Everybody should read Geoffrey Kabaservice's 2012 book, Rule & Ruin!: J. Bradford DeLong: The Strange Death of Conservative America: American conservatives once sought to ride the waves of markets and innovation toward ever-greater wealth and prosperity, but now they cower in fear. And, as the trajectory of today’s Republican Party shows, that makes them a threat to democracy.
Britain may have lost its liberalism in the first decades of the 20th century, but a depression and 2 world wars changed that. After WWII, Britain was pushing its technology and by the 1960s, as in the US, the population and its leadership was much more progressive. I don't sense that the Tory party became types 1 or 4 even during the Thatchter decade and beyond.
So perhaps the solution is a serious conflict - say with China - that alters attitudes and sweeps away the reactionary forces in the Republican Party? That isn't to be wished for.
I am reminded that most STEM academics and engineers were Republican during and after WII. The country started to shed its conservatism after WWII, and it seems to me that the threat of Russia after Sputnik ensured that the country became much more focused on science and engineering. As elsewhere, the country became much more liberal. It was Reaganism in the 1980s that seems to have pushed the country (as in the UK) back towards a conservatism that was much more reactionary.
The UK, unlike the US, does not seem to have a declining Tory population., Despite playing into the culture wars (albeit not as deeply as in the US), Britain's nativists are not apparently such a minority as in the US. I don't get the sense that the racial US vs THEM is as strong in the UK. Maybe it is the ingrained British politeness that hides it.
My suggestion is that the US needs a shock to the system to turn around the Republicans. A shock that forces a facing of reality, "marking to market" the US competency to win - technologically or militarily. It won't need a shooting war, but perhaps a massive cyberattack that brings the country to its knees until computer systems are hardened more seriously against such an attack. Or perhaps the Chinese demonstrating technological superiority by building a moon base, or setting foot on Mars first, eclipsing the US efforts. Or perhaps a small shooting war where China captures Taiwan and leaves the US defeated in the western Pacific - a bloody nose might be sufficient to humiliate the US. (Apart from Gulf War I, the US seems to have done badly when actually fighting asymmetric wars, spending blood and treasure for no gain), a pattern of failure experienced by Britain as it tried to remain a global policeman after WWII but failed.
Thanks for bringing the Kabaservice book to my attention. I'm only through the first couple of chapters but the authoritarian and undemocratic character of movement conservatism was clear as long ago as sixty years ago.
Britain may have lost its liberalism in the first decades of the 20th century, but a depression and 2 world wars changed that. After WWII, Britain was pushing its technology and by the 1960s, as in the US, the population and its leadership was much more progressive. I don't sense that the Tory party became types 1 or 4 even during the Thatchter decade and beyond.
So perhaps the solution is a serious conflict - say with China - that alters attitudes and sweeps away the reactionary forces in the Republican Party? That isn't to be wished for.
I am reminded that most STEM academics and engineers were Republican during and after WII. The country started to shed its conservatism after WWII, and it seems to me that the threat of Russia after Sputnik ensured that the country became much more focused on science and engineering. As elsewhere, the country became much more liberal. It was Reaganism in the 1980s that seems to have pushed the country (as in the UK) back towards a conservatism that was much more reactionary.
The UK, unlike the US, does not seem to have a declining Tory population., Despite playing into the culture wars (albeit not as deeply as in the US), Britain's nativists are not apparently such a minority as in the US. I don't get the sense that the racial US vs THEM is as strong in the UK. Maybe it is the ingrained British politeness that hides it.
My suggestion is that the US needs a shock to the system to turn around the Republicans. A shock that forces a facing of reality, "marking to market" the US competency to win - technologically or militarily. It won't need a shooting war, but perhaps a massive cyberattack that brings the country to its knees until computer systems are hardened more seriously against such an attack. Or perhaps the Chinese demonstrating technological superiority by building a moon base, or setting foot on Mars first, eclipsing the US efforts. Or perhaps a small shooting war where China captures Taiwan and leaves the US defeated in the western Pacific - a bloody nose might be sufficient to humiliate the US. (Apart from Gulf War I, the US seems to have done badly when actually fighting asymmetric wars, spending blood and treasure for no gain), a pattern of failure experienced by Britain as it tried to remain a global policeman after WWII but failed.
Thanks for bringing the Kabaservice book to my attention. I'm only through the first couple of chapters but the authoritarian and undemocratic character of movement conservatism was clear as long ago as sixty years ago.