What a difference two years make in times as serious as these. Two Novembers ago, all was hope and glory on the center-left in American politics, all was despair and despondency on the center-right. But that is not how things stand now. The political momentum has shifted back, and shifted back very quickly, into the hands of the very conservative forces whose future looked so bleak when Obama first entered the White House. Since those conservative forces are now not simply back on the offensive, but are also significantly more conservative in policy and ideology than were their defeated predecessors, this shift in momentum is both critical and potentially dangerous for those of us committed to progressive change. The rise of the new conservatism, unless stopped, will move the whole agenda of American politics even further to the right than it was in the Bush years. Stopping it requires many things: but it must begin with a clear understanding of why the tidal wave of progressive enthusiasm that swept Obama to the presidency has now dissipated.
So why have we seen this rapid change of fortunes? Some mixture of the following four reasons at least.
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