The Country Shifted Right

By David Crush | Politics | 1 min read

The Country Shifted Right · 3 parts

Part 1: They Told You the Country Went Left Social media treats a leftward takeover as weather. Roll-call votes, who got driven out of the GOP, and what counts as unsayable policy point the other way — and even the people who wanted that rightward shift mostly did not get Goldwaterism or kitchen-table relief.
Part 2: How Churches Got Used The Southern Baptist Convention's 1971 abortion resolution was a middle ground the denomination later erased. Paul Weyrich needed a wedge. Culture war was a strategy — not a timeless theological discovery.
Part 3: The Rightward Bet Failed If decades of rightward governance delivered for the middle and bottom, we would see peer-country floors and broad relief. Instead: OECD lag, a K-shaped wealth split, and a fiscal ladder that abandoned Goldwater's spend-first rule.

Editorial cartoon: a political Overton window sliding right on a navy wall while a crowd stares left at a glowing screen labeled LEFT TOOK OVER.

Social media treats a leftward takeover as weather. This series argues the other way: the governing Overton window moved right, the coalition that sold that shift gutted its own brochure, and the people who were supposed to feel relief mostly did not.

Start with Part 1 if you are new. Jump to Part 3 if you only want the receipts.

The parts list below stays in sync with the published essays — use it as the roadmap.