I've been ever haunted by the following quote from Barbara Ehrenreich's The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed: "They espoused clean living and admired war. They preached hard work and paid for it with nickels and dimes."

There's a harshness to passes for conservatism these days, a weirdly punitive and sentimental at the same time, making noises about protecting the babies while promoting policies that will in fact harm someone's baby, no question about it. It's not a new phenomenon, but thanks to right-wing media empires, lobbying, and of course the Internets, it's on constant display.