[From article]
Liberals expend tremendous effort changing the culture. Conservatives expend tremendous effort changing elected officials every other November — and then are surprised that it doesn't make much difference.
Culture trumps politics — which is why, once the question's been settled culturally, conservatives are reduced to playing catch-up, twisting themselves into pretzels to explain why gay marriage is really conservative after all, or why 30 million unskilled immigrants with a majority of births out of wedlock are "natural allies" of the Republican Party.
[. . .]
In 1986, in a concurrence to a majority opinion, the chief justice of the United States declared that "there is no such thing as a fundamental right to commit homosexual sodomy." A blink of an eye, and his successors are discovering fundamental rights to commit homosexual marriage.
[. . .]
If the culture's liberal, if the schools are liberal, if the churches are liberal, if the hip, groovy business elite is liberal, if the guys who make the movies and the pop songs are liberal, then electing a guy with an "R" after his name isn't going to make a lot of difference.
Nor should it. In free societies, politics is the art of the possible. In the 729 days between elections, the left is very good at making its causes so possible that in American politics almost anything of consequence is now impossible, from enforcing immigration law to controlling spending.
[. . .]
Culture is the long view; politics is the here and now.
Yet in America vast cultural changes occur in nothing flat, while, under our sclerotic political institutions, men elected to two-year terms of office announce ambitious plans to balance the budget a decade after their terms end. Here, again, liberals show a greater understanding of where the action is.
[. . .]
On the other hand, the nationalization of the family proceeds apace, and America is as well advanced on that path as anywhere else. "The West has nationalized families over the last 60 years," writes Vaidyanathan. "Old age, ill health, single motherhood — everything is the responsibility of the state."
http://www.jewishworldreview.
Why the real battle for America is over culture, not elections
By Mark Steyn
Published Oct. 20, 2014
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