… It’s likely that rising income concentration reinforced the rightward trend of the GOP, as the number and wealth of donors able to lavish funds on suitably hard-line politicians grew. But something else must have gotten the process going.
That something, I believe, is the constellation of forces described in chapters 6 and 7. To recapitulate the story: In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the “new conservatives,” the narrow, elitist group centered around the National Review, grew into a serious movement by merging with other factions unhappy with the moderate, middle-class America of the postwar years. Fervent anticommunists found in movement conservatism kindred spirits who shared their fears. People outraged by the idea of other people receiving welfare found a movement that could make their resentment politically respectable. Businessmen furious at having to deal with unions found a movement that could turn their anger into effective political action.
This convergence of forces was strong enough to nominate Barry Goldwater, but only because the Republican establishment was caught by surprise. And Goldwater lost the election by a landslide. Nonetheless the movement went on, and learned. Reagan taught the movement how to clothe elitist economic ideas in populist rhetoric. Nixon, though not a movement conservative, showed how the dark side of America—cultural and social resentments, anxieties over security at home and abroad, and, above all, race—could be exploited to win elections.
--Paul Krugman
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