How America’s right wing is becoming a lot more like Britain’s

 

 Washington DC

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_20_Nov_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Michael Lind and Sebastian Payne discuss the growing similarities of the Britain and American right” startat=1350]

Listen

[/audioplayer]Amid all the commentary about the Republican party’s triumph in America’s midterm elections, a remarkable fact was ignored: in style and substance, the American right is rapidly becoming a lot more like Britain’s. And that might be the key to its success.

In the last generation, American right-wingers have stood proudly apart from their counterparts in Europe, Britain, Canada and Australia. They were more religious, and more supportive of mass immigration. But that is changing. Exhibit A is the dwindling influence of the religious right in the US. Its power peaked in the late 1980s, when Protestant evangelical pastors like the Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were power-brokers in the Republican party; the latter even ran in the 1988 Republican presidential primary.