Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-2005
Abstract
What's wrong with the right? It has become a political movement, disconnected from a larger, more complicated and diverse social and cultural tradition. By the 1980s the right had transformed the Republican Party, had articulated a clear if not consistent agenda. After Reagan the right turned policy agendas into ideological objectives. What made their ideology different was the apocalyptic quality to the struggle for power. With the right ideas, the good cause, the right settled into a Manichean language that demonized opponents. With the stakes so high, those on the right approached politics as a Hobbesian conflict rather than a conversation. The risks associated with losing were too great to contemplate, justifying almost any political tactic. Moreover, this ideological structure, fully formed and in no need of further elaboration, justified using the expanding power of the federal government to secure the good causes, to protect cherished ways of life, and to impose a new political order.
Recommended Citation
McAllister, Ted, "What’s Wrong with the Right: A Conservative Vision For the Twenty-First Century" (2005). Pepperdine University, School of Public Policy Working Papers. Paper 20.
https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/sppworkingpapers/20
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