George Will's Blues

In Sunday's Washington Post, George Will reviews Thomas Edsall's latest book on Building Red America. As you might expect, George doesn't like it, although he doesn't argue the facts. Quite to the contrary, he defends the Republican focus on social issues over economic issues.

Edsall notes that one-third of American children -- and almost 70 percent of African American children -- are born to unmarried mothers. Then, in an astonishing passage about this phenomenon, which is the cause of most social pathologies, from crime to schools that cannot teach, he explains how Americans differ concerning what he calls "freedom from the need to maintain the marital or procreative bond." "To social conservatives," he writes, "these developments have signaled an irretrievable and tragic loss. Their reaction has fueled, on the right, a powerful traditionalist govement and a groundswell of support for the Republican Party. To modernists, these developments constitute, at worst, the unfortunate costs of progress, and, at
best -- and this is very much the view on the political left as well as of Democratic Party loyalists -- they constitute a triumph over unconscionable obstacles to the liberation and self-realization of much of the human race." Looking for the real reason for the rise of "Red America"? Read that paragraph again.

An yet Will begins the entire essay noting that the GOP is shaking in fear over the next election. The next election is not what is feared. Both parties fear a third party or a coalition that combines social activism and traditional values. That would be this one.