From John C. Wright: The Last Crusade: Rip van Con, and related: Why conservatives always lose.
Conservatives are good at winning public office. Right now, the GOP has control of all three branches of government. The GOP controlled the executive branch for much of the 70’s-2000’s, save for Clinton and Carter. Obviously, the GOP platform is one that appeals to a lot of Americans, or at least half. In addition, the GOP has won the ‘economic wars’ and the Cold War, in that capitalism has obviously triumphed over Communism (fall of Communist Russia, and to some extent, China). Only a handful of countries (N. Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, etc.) still cling to that failed ideology. Related to Communism, despotism has also been in decline. So that’s the good news. The bad news is the GOP has completely failed the ‘culture wars’, so much so that many on the ‘right’ are throwing in the towel. Conversely, the ‘left’ has lost the economic wars but have won the culture wars. As alluded by Thomas Frank in his best-seller What’s the Matter With Kansas, this may be due to the ‘great compromise’ whereby both right-wing and left-wing elitists agree to give up ground to get half of what they want. Politics is just theatrics, like professional wresting, where the outcome is predetermined. Large democracies and republics, such as America, are good at preserving the status quo, which is good for economic and geopolitical stability, but also tends to leave a lot of people unsatisfied.