No, what we are seeing happening is the re-emergence of Middle America - the right of center Republican-Independents-Reagan Democrats who will continue to dominate the political landscape of this country when they are awakened.
There has not been such a collective dissatisfaction since the latter half of the 1970s - and this dissatisfaction is growing quickly.
The difference is, there was a unifying figure in the 1970s - Reagan, to forward the message of this dissatisfaction. The Republicans of today, do not yet have that voice...
I take one exemption to your history lesson...1994 the Conservatives came out in force
Its happening again if the Republicans want to take advantage of it.
1994 was a shift in the political balance to be sure, and it benefited from the focused efforts of Gingrich and Co. - but the shift was not as deep as what was occuring in the late 1970's - in fact, it was another extension of it, as the Republicans of 1994 loudly and proudly proclaimed themselves Reagan Republicans - the last time such a concerted showing of Reagan principles had been voiced from within the Republican Party. If the current levels of agitation somehow form into another collective voice of those same principles - the Republicans will be presented with a significant opportunity.
The question of course, is if they are capable of doing so...
Taxes? Government expansion? "Reagan Republicans" to the rescue?? Oh Ma God you people have such short memories or never knew your history to begin with.
Reagan oversaw a $165 billion bailout of Social Security which dramatically increased payroll taxes on employees and employers, which brought a whole new class of recipients--new federal workers--into the system, and, for the first time, taxed Social Security benefits, and did so in the most liberal way:
only those of upper-income recipients. (And the tax wasn't indexed to inflation, meaning that more and more people have gradually had to pay it over time.)
Only one year after his massive tax cut, Reagan agreed to a tax increase to reduce the deficit that restored fully one-third of the previous year's reduction. But that was spun by calling it "tax reform" or "rollbacks" because it closed loopholes in his earlier cut and therefore didn't count as raising taxes.
Faced with looming deficits, Reagan raised taxes
again in 1983 with a gasoline tax and once more in 1984, this time by $50 billion over three years, mainly through closing even more tax loopholes for business.
Reagan continued these "modest rollbacks" in his second term. The Tax Reform Act of 1986, though it achieved the supply side goal of lowering individual income tax rates, was a startlingly progressive reform.
The plan imposed the largest corporate tax increase in history--an act utterly unimaginable for any conservative to support today. Despite promises to the contrary, Reagan raised corporate taxes by $120 billion over five years and closed corporate tax loopholes worth about $300 billion over that same period.
AND...drumroll... In addition to broadening the tax base, the plan increased standard deductions and personal exemptions to the point that no family with an income below the poverty line would have to pay federal income tax.
So yeah, bring on Reaganomics and see how that works out for ya. (Just ask George H.W. Bush).
