Dreher

Just like that, it’s evaporating. Back in ’02, I learned in doing interviews and research for a story about the Netherlands that the conservatism of the country’s institutions collapsed virtually overnight in the 1960s, because pressure from the rising counterculture revealed that most people simply didn’t believe in them and their values anymore. The trauma of World War II and the Nazi occupation had shattered the social conservatism of Dutch society, and its belief in the pre-war order.

Could it be that the events of the last decade are finally taking their toll on the GOP Establishment, which gives little indication of having learned any lessons from the twin disasters of the Iraq War and the economic crash? The other day I was talking to a friend, a working-class white guy who is an Iraq War vet. When I asked him years ago what his judgment on the war was, he said simply, “A waste.” He’s a Republican. I asked him who he was backing this year. “Cruz,” he said. I didn’t have to ask why.