Some commentators have portrayed the bloggers who led the charge against Senator Lieberman as the ideological descendants of the left-wing Democrats who nearly brought the party to its knees in the 1960's and 70's. But in strategic terms they resemble more closely the "movement conservatives" who transformed the Republican Party from 1955 to 1980, when it rose to dominate American politics.
Like the current Democratic insurgency, the conservative movement was driven by activists who combined journalism with partisanship. Just as today's insurgents often post their analyses and self-described "rants" on Web sites like Daily Kos, so the conservative rebels of an earlier day poured forth their opinions in the National Review, the biweekly magazine founded in 1955 by the 29-year-old William F. Buckley Jr.
Today, of course, National Review is widely read as a journal of the Republican establishment. But in its infancy it was regarded as extreme -- far more radical than the bloggers most influential in the Lieberman defeat.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Anti-war Democrats Compared to Goldwater Republicans
The New York Times has published an story that compares the insurgency of anti-war Democrats to the insurgency of Goldwater Republicans. Here's a quote:
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There is a problem with the analogy. The Republicans of the 1960's and earlier were rightly derided as "country club republicans" who were true to the left-wing caricatures. The rebellion was from the rank & file and resulted in new classes of voters (Christian Right + Economic Liberals) having a voice in a family that now ranges from Arnold Schwarzeneggar to Pat Robertson.
The changes happening to the Democrats aren't introducing any new voices, but rather purging anything that deviates from an increasingly narrow ideology. The demographics I saw from the Lamont victory indicate that Lamont won mostly due to upper class whites. Country-club left?
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