"For example, they believe that the human species is marching forward, that there is an advancement toward some kind of collective moral progress -- that we are moving towards, if not a Utopian, certainly a better, more perfected human society."

Actually, one of the most fundamental precepts of evolution theory is that evolution is not directional. That's bedrock.

Most of the atheists I know are hardheaded scientists who, far from expecting Utopia, are pretty skeptical about our species' prospects long run prospects.

In a nation in which only around 50% of the people bother to vote, 30% is an awful lot. Most right wingers vote in most elections. The more extreme their views, the more regularly they vote. In a democracy, people who don't vote don't matter, regardless of what they might say to a pollster who rings them up.

Unless a much larger proportion of Americans start to exercise the franchise (please don't refer to these people as 'disenfranchised'; that's just silly), we're bound to have more of the same.

Voter turnout hovers around 50% of the voting-age population:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html

Since 70-80% of voting-age Americans poll as liberal on a wide range of issues, and since the proportion who poll as conservative is near to the proportion that vote conservatives, it follows that most conservatives usually vote, and a large proportion of people who hold liberal views usually do not vote.

Back in the 80s, people of my generation had exactly the kind of short term, and sometimes-lover relationships that Tracy describes in her article. I think what's different now is that there are a lot more young people now than there were then. This makes it a bigger, easier and more appealing target for the right wing authoritarians: Something they can scare a lot of people about.

The last time we had such a high concentration of young people in our society, in the 1960s, these same people, or their forebears, decried free love with the same kind of fear mongering. This will ebb in about ten years when the current wave of young people has passed. Lather, rinse, repeat.

In four or eight or twelve years, the right will be back in power. I shudder to think what crimes they will be emboldened to commit then, if they get away with the crimes they've committed over the past several years, now. If we let all of this slide, the Republic is dead.

BTW, NYShooter's post moved me to tears. Will we ever be that America again?

I have always called myself a liberal. When the term 'progressive' started gaining currency, I started going out of my way to call myself a liberal. It always struck me that people who called themselves progressive were behaving as though they were ashamed of what they were. Liberals have nothing to be ashamed of, and much to be proud of.

Liberal, liberal, liberal.

That's it. That's all I have to say.