Fraser.J.A said:
I'm not sure if the majority of Americans, or even highly educated Americans, realise how right-wing their political scene is. In most countries, the Democrats would be a centre-right party and the Republicans would be the religious fringe. I'd guess most countries' major progressive party would be about on par with Nader.
Educated Americans certainly notice this. Some of them have even speculated as to why. As I see it, the main reason for this is that two factions that are proportionately far larger than their European counterparts - the religious and the capitalists - have formed an alliance of convenience.
Religious influence is higher than elsewhere because the US has a strong rural tradition, and Christian denominations ranging from "devout" to "fundamentalist" spread deep roots in rural areas. Capitalist influence is higher than elsewhere because the American populace has always held a fervent respect for the government keeping the hell out of their business, and capitalism is the economic policy which best reflects this. The religious don't particularly care about capitalism, and the capitalists don't particularly care about religion. In Europe, these two factions would be vocal minorities, unable to win representation outside the less-urban areas and major industrial centers, respectively.
However, at the beginning of the Cold War, the United States put itself in the role of the opposition to Soviet Communism. In order to gain popular support for this position - which at the time was just another viewpoint, as it had not attained the vitriol of later decades - it drew support by playing up the institutionalized atheism of the USSR's brand of Marxism. This brought the religious into the anticommunist camp, and the capitalists were there already for obvious reasons.
When the Vietnam War came along, the nation became as polarized as ever it's been. The sheer hatred going on all around exceeded anything that had been seen even in the Civil War (if historical documents from both periods are to be believed, at any rate). Those who opposed the war, in order more thoroughly to state their opinion, took on a stance that was superficially or genuinely sympathetic to communism. Those who opposed communism, by sheer polarizing influence, came to support the war. This created great solidarity among all the anticommunist factions, which largely persists to this day.
During Vietnam, labor ceased to be a political influence; those who supported the welfare state sided with the anti-anticommunists, and all the rest picked one of the conservative groups to side up with. This is a major difference between the US and Europe - labor issues don't get big attention.
The neoconservatives, who are currently in power in the US, were the third anticommunist faction. Their opposition to communism was not ideological - indeed, they tended themselves to have moderately socialist leanings - but practical, as they recognized that the US and the USSR were enemies. They were liberals right up until the time when the counterculture and academia achieved hegemonic influence over the liberal side of the spectrum. The only thing the neoconservatives hated more than the Soviets was the counterculture. Consequently, the neoconservatives jumped to the conservative camp in Vietnam, joining the capitalists' and the religious' alliance despite not having anything in common with either of them.
The political environment that Vietnam left behind has caused the Republican party to attempt, variously, to appeal to the religious, the capitalists, and the neocons at the same time. This was made possible because the Democratic party's thinking was still dominated by the counterculture and other fairly radical viewpoints; as much as the three conservative factions disliked the way the Republicans pandered to the other two, they'd much rather get one-third of the pandering than no pandering at all.
Reagan's stance strengthened the capitalist and neoconservative factions (his apparent successes domestically and abroad brought moderates over to his way of thinking). Clinton's overblown controversy strengthened the religious (the religious faction's biggest strength is on moral issues, and a president being revealed as having an affair let them attract moderates). At the same time, of course, the things Clinton did well really strengthened the emerging liberal interests (education and environmentalism especially).
This brings us to 2000. Of the three conservative factions, the neoconservatives tend to have the most skilled politicians. The neoconservative viewpoint is largely defined by a subtle cynicism, which is an outlook that all powerful people must possess or at least understand. So the neoconservatives were in charge, and they led the religious and the capitalists to the White House in 2000 by the narrowest of margins. After 9/11, neoconservatism - which is really the only truly hawkish platform left in American politics - became the order of the day, resulting in the vitriolic yet fairly decisive 2004 election.
However, during this time, a new bloc, which doesn't yet have much in the way of a strong identity (but probably includes a majority of these boards), became very disillusioned with the neoconservative hegemony of the Republican party, and began flocking to the Democrats in just an adversarial stance.
Long story short, the Democrats went too far left at the wrong time.
If the Democrats are smart, they'll begin courting the capitalists at this time, since the capitalists have very little in the way of party loyalty. How the Democrats will manage to hold together an alliance of capitalists and environmentalists, I have no idea, but it'll get them into office (since no way will the average liberal side with neocons or the religious right at this point). Personally, I'm hoping that one of the parties will splinter, so that the Libertarian party has a chance to flourish.
Fraser.J.A said:
What baffles me is the way the U.S. votes like a country under seige. It's possibly the most powerful nation in human history and it has no enemies beyond a handful of rag-tag criminals. What's it so afraid of?
It is very, very difficult to overstate the influence that the Cold War and the Vietnam War had on American thinking. Since the Cold War, America thinks in terms of nuclear chess - any enemy is a deadly enemy, and it doesn't matter if they hate you as long as they don't want to fight you. Since Vietnam, political discourse is hate, straw men, and wedge issues; a politician who does not make his position boldly and with a pre-emptive dismissal of anyone who'd disagree, he'll only get shot down by someone on the other side of the aisle who does.
If the story of the United States is to be a tragedy, the Vietnam War is the third act.
