Why America Needs Social Conservatism

[Valin]

Heritage Foundation: Ryan McNulty

March 14, 2012

 

Should conservative leaders be talking about social issues? Do conservative positions on these issues still appeal to Americans? Jeffrey Bell, author of The Case for Polarized Politics: Why America Needs Social Conservatism, visited The Heritage Foundation on Friday to make the case that they do. His book discusses the fight for socially conservative values that has been going on since the 1960s as a result of the leftward cultural change in many institutions and the sexual revolution.

 

The first question to be addressed is why the left chose to start a social movement rather than focusing on other important issues. Bell notes:

 

They wanted it to be on economic issues. The people who led that movement were overwhelmingly Marxist in one way or another. But they didn’t succeed in rolling back capitalism anywhere…What did change was the cultural climate, the sexual revolution. Institutions that had resisted the left for decades, for hundreds of years in some cases basically gave over. A whole set of institutions that had resisted the left, and in this country had been wedded to the ideas of the Founding went over and became part of a basic social left movement.

 

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The Case for Polarized Politics: Why America Needs Social Conservatism

Jeffrey Bell