Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The conservative movement's mythology versus statistical evidence

One of the recurring themes of the McCain-Palin campaign has been that Obama is "out of touch", or "doesn't understand the problems of everyday Americans"

Well, check out this poll, and understand the difference between electioneering and observable reality.

By the by, I've settled on the phrase "conservative moment" to try and distinguish what I see as two conflicting versions of conservative ideology. The first is "classical conservatism", which values respect for tradition, opposes radical change and is, although not my preferred intellectual preference, a fairly useful philosophy to have around. The other, "movement conservatism", is little more than an angry mob railing against anything slightly different to them, and which is coming dangerously close to turning into a movement of brownshirts. Both currently exist in today's Republican party I think. But the number of non-movement conservatives in it appears to be dwindling rapidly.

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