the GOP becomes the party of fiscal conservatism and economic populism
Just like how the Democratic party will become pro-choice and pro-life?
Economic populism and fiscal conservatism are not mutually exclusive. That is what the Tea Party is.
Fiscal conservatism--Let's not spend money we don't have!
Economic populism--In of government spending and economic policy, let's do what the people (not Wall Stree fat-cats) want!
This is what happened in 2010. Republicans were more populist than the Democrats in that year, the people wanted lower gov't spending. So that is what the Republicans offered. They took the idea of fiscal conservatism and gave it populist appeal...
In a way on economic issues, being a populist conservative was what the original Democrats were about....and definitely what elected 19th century Democrats were about-
"Were the party of the people and we don't want our money and land taken by the follies of the rich. No to a national bank and infrastructure spending!"
Someone can be a populist and a conservative even if those policies mean that many people will vote against their interests. By "against their interest", I mean that their populism is chasing them out of the fuedal bondage of the public estate and their conservatism is fooling them into selling themsevles into the fuedal bondage of various massive private estates. Many try to reason that if private estates had more power, they would be more encouraged to build their own estate and become rich and powerful themselves. Those with this reasoning then conclude that this sums up their God-given entitlement to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". You know what I call that? Gambling.
Then again, maybe this isn't voting against one's interest at all. Maybe private estates have become so powerful, that they have, as I warned, have comprimised at least our naton's economic sovreignty. Therefore, any attempt by the Public Estate/Government to allow their workers/charges to advance into a state of economic self-ownership (the Middle Class) will fail because there is no longer any way to support the programs and insittutions that would make such a thing possible.
It could be that the only way to become "Middle Class" would be try to establish your own estate and to fail to become wealthy. Maybe instead of the "Middle Class" being a position of simply working as a protected tradesman, professional or bureaucrat for the government or a business, perhaps it has become more of a "bronze metal" of economic achievement for "free" men and women. (The Silver Metal being having a million and a half in assets (the top two percent) that is said to be needed to be "rich" and the Gold Metal being the seven and a half million (the top one or two per-1000) that is said to be need to be "really rich".)
This means that perhaps that if Obama loses, perhaps the direction of the Democratic Party would be to not be a voice of workers, but to be the voice of the new little guys- small businesses, independent professionals and generally to advocate for leveling the playing feild for the new kids on the block. Terms such as "Dilluting The Variable Cost Burden" and "Increasing Industry Competition and Consumer Choice" could soon be our new euphonisms for "Universal Health Care" and "Employee's Rights".
These new strategies could work better simply because it would reonate and help an increasing amount of people and be done in a way that will not exert direct force over the internal functioning of these large private estates.
It appears that the Blair-esque strategy of being a liberal in a conservative's world might be a way to go....and in fact, you probably could push even further to the left than you can now or even did before.
