This was the battle so gloriously "won" in 1989-1991 when Eastern Europe then the Soviet Union were toppled by internal illness and external pressure.
In the United States language gets confusing (thanks in large part to Ronald Reagan) but liberal is a term I would use to define both parties up until the chaos of 1968. The beginning of this is tough to say as the Republicans were born out of what was then a radical group of abolitionists but let us say 1950, after the democrats were purged of the communists that had taken root during the FDR era. So 1950 to 1968 we have two liberal parties, both representing different regions and factions of the economy. There is not really such a thing as American conservatism as other countries have it given our revolutionary founding, but the liberalism both had then is what is close to conservative now.
1972 was a big year in our history. The Democratic party at the national level dipped its foot into the waters of leftism for the first time since the Roosevelt administration, and over the last 12 years climbed almost all of the way in. Since then, the Republicans have adopted some true conservative (as other countries would see it) positions with regards to the church, but in this case little c church and in countries with true conservatives it is the Catholic or national church. By and large they have stayed liberal when it comes to things like speech, economics, the right to bear arms, school choice, etc..
So now the battle is between left authoritarianism in the form of thought/speech police, radical anti-discrimination positions, redistributionist economic policy, and radical environmentalism on the one side and a largely liberal group with a wing (and important wing) rooted in the church. The capitulation of the NYT editorial page editor and of Drew Brees in recent days is something to behold. There is so little courage standing before this mob. Where are the 60s liberals? Where are the 1980s Reaganites? Where is our courage in the face of a perpetually aggrieved mob that is burning down police stations for the cameras while tearing down institutions like colleges and the media on the sly?
Maybe I don't get the Zeitgeist, but in the words of the Who it is meet the new boss (left mob), same as the old boss (Marxist-Leninist philosophy).
In the United States language gets confusing (thanks in large part to Ronald Reagan) but liberal is a term I would use to define both parties up until the chaos of 1968. The beginning of this is tough to say as the Republicans were born out of what was then a radical group of abolitionists but let us say 1950, after the democrats were purged of the communists that had taken root during the FDR era. So 1950 to 1968 we have two liberal parties, both representing different regions and factions of the economy. There is not really such a thing as American conservatism as other countries have it given our revolutionary founding, but the liberalism both had then is what is close to conservative now.
1972 was a big year in our history. The Democratic party at the national level dipped its foot into the waters of leftism for the first time since the Roosevelt administration, and over the last 12 years climbed almost all of the way in. Since then, the Republicans have adopted some true conservative (as other countries would see it) positions with regards to the church, but in this case little c church and in countries with true conservatives it is the Catholic or national church. By and large they have stayed liberal when it comes to things like speech, economics, the right to bear arms, school choice, etc..
So now the battle is between left authoritarianism in the form of thought/speech police, radical anti-discrimination positions, redistributionist economic policy, and radical environmentalism on the one side and a largely liberal group with a wing (and important wing) rooted in the church. The capitulation of the NYT editorial page editor and of Drew Brees in recent days is something to behold. There is so little courage standing before this mob. Where are the 60s liberals? Where are the 1980s Reaganites? Where is our courage in the face of a perpetually aggrieved mob that is burning down police stations for the cameras while tearing down institutions like colleges and the media on the sly?
Maybe I don't get the Zeitgeist, but in the words of the Who it is meet the new boss (left mob), same as the old boss (Marxist-Leninist philosophy).
