Whatever agreements they might have had about the evils of corporate restructuring, the dangers of new technologies, or the rigidity of job skills paled in comparison to their fundamental disagreements about how to deal with the Soviet Union. That defining issue has now vanished, and others have faded. Government spending is no longer seen, even by most liberals who support it, as a simple solution to the problems of poverty. Nor do conservatives all agree that expansive military spending and vigorous engagement abroad are the best approach to American defense. There are plenty of practical policy differences over such issues, but they no longer define clear ideological camps.
People can change their minds without changing their political identities.
Meanwhile, seemingly strange alliances have popped up on subjects no one paid much attention to until recently. Immigration attracts similar left-right opposition. The movement to drastically curtail U.S. legal immigration levels has vocal conservative supporters, including Buchanan, former National Review senior editor Peter Brimelow, and Reagan administration immigration commissioner Alan Nelson. And many smaller anti-immigration groups, such as the Carrying Capacity Network, draw almost entirely from the environmentalist left. Information is now a commodity that is bought and sold.