In a diary yesterday, One Pissed Off Liberal lamented the disastrous results of "Forty Years of Corruption and 'Conservatism'" I don't think anyone would disagree with that assessment, but it did cause me to think about how they had managed to pull it off.
Although many on this site rant against it, it seems to me that Republicans have put us in this miserable position because they are masters of incrementalism. Does anyone think that the positions that are now mainstream Republican would have had any traction forty years ago?
Remember Barry Goldwater? Goldwater received 38.4% of the popular vote, and carried six states: Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. In all, Johnson won an overwhelming 486 electoral votes, to Goldwater's 52.
The John Birch Society practically disappeared from political discourse, now they are mainstream Republican. We are constantly amazed at the extreme positions that their candidate have, but still we are behind them in the polls.
Even when they suffered defeats. did Republicans give up or try to get back to majority status all at once? No, they dug in and went to work for the long haul. They established conservative think tanks, developed effective messaging, amassed a world class media machine, recruited candidates at every level, and disguised their extreme policies. They found ways to play to voters fears and prejudices and get them to vote against their economic self interests.
And they never quit. If they lose an election, they just work harder. If their candidate is an idiot, no matter, they vote for them anyway. They know even an idiot can be useful with the right handlers. Actually often Republicans don't so much vote for their candidate, as they vote against any Democrat. They don't care if their candidate ran a strong campaign, they buy into the propaganda and they always vote.
After forty years of Republican propaganda saturating the media and the political sound machine, it looks like incrementalism has been a pretty good strategy for them and I don't think throwing a few "Hail Marys" into the end zone will be very effective against their massive ground game.
We need to take a page from their playbook and get our own ground game in shape for the long run. Forty years of hard fought right wing incrementalism is not going to be turned around in a couple years. They've out played us, out hustled us, and out worked us and their people are entrenched in every level of government and the media. Their messaging has been so effective that millions of Americans believe it without even thinking if it makes sense. They believe it even when Message A is in direct conflict with Message B.
There are no easy fixes, there are no quick solutions. If we want to win we will need to work hard, take our victories where we can, and never give up. Incrementalism is not a dirty word, it is a darned effective strategy for moving the country your way.