Look, call them whatever you want:
It is absolutely central to the social conservative voter’s self-image that they be fighting to defend something Big and Worthy and Righteous, and tax cuts and the inherent beauty of the corporate form aren’t going to cut it.
They need issues like LIFE or MARRIAGE or FAMILY, or they sit it out. They haven’t miraculously turned into glib, ironic, pot-smoking libertarian-types, despite the Koch propaganda and Grover Norquist’s fantasies. That’s silly. They’re the same voters they always were.
They’re rural, they’re religious, and they’re dead-earnest.
I think we may be overthinking this. They’re just assholes, and I know we want to understand them so we can appeal to them to vote for us, but there’s not that much to understand. The economy and the deficit have become code for what LIFE and MARRIAGE and FAMILY were code for before, which is somebody out there getting something he or she doesn’t deserve. That’s all this is, a neverending fight to not have to think about somebody else being screwed. Also the president is black, and not completely bonkers, so there’s that.
I seriously do not have any patience for it anymore. Back in 2004 I thought let’s appeal to them this way, that way, another way, but after six years of just watching people get angrier and crazier ABOUT NOTHING I think our best bet is to appeal to our own damn base and get them out to vote because there’s more of us, and the hell with these crazy morons. I know it’s gonna upset the Villagers, saying they don’t deserve to be listened to and heard … look, maybe they do, but somebody other than Democrats can do it, because we have a limited amount of time on this planet and we don’t need to spend it this way.
A.