One thing the Progressive resurgence has not done is attack conservatism itself. We think tactically, or in small reforms. Many of our leaders seem to buy the notion that our country is "Center-Right". We need to emulate Glenn Beck (I cannot believe I wrote that). Beck's TV show used dubious historical claims to concoct a rightist revisionist history that attacked 'Progressive' values and ideas. All we have to say for most of, for instance, the Tea Bagger's ideas is "we tried this" either in the first ten, Articles of Confederation years of our republic, or in general in the 19th century. I can hardly believe that we can't even mention that in the 1990's all the same scolds bleated about how a higher minimum wage and higher taxes would destroy the US economy. Instead we got a tremendous boom and a balanced budget. I , very naively, thought that would shut up the tax avoidance fetishists but, no, they are unfazed by facts. Right wing imagery resonates with the working class. Since this has been a fairly rightist country for much of its history and our myths are all about individual glory coupled with the working class of every nations reflexive nationalism, gives Rightists an built in edge. We cannot write off the rural Americans themselves. Most of them are intelligent people who have been sold, using sophisticated marketing, an intellectual bill of goods. The 1960s started over 50 years ago. Cannot we ween the US off those outdated stereotypes that feed our distrust of each other?