[Vision2020] Mark Felt and Andreas Schou comments

[Andreas Schou]

> I am not sure that this was the case.  Conservative values were actually
> spread across party lines in those years and it was not uncommon to see
> conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans on the national stage.  The
> GOP has always had its own Progressive wing and it also has its own
> Libertarian wing.

The "conservative" Democrats of the 1960s and 1970s were Dixiecrats:
economically populist and socially conservative. I'm glad to the vast
majoirty of them out of my party. The Republicans can have Strom
Thurmond and Trent Lott. I just wish we could hand over Robert Byrd,
too.

The "liberal" Republicans would most likely be recognized today as
moderate mercantilists somewhere on the continuum between liberal and
libertarian. When the political fulcrum shifted, Rockafeller
Republicans rolled back their liberalism and stayed Libertarians.
While I'm disappointed that libertarians stayed on the Republican
side, I'm hoping they'll eventually see the wisdom of the idea that
allying with religious conservatives is just as ethically obnoxious as
allying with liberals. Apparently, though, the Democrats disagree, and
keep concentrating on the Sisphyean task of winning back the
Dixiecrats.

How the Democrats plan to maintain a coalition consisting of (1)
racists and (2) racial minorities is an exercise best left to the
reader.

To bring it back to the subject of Nixon -- he did more obnoxious
things than just trampling the Constitution. Nixon's Southern Strategy
really created the modern conservative character: it fused Southern
social conservativsm with Northeastern mercantlism to create a
majority composed of plutocrats, religious lunatics, John Birchers,
and racists*; one we still have to deal with today.

-- ACS

(1) Any Republicans listening can replace the above with pro-business
voters, religious conservatives, anti-communists, and Dixiecrats
rather than arguing with me. I already understand that I'm biased.