsense to me.

[The Mikado]

The amount of passion about abortion, as a political issue, has very little to do with the actual abortion rate.  To pro-lifers, one abortion is enough to cause them to keep at it, and to pro-choicers, lowering the unwanted pregnancy rate has little to do with whether or not this particular method of ending unwanted pregnancy is on the table.  I don't see that issue ever fading, though it will continue to wax and wane in importance vis a vis whatever is the big issue of the day.  (I'd argue that abortion has taken a backseat ever since the 2008 economic downturn, but it'll likely pop right back up whenever times get good again)

It's only a matter of time before de jure discrimination against homosexuals disappears: even the current overwhelmingly Republican House of Representatives would easily pass ENDA if Boehner let it have a floor vote, and same sex marriage will be legal nationwide within the next five years at the current rate.  After that, gay rights issues will undoubtedly start taking a backseat as politicians wash their hands of it and say that they've dealt with the de jure obstacles and that the de facto concerns are the community's own problem (much like the government did with civil rights issues on race in the 1970s) and those issues will end up taking a backseat.

There ends up being this false equivalency drawn between gay rights and abortion: the latter's not going anywhere as an issue, the former is about to be solved decisively for the foreseeable future. 

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Gay rights are not going to be settled so easily because the definition of what constitutes gay rights in the public consciousness is constantly changing.  At this point the Left may not see a passage of ENDA as any kind of a victory if it contained the religious exemptions that would be necessary for it to get any Blue Dog and Republican votes.

[pbrower2a]

I think this is the link you probably should have put up instead of that Salon article.
---------------------------------------------------

This may well turn out to be the case outside the South, but if Nate Cohn is correct about younger southern whites, Dixie will stand out as an exception.

The other areas will be hyper-Republican areas that have been hyper-Republican for decades, typically ranch country in the High Plains and places where Mormons predominate.  Those "other areas" are going to go Republican with 70% or higher votes for Republicans for reasons other than race.

Of course the map may understate a reality in which hyper-urban areas can negate the effect of thinly-populated ranch country upon a state margin. Greater Atlanta can make Georgia close in Presidential elections; so can several large cities in Texas (Houston, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, Dallas, and Fort Worth could make Texas close ten years or so from now.

 

[Mr. Illini]

Conservatism will never die.
Social progressivism and social conservatism are always evolving.

This right here. New issues arise. Always have; always will.

[The Mikado]

The idea of inevitable and linear progress is a terrible myth that needs to die.

Aren't you a Marxist?  You might need to ditch the whole "capital's internal contradictions will inevitably lead to its internal collapse and revolutionary overthrow by the proletariat who will then seize control of the economic apparatus created by the bourgeois for their own benefit" aspect if so and you believe that inevitable linear progress is a myth.

[Meursault]

Why? Nothing in Marx is teleological. Nor does it preclude recursion.

[Person Man]

Weren't we talking about in 2005 that social liberalism was dying because of  how rapidly right-wing mega churches were evolving and growing, as compared to other institutions, and how low fertility rates were in liberal areas?

Howard Dean talked how we needed the votes of  "more guys with confederate flags on their pick up trucks" in the aftermath of the 2004 election. In fact, we ran a lot of Democrats who would pass as Republican today in 2006. People like Heath Schuler were the "Religious Right Democrats" we needed to keep congress and people like Evan Bayh, who downplayed religious and cultural differences, were needed to win Presidential elections.

Something tells me we may be singing a similar tune by 2021 if 2014, 2016 and 2020 goes nuts up for us.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Social conservatism as we know it emerged as a reaction to the social movements of the 60s and is quickly becoming irrelevant. Before the 60s, the idea of social conservatism didn't exist but there were still cultural attitudes that we'd consider to be more socially conservative than others and demographic groups that we'd consider to be more progressive on social issues. This will be the case in the future as well. Opposition to drug liberalization, gay marriage, abortion, flag burning, gun control and a whole plethora of issues that emerged out of the 60s will not drive people to vote for Democrats or Republicans at the ballot box in a few decades. This does not mean that a re-alignment is under way but rather that the shape of movement conservatism is rapidly shifting.

Outside of what social scientists would describe as an "exogenous shock" like a revival of evangelical christianity, social conservatism is dead. There's a reason why no serious presidential candidate would prominently place themselves in opposition to gay marriage, abortion and in support of family values: they'd receive scorn and appear out of touch.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

The idea of inevitable and linear progress is a terrible myth that needs to die.

Aren't you a Marxist?  You might need to ditch the whole "capital's internal contradictions will inevitably lead to its internal collapse and revolutionary overthrow by the proletariat who will then seize control of the economic apparatus created by the bourgeois for their own benefit" aspect if so and you believe that inevitable linear progress is a myth.

Well yes, but the revolution won't happen if we sit back and watch; progress must be pushed for by the working class itself.