Thread by @Noahpinion

I've said the modern political era is basically the same as "Nixonland", but there is one important difference - in the late 60s and early 70s, a lot of real policy actually got done.

Civil rights act, voting rights act, immigration reform, lots of anti-poverty programs.

Some of this was LBJ seeing the riots of the late 60s as a cry for help, and trying to satisfy people with New Deal style programs - both to satisfy his conscience and preserve Democratic power. Some was Nixon trying to be a Great Man.

But in the modern day, we barely got any real policy changes before the madness froze things up. We got gay marriage (but that was long in the works). We got DACA, a few consent decrees for police departments, an aborted attempt to enforce the Fair Housing Act.

That's really not a lot.

So why didn't we have an initial period of policy liberalization this time around?

Was the Right simply quicker on the draw with the the crazy reaction?

Was the Left more interested in status politics this time, and less in real concrete reforms?

One big difference is that Nixon was a guy everyone thought was a fascist, who had authoritarian tendencies but was actually pretty moderate on policy. While Trump is a guy who wants to cosplay as a fascist, and is limited mainly by his own total incompetence.

A second difference, of course, was the Tea Party Congress, which swept to power in 2010 and effectively killed any chances Obama had of enacting major, LBJ-style reforms for 6 years of his presidency.

A third difference is that we had our replay of Vietnam (i.e. Iraq) before our replay of the culture wars, instead of concurrently. No concurrent antiwar movement = less impetus for real change, I guess.

A fourth difference is that the 60s riots were a LOT bigger, more widespread, and more violent than the few scattered mini-riots we had in 2015-16.

theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

Those are differences that have mitigated against big policy change.

But there's one big difference that mitigates FOR big policy change this time around...in the near future.

The electorate has changed since 1968. A lot.

In the late 60s and 70s, the big shift was that the South broke from the Dems and joined Western and Northern conservatives in the GOP. That was an invincible coalition.

But that's a trick that only works once. The country has drifted left, and there's only one South to flip.

The downfall of Nixon was just followed by more conservative victories, with Reagan etc., thanks to the South's historic flip.

But the downfall of Trump will be followed by no enduring right wing electoral supermajority. There's no right-wing savior waiting in the wings.

After LBJ, the Left never managed to elect a real left-wing leader (and no, Carter doesn't count at all).

But this time around, I think there will be one. And then there will be some policy action.

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