Whither the Culture War?

This chapter concludes the book by looking at his re-election four years later, on November 6, 2012. I present data on the impact of the millennial generation and the rise of the progressive “ascendant majority” (and issues such as contraception); the suggestion of strategic plans and “rebranding” of the Republican Party, and the internecine struggles that has produced; an analysis of the role of polarization in the body politic; and the conclusion, which analyzes these elements and predicts the complications of populism (including “libertarian populism”), the reduced salience and role of social conservatives, and the end, finally, of the potency and relevance of “Reagan Democrats.”

Campaign 2012

This chapter offers an analysis of how the backlash of the tea party movement, so prominent in 2009 and 2010, played out in the reality of a 2012 presidential campaign. It highlights the planned and unplanned, inadvertent and unwise, use of culture war issues and symbols—issues that had traditionally excited the social conservative religious base, stolen away “Reagan Democrats,” and caused problems in national elections and what this portends for future American sociopolitical development.

Anger and Resentment Anew

This chapter focuses on the engines and contours of the “Obama backlash” and the expressions of the tea party movement, with its cries that “America is being taken from us” and attempts to reimpose “normal people values.” It documents a new culture war resistance (“birthers,” “deathers” “Tenthers” “truthers” and tea party activists) and identify polarization and hyper-partisanship as the themes of discourse, and even governing. It concludes that this backlash is not rooted in the morality issues of the prior culture war. These two chapters present, review, and analyze data regarding attitudes and issue framing during the years 2008–2014, which are the focus of the book.

Marriage Equality

This chapter traces the steady and dramatic changes in American attitudes toward, and legal reform of, marriage equality. This is analyzed as an example of the “de-wedging” of one of the key “wedge issues” utilized by the social and religious conservatives from 1980 onward, that of gay rights generally and same-sex marriage specifically. It uses as a touchpoint one analyst’s observation: “It’s hard to imagine a significant issue in which the center of gravity is shifting faster than gay marriage in this country.”

After Falwell

This chapter analyzes the role of religion, especially its conservative manifestations in contemporary American society. It buttresses the arguments presented earlier, especially the moderation of American religiosity and the diminution of the power of social conservatives to shape American politics and policy.

Liberalization and Backlash in the Obama Era

This chapter establishes the basis for the book’s assessment of the state of American conservatism in the Obama era. It takes as its central point this paradox between the growing liberalization of some features of American society (such as same-sex marriage) and growing conservatism at the same time (e.g., the tea party). This chapter establishes this paradox as the central tension in the book and provides the roadmap for the following chapters. I examine the progress of the vitality of the social conservative approach in a decidedly different era—the time of the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” military policy, the expansion of same-sex marriage, and the enactment of historic healthcare reform.

Introduction

I was a college senior at a Catholic university when Roe v. Wade was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in January 1973. It was an unusual day, in that former president Lyndon Johnson passed away that same day after a heart attack at his ranch in Texas. That meant that the Supreme Court’s historic 7–2 ruling could not be the lead headline in the ...

“Vota Tus Valores”

This chapter proposes a provocative demographic question: What will be the effect of the growing ethnic diversity of the United States on legal consideration of the personal morality issues discussed in this book? Will a growing “Latinoization” of the American population continue in a liberalized direction, or will cultural conservatism give rise to a slowdown in the granting of personal rights through the extension of personal autonomy? Will a religiously observant Latino population follow the precepts of their church leaders and embrace conservative pro-life measures on reproductive rights and same-sex marriage? Or will the collision of different demographic impulses—youthful Latino voters trending one way, their elders another—produce a muted effect for the short term and a convergent liberalism in the long term?