I think America has changed, but not really for the reasons offered above.
One aspect of human nature borne out by many studies is that, all else being equal, people will choose instant gratification over deferred gratification. This isn't a shocking statement. In fact, a recent experiment placed children in a room along with a treat. An administrator offered the child a choice ? they could either eat the treat immediately, or wait 10 minutes and have 2 treats. More than 70% of children took the single treat. As a species, all else being equal, we'd like to consume more, now, than later.
If we looked at American 50 years ago, we'd see a lot of differences versus what we observe today. More women in the workplace. A more diverse country. A larger, more prosperous country as well. We'd also see something that our grandparents did not have access to, and that is credit of all types. Credit cards, auto loans, mortgage products. You name it, and by and large, we can finance it and buy it now, not later. Americans 50 years ago, though still subject to some lingering anti-debt Depression era thoughts, were really not a lot different except they could not borrow to fund consumption. They had to save, and defer consumption, in order to enjoy things that we are able to purchase in minutes, via credit card, online from a mobile device.
So, people have not changed. What has changed is their access to a tool which allows them to indulge a part of their nature, and that has profound implication for how well a campaign message promoting individual success resonates. Yes, in any opinion poll, you'll get a large majority of people saying they admire individual effort and success borne of hard work, but the emotional strength of that message is weaker since you can enjoy the trappings of success without attaining actual success. Simply put, a message extolling the virtues of deferred gratification and its virtues is unlikely to resonate with an electorate happy to fund consumption with credit while tweeting and texting on their daily activities.
And what is true at the individual level is also true at the institutional level. Wars financed with borrowing as opposed to tax rate increases? No problem. It wasn't done in the past because it couldn't be done in the past. Want a health insurance plan that papers over the real issue of health care? No problem.
At the core of all of this is the paper dollars role in international financial markets, permitting the US to run trade deficits into seeming perpetuity and borrow to finance a substantial amount of our annual spending. The advent of the paper dollar opened the credit spigot. When it's closed off, conservative ideas will be very much in vogue again. Let's hope we have the wisdom to adopt them before the hose is turned off.
