And yet, the country has moved further and further rightward. When the economy contracts for most voters, their hearts do as well. Citizens want fewer obligations to others. Feeling disenfranchised themselves, they resent so-called entitlements. But it's not just the traditional economy that's being squeezed.
All traditions seem under attack.
Although individuals want to expand their own liberties, they're rightly nervous about the widespread erosion of societal taboos. The left that existed in 1976 misread the nation's mood by assuming that social change would be widely welcomed. For its part, Mother Jones indulged identity politics, thinking that the sum of each group's complaints would add up to a movement that was unified and just. Celebrating the assertiveness of newly liberated groups is hardly the same as, say, robbing the national treasury, which the Reagan administration did. But the willingness to lower expectations and the reluctance to draw sober moral lines cost progressives credibility.