Is this the "change" Obama promised?
Like the magnetic poles of our planet which reverse their polarities on million-year time scales, our nation's two dominant political parties - and there have almost always been two - have at times flip-flopped the voter ideologies they court. Perhaps best remembered is the reversal that accompanied the Civil Rights Movement, when the Democratic Party - traditionally the party of slavery - reinvented itself as the champion of racial minorities. Another shift occurred in the Republican party after the Eisenhower administration; by Nixon's time, the party of small government, progressive taxation, and market-oriented fiscal conservatism had become the party of government excess and crony capitalism. And way back in Jefferson's day, the Federalists represented the moneyed interests the Republicans represent now, and the Republicans were the liberal progressives.
Call me crazy, but I sense another change in the wind.
The Obama administration has dragged the Democratic party to the right of center with its subtle undermining of gay rights and its Bushier-than-Bush policies on the economy, the environment, and the wars. Meanwhile, I'm picking up murmurs from a few Republicans that suggest they consider their embrace of the far-right in the last election cycle to be a losing strategy. Could it be that the GOP is preparing to extend a hand to social progressives? It would be quite a shakeup, but it wouldn't be unprecedented.
Call me crazy, but I sense another change in the wind.
The Obama administration has dragged the Democratic party to the right of center with its subtle undermining of gay rights and its Bushier-than-Bush policies on the economy, the environment, and the wars. Meanwhile, I'm picking up murmurs from a few Republicans that suggest they consider their embrace of the far-right in the last election cycle to be a losing strategy. Could it be that the GOP is preparing to extend a hand to social progressives? It would be quite a shakeup, but it wouldn't be unprecedented.