The Conservative Majority Myth

My thought in this article is to identify and comment in a scientific way on one of the notable political phenomena of our time. That is, the powerful and wonderfully persistent devices by which recurrently we are persuaded that conservatism is the wave of the future. These instruments of persuasion are brought to bear at all times and with much success on the Congress. And once every four years, at about this time in relation to the election, they are directed at the Democratic party and the nation at large.

The purpose is always the same. It is to persuade all susceptible citizens, but Democrats, their legislators, and the candidates in particular, that the country has, at long last, moved sharply to the right. Specifically, it seeks to persuade them that, politically speaking, there are no poor, no aged, no sick, no black, no minorities, no people seriously squeezed by inflation, not many for whom unemployment is a major issue, no one whatever whose health, education, food...