Remember

Ilyka of Off Our Pedestals with a little historical perspective on conservatism.  And a dance video.  

Because the rot didn't begin with Ronald Reagan.  A brief excerpt:

"What was missing from Nixon’s populism, of course, were all the regular ordinary average American Joes and Janes who didn’t look like Nixon. It was the same thing missing from Ronald Reagan’s populism and the same thing that is missing now from Sarah Palin’s populism.

So when I write things like this, I am not saying, “Democrats, you need to talk lots more dumberer and speak to the very real and pressing needs of Joe the Plumber.” I am saying that for over fifty years now–really quite a lot longer than that, but let’s keep things manageable–conservatives have left a vacuum in their pseudopopulism, and there are times I grow impatient with the reluctance of Democrats to fill it by speaking to people who are eager, able, and committed to change–to fixing what’s broken instead of tantrumming like a Buckley. Only, whoops!–They don’t consider their lives and their work an academic aside or an elective course. They think that they matter. They are right."

The new Harper's is in here somewhere...