What's the matter with Democrats?

Ross Douthat comments on an American Prospect article by Garance Franke-Ruta which suggests why and how "heartland" voters, who are presumably sympathetic to at least some of the Democrat's economic policies, pull the lever for Republicans. As Douthat says, "it's the culture, stupid." In a way, Franke-Ruta's position, and Douthat's analysis of it, reach the same conclusion that Theodore Dalrymple and others have reached with regard to the rampant libertarianism -- sexual, social, moral -- that was unleashed in my favorite decade: it was a disaster for the underclass and those on its margins. Those who are better educated and financially better off talk a good game about "liberation" of most kinds -- some of them aren't so keen on free markets -- but when it comes down to it, they tend to settle into more traditional arrangements, especially when it occurs to them to have children. Heartland voters have gone Republican, according to Douthat, because of "cultural aspirations," which is an aspect of self-interest that some on the left have failed to come to terms with. They want what the other guy's got, but they aren't primarily thinking about money; they want to live in communites which promote values and ideals that they see as beneficial to themselves and their families, and they respond to Republicans because they are at least willing to pay lip service to those ideals (and some of them, of course, actually believe in those ideals).

There's a slight rift on the right about this issue, because Republican libertarianism is also implicated in Douthat's and Franke-Ruta's analysis. I'm siding more and more with the Cruncy Cons in my old age.