What Occupy movement understood and most don't.

[EdHieron]

badgenome said:

Soleron said:

I hope we will see this fiscally conservative/libertarian part of the Republican Party seperate from the socially conservative base completely. I like some of their ideas but (if I was American) I could never vote for a party with such extreme views on social issues.

I don't see what that would accomplish. Branding aside, the Republican Party is neither fiscally conservative nor socially extreme, and libertarians are already a people without a party except for the odd Ron or Rand Paul. If Republicans were to ditch the social conservatism altogether, they would lose far more votes than they would gain because there are plenty of socons who either luvz teh poor or love sucking that government titty themselves who would just jump on the Democrat bandwagon. There are a lot more richardhutnik types than you might think, people who don't hate Republicans because they're "racists" or "homophobes" or whatever, but because they buy into the horseshit that the Republicans are the enemy of the middle class and the Democrats are its defender.

Fiscal conservatism just isn't a winner. Loads of people like to talk about how they're "fiscally conservative and socially liberal" but guess which side always wins out? Stated preference vs. actual preference.

The Republican Party certainly is socially extreme.  Seventy Percent of those voters that put in the 2010 Crop of Senators thoroughly believe in a totally discredited iron age book that advocates keeping those that don't wholeheartedly believe in an outmoded patriarchical social structure as second class citizens or worse.