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I was reflecting on the right-wing tactics in a world where they have less and less cultural power, and the Eye of Sauron in Washington is completely fixated on destroying them whenever they are.
I, as a chronic pessimist, don't think that they will ever adapt their tactics fully against the left-wing. Because, unlike the left that moves only by using Conflict Theory, the right-wing coalition suffer often from desertion, moderatization of issues, necessity of creating coalition with more moderates party and organizations etc.
For example, how anyone can think that the right-wing can be successful when, if they are in a coalition, only the most moderate and centrist policies that they promote can pass?
In a left-wing coalition you can be sure that, in a given arc of time, the coalition will implement policies that are more centrists first, then they will pass to more radical positions, and so on and so on.
The arc of history goes left also because the right has no sense of scale and can only concede, never take something. The only place where the government and administration (But not the Culture or the youngs!) have gone right in the West is Hungary, and only because Fidesz has total control!
Meanwhile, in order to help the left, you need only a smallish more leftwing party in the coalition, who will ask for more immigration, more of something, that will be for sure accepted.
That is why I absolutely despise centrists coalitions: Because they will negotiate with the Left, receiving something inconsequential on the long run (like a lesser tax on something useless) and giving to the leftist part something that cement their coalition (immigration, genderification, more cultural egemony)
How the right can win something if, whetever party or coalition you vote, they will for sure adopt with time leftists policies?
The process is like this:
Right wing comes in power, they adopt more centrist policies and get attacked as nazi anyway.
Centrist parties come in power, the negotiate with the left and with time leftist policies get adopted as a result of this.
You vote moderate left, and with time they switch to some more radical leftists positions.
It is maddening how there is no escape from this spiral.
The problem here is less with journalism and medias or whatever being left wing, and more with the right-wing being completely useless at doing anything of substance.
The problem is that conservative ideas are only popular among the conservative base to the extent that they can be used to make culture-war hay. When it comes time to turn this rhetoric into policy, the politicians know that it won't fly, so they back off toward moderate reforms. For example, most Republicans in the US blame "tax and spend Democrats" for a whole host of economic ills and advocate for a leaner Federal government. But when it comes to actually reducing spending, the big social programs are so popular among the conservative base that they're untouchable. No Republican is going to march into the US congress and advocate for a big plan to reform, let alone eliminate, Social Security. Or Medicare. And these two programs alone account for nearly 60% of the entire Federal budget. Add in military spending and you're looking at 3/4 of the Federal budget that's off-limits to conservatives to any kind of cuts. Add in that most conservative constituents expect at least minimal spending in other areas, and grand plans of budget cuts are reduced to trimming around the edges.
So instead you end up with things like perennial calls to defund public broadcasting. PBS and NPR have been in the crosshairs of conservatives for some time, particularly because their news programs have a leftist slant. One issue, though, is that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's budget is so small that scientific notation is needed to express it as a percentage of Federal spending, so eliminating it is more about signaling than about actual spending cuts. The other issue is that while NPR and PBS news are undeniably left-wing (NPR to a greater degree), they are also pretty much the last bastion of "traditional Western culture" in mainstream American media. For example, classical music would disappear from American airwaves in all but the largest markets if NPR ceased to exist.
An even better example is the utter failure of the Republicans to repeal Obamacare. Opposition to the program was a centerpiece of conservative politics from the act's proposal in 2009 all the way up to 2017. Yet a conservative trifecta couldn't do anything about it. It turns out that when you expand coverage to people who couldn't afford it before, you create a constituency that benefits from the program. Actually repealing the ACA would have meant that a ton of people would have gotten cancellation notices and the status of their healthcare coverage would be in limbo. So there was at least the early recognition that the "Skinny repeal option wasn't really viable"; something needed to replace the program that kept most of the essential protections in place. In a sense, this was already a capitulation, because it suggested that the Republicans' only real problem with the act was that it was endorsed by a Democrat, not because of anything substantive. But even then, they still failed to come up with "Obamacare under another name" and didn't have the votes to repeal the law. The best they could muster was a repeal of the individual mandate, a supreme irony in that the only part of a large Federal program they got rid of was the funding aspect, which only had the effect of making the policies more expensive than they were before. So in the end, all we get from conservatives in the US is moderate tax cuts, which only serve to increase the deficits the right is claiming are ruining our economy. The right can't get any traction beyond "moderate" reforms because there's simply no call for it
Maybe it is because I am European and I come from a different political culture, but a lot of these actions make no sense to me.
It is NPR public and at the same time insanely left wing? It is simple, you are the government! You decide who staff the NPR and PBS and whatever! Are the journalists there unsatisfacted? They will leave or bow. Is the problem classical music or traditional western music or whatever? Fund another national public broadcast who will do these things!
I understand the libertarian political culture, but leaving these things at the force of the market will help only the left, not the right.
The USA is different in part because of highly successful private enterprises with a right wing slant.
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