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o i don't think this is the end of either the republicans or conservatism at all.
i think this is a Problem for the particular version of conservatism that's come together gradually since the reagan period, and especially for the language that coalition has used to talk to/amongst/about itself.
it's not obvious at this point the extent to which the coalition was held together by this language--it is evident that it staged a particular balance of symbolic power within it---so the groups whose interests were symmetrical with it (evangelicals, populist conservatives, southeastern us populism, the far right) will probably see themselves as losing out as the language mutates. other groups will replace them, the mosaic will rearrange itself and a different version of conservatism will take shape in the process.
it may not be that different, but the way it presents itself etc. kinda has to be.
i don't think this has much of anything to do with shared values per se---the way values are talked through and about is very different from what any set of values might be---because a coalition language has to generalize them---and who controls or benefits from those terms ends up with a degree of symbolic power.
this does not need to coincide with actual power within the party organization either. this discourse which has hit the wall did not spin out of the republican party itself--it was fashioned across a considerable network of centers...
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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