# Will the death of American social conservatism produce a completely new party system? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 17, 2014, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-death-of-american-social-conservatism-produce-a-completely-new-party-system/688632 "2014-05-17T14:37:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-death-of-american-social-conservatism-produce-a-completely-new-party-system/688632/121 "2014-05-21T03:05:41Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > One thing that will NOT happen is one of the parties embracing libertarianism. That morally bankrupt philosophy is over-represented on these boards by a factor of several thousandfold, but it will never be anything more than a fringe group of zealous devotees. This is another amusing prediction asserting that what has in fact happened cannot happen (specifically, one of the parties embracing Social Darwinism, the morally problematic element of libertarianism). ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-death-of-american-social-conservatism-produce-a-completely-new-party-system/688632/122 "2014-05-21T11:39:09Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > This is another amusing prediction asserting that what has in fact happened cannot happen (specifically, one of the parties embracing Social Darwinism, the morally problematic element of libertarianism). I don’t see it as too surprising that Republicanism and libertarianism intersect. Essentially, libertarians are a fringe element within the Republican Party. So with regards to Social Darwinism, it just happens that a central tenet of the Republican catechism (screw the poor) intersects with a pillar of libertarianism (I got mine, fuck you). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-death-of-american-social-conservatism-produce-a-completely-new-party-system/688632/123 "2014-06-18T02:19:18Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > This is another amusing prediction asserting that what has in fact happened cannot happen (specifically, one of the parties embracing Social Darwinism, the morally problematic element of libertarianism). OTOH, when can we expect either party to embrace Libertarian hostility to corporate welfare? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-death-of-american-social-conservatism-produce-a-completely-new-party-system/688632/124 "2014-06-18T15:19:04Z")
Well, the bank bailout was defeated on the first vote, and didn’t Republicans vote against the GM bailout? Those two positions would have been unthinkable not too long ago, so it does seem that libertarians are gaining ground within the GOP. There are anti-corporate welfare lefties too, but they aren’t all that principled. It’s more “No corporate welfare for companies, unless they are working on technology I like or providing union jobs”. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-death-of-american-social-conservatism-produce-a-completely-new-party-system/688632/125 "2014-06-18T16:19:31Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > It’s not a very sophisticated estimate, but you can do a back-of-the envelope estimate based on fertility rates and interconversion rates. > > Religious people have more children than secular ones\* (evangelicals have about 2.5 per women, secular people about 1.5), and people raised ‘secular’ are somewhat more likely to convert to a religion as adults, than people raised religious are to lose their religion. (The Pew Forum refers to this as secularists having a lower ‘retention rate’ than religious people as a whole, and also lower than most individual religions). Those two are factors that tend to decrease the relative proportion of secularists. On the flip side, there is a much larger _number_ of religious people right now, in America. So even if only 33% of raised-religious people convert to secularism as adults, as compared to 50% of people raised secular, that still produces a net outflow of people from religion into secularism. > > Assuming birth rates and interconversion rates stay the same, the religious and secular populations should reach equilibrium at around 60:40. IIRC, relatively soon, within a couple generations or so. Anyone with the time and access to the data is welcome to make a better estimate, as I said this is purely back-of-the-envelope. > > \*Religiosity is also somewhat heritable, IIRC the heritability is around 0.5. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Where are you getting those figures? I repeat. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-death-of-american-social-conservatism-produce-a-completely-new-party-system/688632/126 "2014-06-18T16:20:41Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Well, the bank bailout was defeated on the first vote, and didn’t Republicans vote against the GM bailout? Those two positions would have been unthinkable not too long ago, so it does seem that libertarians are gaining ground within the GOP. The more parsimonious explanation for that is the Congressional GOP’s plain determination to obstruct anything Obama wants, no matter what it is, or whether it was a Pub idea in the first place like the ACA. They would not have voted that way if McCain had been POTUS. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-death-of-american-social-conservatism-produce-a-completely-new-party-system/688632/127 "2014-06-18T16:44:08Z")
Bush was POTUS on the first bailout vote. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-death-of-american-social-conservatism-produce-a-completely-new-party-system/688632.md?page=6)