It’s no coincidence that gay marriage, gun control, and immigration are all in the news this month. Their prominence measures a critical political shift: In the culture wars, the offense and defense have switched sides.
For decades after the cultural upheavals of the 1960s, Republicans regularly provoked confrontations on a broad array of polarizing noneconomic “wedge issues,” from crime and welfare to immigration and gay rights. Democrats, with a few exceptions, mostly tried through those years to neutralize the debates and quickly pivot back to economic terrain.
Now, that has flipped. [cont.]
Ron Brownstein, National Journal