DiscussMormonism.com

The problem with the Republican leaders is that they’re cowards, not that they’re fundamentally mistaken. The real locus of the problem is the Republican activist base and the Republican donor base. They went apocalyptic over the past four years, and that was exploited by a lot of people in the conservative world. I won’t soon forget the lupine smile that played over the head of one major conservative institution when he told me that our donors think the apocalypse has arrived, that Republicans have been fleeced and exploited and lied to by a conservative entertainment complex.

It’s a big country full of oddballs. The mechanism by which oddballs get to know one another have gotten better and better and better. So thirty years ago there was a crank in every town, but he knew he was alone, or believed he was alone, whereas now they find each other.

Bill Maher: You wrote a brilliant thing, I thought, about how America, in this year, 2012, is so much freer than it was in 1962. This is what their big complaint is, by the way, Obama’s taking away our freedom, we want our country back. You mentioned the fact that, for example, in 62 the government regulated the route and price of every airplane, every freight train, every truck, every merchant ship, the price of natural gas, the interest on every checking account, the commission on every purchase or sale of stock, the owning of a gold bar was a serious crime, the top-rated income tax was 91%, it was illegal to own a telephone, you had to rent it. There was a military draft. We are much freer. How do you get this thought into the bubble?

David Frum: You say it over and over again, because it is the gate to conservative despair. One of the reasons we have this reaction is conservatives haven’t appreciated enough how much they won, and how we have a much less regulated economy, and we also have more social freedom. People can just do more of the things they want to do than ever before. That’s an accomplishment. And that means don’t be pessimistic. Lose elections, and then come back and win them. I think that as those thoughts percolate, you’re going to see a better, more useful, and stronger conservative movement coming out of this election season.

O'Reilly's analysis is echoed across the conservative blogosphere. The (non-white) takers now outnumber the (white) makers. They will use their majority to pillage the makers and redistribute to the takers. In the process, they will destroy the sources of the country's wealth and end the American experiment forever.

You'll hear O'Reilly's view echoed wherever conservatives express themselves.

Happily, the view is wrong, and in every respect.

America is not a society divided between "makers" and "takers." Instead, almost all of us proceed through a life cycle where we sometimes make and sometimes take as we pass from schooling to employment to retirement.

The line between "making" and "taking" is not a racial line. The biggest government program we have, Medicare, benefits a population that is 85% white.
President Barack Obama was not re-elected by people who want to "take." The president was re-elected by people who want to work -- and who were convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the president's policies were more likely to create work than were the policies advocated by my party.

The United States did not vote for socialism. It could not do so, because neither party offers socialism. Both parties champion a free enterprise economy cushioned by a certain amount of social insurance. The Democrats (mostly) want more social insurance; the Republicans want less. National politics is a contest to move the line of scrimmage, in a game where there's no such thing as a forward pass, only a straight charge ahead at the defensive line. To gain three yards is a big play.