UPDATED: Core Values
Some discussion at Dan Riehl’s and at Instapundit on whether the GOP has become more socially conservative or not.
I agree with Dan that the culture has indeed changed; but I never much think of Republicans as a party of old fashioned values anyway (or of fiscally conservative ones) regardless of what Senator Specter says. And – as Dan suggests – I’m pretty certain that even if the culture had not changed, we’d still be hearing attacks from the Left and the media against Republicans for being backwards, “judging” others, blurring the lines between church and state, or what have you.
The truth is it really doesn’t matter – in terms of the political debate’s tone – how strident or not the GOP is about social conservatism. Any little bit of social conservatism will do for the purposes of Left-wing attacks. The key to understanding this is in Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals
4. Make the enemy live up to his/her own book of rules (i.e., if the Bible is that book, then the minute a GOP congressman is caught in a sex scandal, tear them apart for not being a perfect model of sainthood).
5. Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
And also, Rule #9. I have no doubt it’s been very effective when applied to so-called Independents who may fear living in a more “theocratic” society if Republicans are anywhere near the reins of power:
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
I’m not even sure anyone who attacks Republicans on such grounds even believes such things (or bothers to give them serious thought). They just repeat it like parrots because they’ve been trained to do so over decades of being indoctrinated in Alinskyian tactics. And because it works.
UPDATE: Dan Riehl links. Thanks!
UPDATE: Analysts agree the GOP hasn’t really moved rightwards. Perhaps, it only seems that way.
