The three-legged stool of "conservatism" in the age of Reagan consisted of a libertarian leg, a social conservative leg, and a foreign policy hawk leg. The libertarian leg came to dominate (the money interest), as is typical, which discarded the conservative leg except when it needed it, at election time (traditional values agenda), and put the foreign policy leg to work in its interests (global free trade).
This has happened before. The proponents of the professional, managerial state in the early 20th century similarly co-opted the rural Christian farming population to pass the "progressive" agenda, in the name of Christian fairness, of women's suffrage, popular election of senators, the corporate and income taxes to make business and the rich pay their fair share, and Prohibition, in exchange for political power.
The gulls in this game have always been the core Christian population. They are being replaced now, however, by a new class, the Latinos.
The 3-D chess masters will have to run the future scenarios. Yo no hablo espanol. But I expect them to be less charitable when jilted.
