@farmerman,
Quote:I missed the entire story of "movement Conservatism", could you please give me the bumper sticker version of what it is you mean (remember my ADD)
A bumper sticker version isn't really possible or wouldn't have much value. I'll do a little treatment but it would be much better to read the wikipedia page on
Movement Conservatism (it's quite good).
As preface, any political phenomenon we see in the fifties or seventies or later all have antecedents culturally and politically. Eg, "libertarianism" is a phenomenon arising in part from the ethos of the those ethnic/cultural groups that settled much of the south and the Appalachians along with the necessary independence of settler life coming up against inevitable local civic organization (the "**** off and leave me alone" dynamic).
There are a number of historical, cultural, and ideological threads here but it's not a big mistake to think of the Goldwater movement as a key landmark on the path to the present. That movement brought together anti-government and anti-eastern elite sentiment, John Bircherism, corporate financial greed and fundamentalist Protestantism (we'll skip the racial aspects). From that point on, Evangelical and Catholic extremists became increasingly involved in politics and they became increasingly organized to pursue their goal of shaping society in a Godly image (often while becoming very, very wealthy for doing God's work).
Another thread is what happened in the 60s, how that frightened conservative establishment figures (not just them, of course), and their response that followed. The historians I've read validly carbon date this response to the Lewis Powell memo (lots of info available) which insisted that free enterprise was at risk and that conservative leaders (upper class, educated establishment conservatives) had to build up a large array of institutions that would promote conservative ideas, train and place conservatives in positions of leadership, etc. Business interests are part of this story.
Another thread was the influence of truly massive amounts of funding from an interconnected group of millionaires/billionaires in support of the above efforts. The Koch family has been near the center of this crowd from the beginning and now, as I see it, is the single most powerful/influential element in the modern GOP.
The last element or thread is more recent - the rise of a separate right wing media universe that has captured a significant portion of the US population in an epistemological bubble and which works in support of movement conservative persons and ends.
Hope you have a big bumper.
