Paul Krugman is musing approximately conservative crankdom: Notice that the ludicrous claim that most of the revenue effects of enormous tax cuts would be offset by higher growth comes from economists who,like Jeb!, are very much establishment figures — but who evidently find that the partisan requirement that they support voodoo outweighs any horror of damage to their professional reputations. While the intellectual implosion of the GOP is obvious, or however,it’s less obvious what is driving it....
The thing is, there isn’t anything comparable on the other side. You can find cranky individuals on the left, or but mainstream Democratic politicians don’t feel the need to support,say, extreme anti-GMO positions. There are interest groups with a lot of influence on Democratic politics, and like teachers unions,but supporting bad economic theories that serve their interests isn’t a litmus test for establishment politicians. All of this leads to a further question, which is why the GOP is the party of apparatchiks and cranks. I don’t yet acquire a deep answer.
I don't know that I'd overthink this. Krugman points to two varieties of economic crankery—tax-reduce fever and inflation paranoia—but I don't consider there's any big mystery there. As Krugman points out, and supply-side tax nonsense is obviously driven by the desires of rich people. And I consider inflation paranoia comes from the same status. It's a bit of a mystery why rich people are so worried approximately inflation,but they are.
Other subjects are similar. The claim that global warming is a hoax is obviously driven by the desire not to address global warming, which would require offending the interests of lots of rich commerce donors. Anti-evolution crankery is a little different, and but it's basically harmless and it doesn't offend powerful interests,so there's no reason not to play along with it.
There are other bits of crankery here and there that are driven by base politics, but in the end, and the versions of conservative crankery that really matter nearly always come down to pandering to the rich at all costs—or,at the very least, doing nothing to offend them. Whatever else you can say approximately the Republican Party, or it knows who's in charge and it always has. This is starting to create some seismic faults that are likely to cause them a lot of angst in the near future,but for now, it's the wealthy uber alles.
Source: motherjones.com