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Are we living in a Conservative Era?

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Id82:
I got into a discussion with my very conservative father in law who told me that Barack Obama was the most liberal president he has ever seen, and I thought really? More liberal than FDR or LBJ? He then went on to say blah blah blah Obamacare is socialized medicine and repeated some fox news talking points, but it got me thinking. Is the country just in a conservative era, and what would it take to shift the overton window back into a liberal era?

I would like to think that the country was a liberal shifted country from 1933 to 1982 after the election of FDR until the election of Ronald Reagan where the country shifted from another conservative era after the stock market crashed and a lot of liberal policies, high taxes on the wealthy, five democratic presidents and a democratic dominated congress occurred. Even the two Republicans elected (I don't count Ford since he pretty much just finished out Nixon's term) in that time passed things that would be considered liberal. Eisenhower expanded the highway systems and even Nixon created the EPA. The democratic party shifted from having conservatives in their party to being very liberal.
But it seems like after the baby boomers and young gen xer's came of age, and increased anger from Southern states after the civil rights act was passed, the country voted in Reagan in a huge landslide and changed the country from liberal to conservative. Nearly forty years later the country has had three Republican presidents and two Democrats, and one could argue that Clinton and Obama were pretty center. There's some progress that has been made but it's had to fight against a strong renewed religious right and fiscal conservatives that dominate the political discussion with low taxes for the wealthy and corporations. 9/11 happened which turned US conservatives from somewhat accepting to highly xenophobic and paranoid, and now nearly forty years later since Reagan we have Trump in office with increasing deficits, recordly low taxes, increasing income inequality, very strong religious right representation in government, catering to corporate needs over people's needs, an emboldened nationalist sentiment and liberals have been demonized by a very fringe Right wing. It would seem like it's hard to be a liberal in America right now. Every progress that people want to be made or need to make is shot down by corporations.
But just by looking at history political dominance shifts, and it seems to happen every thirty to forty years or so.

My question would be would you agree we are living in a conservative era of the United states, and if so when do you predict things might shift to the other side? What would it take to shift things politically to the left to a new era? Another great depression that would finally wake American's up? An incoming increase in Millennials entering office who generationally have been pretty liberal compared to their parents. Or a strong Millennial president that finally excites and unites the country around them?
If you can't tell I'm very interested in political shifts.

dpareja:
Oh, hi, Buckley v. Valeo.

Skybison:
Well I'll have more to say on this later, but it's important to remember that of the seven elections the US has had in my lifetime, the democrats won the popular vote in six.  The republicans far rights ideology isn't really all that popular, the rules of the game are just heavily rigged in their favor.

davedan:
I think the change in the evangelical vote is really interesting. When the evangelicals abandoned Jimmy Carter (who was evangelical and a guy who I think represents the better aspect of Christians) to give their vote to Reagan (who was a Hollywood actor) they sold their soul.

In all appears to be about abortion which wasn't even a major Christian issue until the late early 80s.

dpareja:
It was partly abortion (though evangelicals were pro-choice, once upon a time) but also partly racism; see Coit v. Green.

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