AHC: U.S. movement conservatives consciously avoid new enem(ies) after Cold War?

Movement conservatives often think of themselves as very level-headed and rational. Plus, the Persian Gulf War of 1991 was fought with an international coalition and arguably did not have near the whip-up of hatred (other than anti-Saddam) as compared to recent years where some conservatives want to specifically call out a whole religion with language such as "radical Islamic terrorism." And thus, whatever our misgivings about the wisdom of that first war now, could have been viewed at the time as a success of the calm, steady eddie approach.

What if movement conservatives made a conscious decision to specifically avoid focusing on new enemies and what if they're able to carry this approach so that this becomes the mainstream Republican approach?
 
When Did Republicans Start Hating the Environment? Mother Jones magazine*, Chris Mooney, Aug. 12, 2014.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/08/republicans-environment-hate-polarization

. . . began around the year 1991—when the Soviet Union fell. "The conservative movement replaced the 'Red Scare' with a new 'Green Scare' and became increasingly hostile to environmental protection at that time," argues sociologist Aaron McCright of Michigan State University and two colleagues. . .
*yes, Mother Jones is a leftie publication, straight up.

The article goes on to talk about certain issues from the early '90s.
  • brief but intense fight over spotted owl,
  • 1992 Rio Earth Summit (as environmental concerns went more international, were they perceived as being tainted with socialism?), and
  • the Nov. 1992 election of Bill Clinton and Al Gore, with the vice-president having written his environment book Earth in the Balance.

And then they perceptively include the boring baseline issue of "party sorting," where the Republicans became more solidly conservative and the Democrats more solidly liberal. And baseline issues do often explain more than the fun colorful issues.
 
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/08/republicans-environment-hate-polarization

. . . For instance, one major factor is clearly "party sorting"—the idea that conservatives have moved more into the GOP over time, even as liberals have, at least to some extent, coalesced in the Democratic Party. So, the Republicans answering a General Social Survey question about the environment in 1996 or so simply were not the same bunch of people who were answering it in 1974. . .
Perhaps notably in the American South which went from a lot of Democratic Congressional districts to a lot of Republican ones. With conservatives leaving, the Democratic Party can become more visibly liberal merely by standing in place.
 
Top