By Tim Lynch | September 16th, 2021 |
Over the past 50 years, but especially in the past ten, America has witnessed an incredible amount of political polarization, with entrenched partisanship further fortifying their positions in the battle for domination of the American system of government. Ignoring the fact that it is the people, and not political parties, which are supposed to have sole ownership of our government, this polarization has revealed to me an incredible trend that until recently had never occurred to me.
It appears to me that like the periodic reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field, a great reversal of American political ideology is taking place, in which conservatives are becoming more like liberals used to be, and liberals are becoming more like conservatives used to be. It is a remarkable reversal but bear with me and you’ll understand why I believe this.
First understand that I am writing in generalities, and I acknowledge that this theory does not universally apply to all conservatives or all liberals. Absolutism may be one of the easiest ways for a theory to discredit itself. In general, conservatism before the 21st century has referred to a set of beliefs emphasizing things like social stability, gradual change over time, and the preservation of traditional institutions. Liberalism, by comparison, has been understood to be in favor of sweeping societal reformation, open-mindedness, and broad acceptance of differences.
Somehow after the turn of the millennium, liberalism began the subtle march towards a narrowing of its ideological point of view, and at the same time, conservatives began to expand their acceptance of things to which they had traditionally been opposed. As political discussions and debates grew hotter and less respectful, and as the Republican and Democratic establishments in America began pitting their followers against each other to a greater degree, the mysterious reversal of America’s political ideologies began to accelerate.
At least as far back as the mid-20th century, the Republican Party has traditionally been a party dominated by religious conservatism more than ideological or libertarian conservatism. The Democrat party has been generally the opposite of that, valuing the input of religion far less than Republicans and conservatives. But in the past ten to 20 years especially, while Christianity still plays an undeniably large role in the GOP, at the very least, it feels as though that influence is waning as conservatives have become more accepting of things like gay rights and recreational marijuana. (Note that I said “more” accepting, not “accepting.”) On the other hand, while conservatives have begun to open up to some of these changes, liberals have begun to shut down even those among their ranks who raise questions or voice opinions that don’t align with the platform of their party.
While critics of religion often point to the fact that religious institutions are human constructs with human fallibility, few today – and fewer liberals especially – acknowledge the inherent risk of human bias in science. In fact, the dedication to science, a noble pursuit in itself when pursued for the sake of pure discovery, has risen to the level of idolatrous worship by an increasing number of zealous followers.
As religious texts were once written almost exclusively in Latin, a language few common people could read or write, so today’s scientific texts are written in the language of scientific jargon, understood by few and easily used by everyone from medical professionals to politicians to statisticians to support almost any public policy approach they choose to push. As concern about public policy based on government-funded science grows among the general public, it has increasingly become liberals, and not conservatives, who reply with refrains of “don’t question it,” and “trust the science!” Most especially ironic is that many of today’s liberals now pushing for greater government involvement in our lives are the children of the “hippies” of the 1960s, who looked with sideways distrust at the government of their time. And the quashing of differing ideas by contemporary liberals often has the same feeling of dismissal and intellectual closed-mindedness as the old religious refrain of “Well, God works in mysterious ways.”
On the other side of the coin, especially in these early years of the 20’s, an increasing number of Republicans are finding themselves unrepresented by the GOP platform, which has abandoned traditionally conservative viewpoints like small government and opposition to debt spending. These conservatives are finding themselves better described as libertarian conservatives, whose views are often considered “economically” or “fiscally conservative,” but “socially liberal” as they believe that government should have limited, enumerated powers and should not weigh in on things like what you smoke or who you choose to marry.
It is this steady march of conservatives towards libertarianism, and of liberals towards the ideological absolutism of “our way or the highway” that led me to this theory of the reversal of political ideologies. Now, liberals are still liberal and conservatives are still conservative. However, liberals are becoming increasingly more narrow-minded, a traditionally conservative trait, and conservatives are becoming more open-minded, a traditional liberal trait. As the American Left grows more powerful, they are becoming less tolerant – not more – of those who are different from them. We see this trend even within their own ranks, as liberals who ask honest questions are silenced and hidden from view to avoid contamination of the message, like the religious heretics of old. My questions are, will this ideological flip continue, and where will it end?
© 2021 Tim Lynch, republication without permission prohibited. All rights reserved.
The Liberty Register 