Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story I just saw this documentary. What always strikes me is how long these people have been around.→[More:]

And how long 'cultural resentment against the elites' has been working well for the GOP in the south since the late 50s. Cheney, Atwater/Rove the whole lot of them -- Newt Gingrich -- were adults involved in politics in the Nixon and Reagan eras and they were back on top in the GWB era. On the Democratic side this documentary has Terry McAuliffe discussing the '88 and '92 campaigns and you can just tell, you can tell that although he's easygoing he's upset about the Dukakis '88 campaign. I used to get this visceral sense of hurt about old campaigns from e.g. Bill Clinton's autobiography too (here I found the quote: "Lee Atwater and company went after him like a pack of rabid dogs")

Another example is, I used to find it just remarkable how many members of the intellectual left have a hangover from the pre-50s Stalinist vs anti-Stalinist debates (which essentially gave us early neoconservatism by splitting off many liberals from the 'left' and made them cold warriors.)

I can't help but think there's something not-so-great about people who were 20 years old in the 50s coming slowly into the establishment and fighting the same fights 50 years later as the world changes all around them. I don't think they can really 'see' what's going on outside of really calcified lenses. Add to the fact that older voters wield a huge amount of electoral power compared to younger voters just by virtue of turnout and you have a recipe for entrenched bitterness and empowered cluelessness.

Now, people live a long time and that's a good thing, as is the ability for a culture to have people with deep experience and long term temperaments around, but it's important for everyone to be ideologically nimble in response to circumstances I think.