We had our last political forum of the 2008 Presidential Election at Morehead State University last night. It was an interesting panel. In a way, it was typical academic stuff warning against irrational exuberance. All the participants--including Erik Lewis and John Hennen of Morehead State and Randall Swain of EKU-- warned against people reading too much into the election. Everyone was cautious about getting too optimistic about an Obama presidency.
Actually I disagreed. I feel an enormous amount of exuberance and I'm extremely optimistic about the upcoming Obama administration.
But the most interesting thing about the panel was John Hennen's remark that conservativism is becoming a "cult" rather than a movement. I often post about the ways that conservatives are viewing themselves as separate and apart from the nation as a whole. But I hadn't thought of conservativatism as a cult before. I'll have to think about that one some more.
It was nice to welcome Randall Swain back to Morehead to participate in the forum.
It was even nicer to get nine hours of sleep afterward.
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3 comments:
I tried posting this before but I think the junk-for-computers in Rader didn't send my comments, but:
I found this description of cult on the internet and think it is more fitting for the topic than the traditional, religious sense of the word: the word "cult" has become largely overused and is now a catch-all for any group, religion or lifestyle which someone doesn't understand, or with which they happen to disagree. This is a dangerous trend, as many of the organizations labeled a cult by dissidents are truly legitimate groups.
Then what would Prof. Hennen call the Green Party or the Libertarian Party? Libertarians, now there is a cult.
I have attended these forums with Professor Hennen before and, while much of what he says is insightful and clever, this was an irresponsible use of rhetoric from an authoritative figure that could mislead some of the weaker-minded observers that attend these forums looking for direction.
The conservatives are a legitimate force in U.S. politics and their (sometimes extreme) views pose a much lesser threat than the threat of failing to recognize their legitimacy.
I don't think that criticism is unfair. My own opinion is somewhat up in the air right now.
See, that's what I would have thought before too. But, their reaction to this election displays an immaturity I find hard to fathom. I'm a child of the Reagan administration (really I just became politically aware in its last days) and I have always been aware of the pernicious insanity that is the right wing and, specifically, the theocrats.
I'm not as afraid of them any more. Their hold exists only on white guys like Caric and me and demographic changes to the electorate means the hold has a diminishing power on elections and will continue to do so.
Meanwhile, while there are annoying un-serious people on the left, most of the immature, silly, un-serious thinkers on the right are their leaders. Republicans received, as a party, 6 million less votes than they did last election. So, how does the Republican Governor's Conference answer that difficulty? By doubling down on Reagan! It's as if Nixon would have run as Goldwater 2 in '68!
If Democrats can successfully bring up immigration reform one more time (troublesome because it tends to alienate white Democrats too), the resulting display of ethnocentric jingoism might be enough to ensure the 65-35 split among Hispanics becomes a 75-25 split and the largest minority of Americans (with a serious interest in social issues if only the white social cons liked them enough) would "permanently" join the Democratic coalition.
That is, until our helping them unionize, get credit, re-distribute gross wealth, and educate their children in prosperous schools caused them to be rich enough to be Republicans!
I am positive somewhere in the next 5-10 years the Republican party will re-emerge as a white Southern party with new coalition partners to challenge the Democratic coalition. Right now, though, I don't know what group they could re-align with.
But, I do know Reaganism isn't going to accomplish it
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