Leading the GOP presidential polls at the moment is billionaire birther Donald Trump a qualitative leap beyond the feisty maleducated discourseof Tea Party candidates, says sociologistLawrence Rosenthal, director of the Center for Right-Wing Studies.
Archie Bunker runs intohis neighbor, Lionel Jefferson, at a blood bank, in this episode of All in the Family.
Writingon the Berkeley Blog, Rosenthal traces the history of conservative candidates fromReagan toTrump, who in politics resemblesItalys Silvio Berlusconi, he says, and in rhetorical style argument-by-insult recalls All in the Family s Archie Bunker.
In a postscript, Rosenthal notesthat conservative politics have, in the past, produced unlikely side effects of a progressive nature, such as loosening up public attitudes aboutdivorce and interracial marriage and (in Trumps case) providing fodder to Citizens United opponents.
Read Rosenthals post on the Berkeley Blog.