The worst thing that happened to the right wing was the collapse of the USSR. It took away their great, evil enemy (remember 11 August 1984, when Reagan said that he signed a bill outlawing the Soviet Union and that bombing yould begin in five minutes - not realizing he was on a live mike on nationwide TV?) and left them with nobody to play with (so now the Democratic Party is the Evil Empire).

The remaining communist countries are either too busy with internal matters (both Cuba and North Korea are facing succession questions) or lack the logistics and infrastructure to threaten us in conventional terms (though some allies are at risk).

The unpleasant fact is that without an identifiable...

The worst thing that happened to the right wing was the collapse of the USSR. It took away their great, evil enemy (remember 11 August 1984, when Reagan said that he signed a bill outlawing the Soviet Union and that bombing yould begin in five minutes - not realizing he was on a live mike on nationwide TV?) and left them with nobody to play with (so now the Democratic Party is the Evil Empire).

The remaining communist countries are either too busy with internal matters (both Cuba and North Korea are facing succession questions) or lack the logistics and infrastructure to threaten us in conventional terms (though some allies are at risk).

The unpleasant fact is that without an identifiable enemy, Americans quickly get complacent. Fear-mongering is a despicable political tactic, but having a boogeyman to demonize does make people feel like someone's looking out for them.