The aging of the conservative population

"The dirty little secret of conservative talk radio is that the average age of listeners is 67 and rising... What's more, it's the Internet that is the fast-growing and arguably more powerful political medium -- and it is the province of the young and liberal. The only sensible market view of conservative talk is that it will contract and be reduced, in the coming years, to a much more rarefied format." -- Michael Wolff

This reminds me of the British Conservatives a few years back, when they discovered that the average age for a Tory donor was 65. Tory leaders were worried that their party could, quite literally, die off. Considering that the next generation is more liberal than its predecessors, the GOP will have little choice to move more to the center, at least rhetorically, on some issues.

Now, obviously, events can change things. The Boomers were, of course, rather liberal and then wound up rather conservative as a result of Watergate, the Carter years, and the Reagan Revolution. However, I find it rather unlikely that the Repubs will be able to take advantage of a similar confluence this time around, for the simple reason that Democrats speak on issues that bother people today and try to fix them, while Republicans speak on issues from 1981 and don't try to fix them. I don't really think that the conservative movement at this point is really possessed of much political talent--just check out how much more unpopular Congressional Republicans have become since deciding to blindly oppose the Obama agenda. The game done changed on them.

I don't think that conservatism as a political philosophy is dead, and that's probably a good thing since it has good insights that deserve to be heard. But I wouldn't be sad at all if the current iteration of the conservative movement found itself consigned to the ashheap of history. Somehow I doubt it will, though. The GOP is awfully good at dropping issues once they become untenable or outmoded, as one no longer hears about the plight of Southern whites who just want to attend schools without any blacks, or the plight of Vietnam veterans, or how women should just get back in the kitchen. I suspect this particular movement will survive for some time.