Dr. Jean Hardisty is the founder of
Political Research Associates (PRA) (where I am honored to be a Senior Fellow these days, and I have the white beard to go with the title). She is president
emerita, and remains involved in the organization. She gave an
interview on the occasion of the launching of the new organizational web site and blog,
Eyes Right, where I will also be contributing.
Here are a few excerpts from the interview, offering the perspective of a progressive student of the Right, a scholar who chooses her words carefully, wisely, and well.
PRA studied the Right as a movement, so that individuals and organizations existed in a framework of understanding. This reading of the Right made sense to both scholars and activists (and donors as well). It kept us away from simplistic solutions and too much simple conspiracism, while talking about how a movement does conspire and coordinate. And it made sense of the sub-movements and sectors that sometimes can contradict each other, but always exist under a coordinated big tent.
There is a lot of coverage of the Right at this point – the Internet has made a huge difference and the public is now much more aware that the Right is a well-organized and well-financed movement. But there are gaps in media coverage and there are gaps in the coverage of those progressive issues under attack.
The greatest is the neglect of the attack on the poor. Welfare Reform is too widely accepted as a success and the effect of the recession (depression) in coverage by the mainstream media takes a back seat to coverage of the effect on the Middle Class.
In the area of attacks on issues, the Right is not hampered by issue silos. It can attack the rights of immigrants and reproductive rights simultaneously or the rights of low-income people and the rights of LGBT people simultaneously. Workers and liberal Christians – they are all the same fodder for the Right’s agenda.
What will follow that as the Right’s next big theme? Perhaps a revival of Cold War themes, such as the penetration of an outside enemy (perhaps Islam this time) and the threat of foreign influence. Or the decline in Americanism – such as “standards,” patriotism, moral fiber, and manliness. Many of these themes are encoded racism, which will be a winning theme for the Right for years to come.
It’s hard to make predictions like this, and much will depend on how successful the Right is in altering the basic institutions of U.S. governance, such as the Supreme Court and the autonomy of the states. The Supreme Court is already tilted quite substantially to the right, and it in turn is expanding the role of states’ rights. Policy at the state level is historically more conservative than that at the national level and an increase in state autonomy bodes ill for the future of progressive issues.