I don't mean the traditional conservative (with a small 'c') who wants things to change slowly and gradually and for older values to be preserved. He is opposed to the traditional liberal who is impatient for change and seeks reform and progress, even at the risk of going too fast. That dichotomy has always existed in democratic societies, not just in the USA. We can trace the lib vs con debate back through history even before the US was a country. And we can trace that struggle getting stronger from the Civil War, then through the Industrial Age, and it really got hot when Teddy Roosevelt went after the Trusts and started the social welfare movements that put an end to the Gilded Age, and eventually led up to the New Deal. And of course, there was McCarthyism, and the Cold War, and all the rest. But that was just the normal tension between the interests of the two polar opposites that exist in any democratic capitalist society.

No, I'm talking about the New Right, the Conservatives with a Capital 'C'. They started in the early 1960s. I should know, I was there, just starting to become politically aware as a high school student, an immigrant city kid suddenly thrust into the rural South. That gave me just the outsider's perspective I needed to see what was going on, but its taken me a lifetime to really understand its significance.

Suddenly, they were everywhere. The John Birch Society flourished, and
Barry Goldwater was a big deal. What was going on that made this happen?
Its clear. It was the Civil Rights Movement. It scared the shit out of people in the early 1960s, MLK was not killed by a crazed lunatic, his murderer was a common stereotype, you could run into a dozen just like him in the course of a day. Black people in the movement, and whites who sympathized with them, were not safe in those days.

It would be unfair to say that Conservative politics is essentially a racist movement, there are, after all, black Republicans and Democratic racists. But the correlation is undeniable: Most Cons are not racist, but most racists are Cons, it really is that simple. The racist streak that has always been in American society was co-opted by the Conservative movement. I've talked about the Southern Strategy before, and that is exactly what I'm talking about now. The rage and fear of the white working class was cynically seized and manipulated for political purposes by the new Conservative movement, and it was directed onto issues that had nothing to do with race. The social forces associated with racism came to be identified with economic and political positions instead. That constellation of associations continues to dominate our political debate today. The two have become so intertwined and connected that even those directly affected by it often can't see it at work in the background.

Oh sure, there was a lot of double talk about "States Rights" and "Big Government", and "Local Control", "Judicial Restraint", "School Choice" and all the other lofty ideological positions that exist at the intellectual level. But at the emotional level, its about the colored people coming to your school, and dating your daughter, and taking your job, and raising your taxes for their welfare. Its about property values, and crime, and once the association is made, its hard to untangle the mess. This is lizard brain stuff. And now that we're finally getting used to blacks, we got Mexicans and Muslims to substitute for them.

The Conservatives don't hate Obama because he's black. They hate him because of his perceived positions on social and economic issues. And they really hate the fact that a majority of American voters don't really care that he's black, either. That he was elected was a shock, but what really devastated the Conservatives is that he was elected twice, by a popular majority. That electoral coalition of poor, older white folks and factory workers is scared now, their world is coming apart, and economically they are losing hope. The postwar world of economic promise and social progress is slowly unraveling. Their bosses are shipping work overseas and hiring foreigners and installing robots, so they hate
the Chinese, the Mexicans, and science--the cause of all their problems.
And of course, now they're competing with the blacks for welfare--and for heroin.

While the Civil Rights Movement was exploding across America, the
Beatles and their sissy haircuts showed up, then we got into a war in Asia that some people actually didn't support. Imagine that? Kids starting going to college and coming home with weird ideas, and their little girls were getting laid left and right and wanting the Pill, the President was murdered in Dallas, and the new one started building a Great Society. The world turned upside down.

As long as the economy boomed, the lid could be kept on the bubbling pot.
But when the trickle-down supply-side economy failed to deliver, when the good-paying jobs went away, when the blacks weren't just fighting for their rights across town, but challenging you directly in your neighborhood, your workplace, your school--well that was just too much.

Then along comes this uppity Obama, poised, well-spoken, groomed, squeaky clean...and what's worse, when your own kids don't seem to care...well, here comes Trump. He's the Great White Hope for my high school classmates.