Conservatives talk about "taking back this country", assuming that there has been a massive shift to the left politically. Nothing is this simple.
Values-wise things are quite liberal - it's legal to show a toilet on TV, being gay doesn't get you sent to an insane asylum, and blacks are lynched less often. Notice how when conservatives cite examples of liberalism, it is on social values, (mainly "political correctness" - as if people thinking about what words they use is the biggest threat there is!) not economics. (Ditto for examples of media bias)
Economics is a completely different matter. Ever since the first Nobel prizes for economics (funded by a bank) where given to Hynek and company, right economics has been king. The most obvious was the "Reagan Revolution" and it's "trickle down" of wealth, which we're still waiting and doing rain-dances for. Sales-taxes, which hit poor wage-earners the most, have been introduced. The most famous of these is the "Goods and Services Tax", (which even Canada's liberal prime minister decided to keep) which shifted $4,000,000,000 from corporations to consumers - while corporate taxes where also reduced by 8%!
In 1957, corporations in the United States provided 45 percent of local property tax revenues. By 1987 their share had dropped to about 16 percent. Taxes on the wealthy were cut from a top rate of 68% in 1980s to 28.5% by 1988. The share of US federal tax revenue paid by corporations has dropped from 33 cents of every dollar collected in 1953 to less than 10 cents today.
Despite no Cold War to fight, military spending (and thus the taxes to pay for it) is still very high. In "paranoia test" of military spending relative to actual threats, we've gone through the roof. Half the US ~$1.3 trillion budget goes to current and past (interest on military's part of the national debt) military expenditures. This when we are surrounded by two oceans and two friendly countries. Counting just the current expenditures, our military budget is greater than the next 8 countries combined, and most of them are allies. There are no countries left that are a real threat to the United States - the military exists to protect our business interests and its own funding. Yet because the military doesn't ask if you're gay before training you how to kill, we're suddenly getting soft. (Freud? You listening?)
So socially we're to the left (despite backlashes) and economically we're to the right. Let's look at how things have been going in these areas:
Social effects:
Economic effects:
The result on public opinion is first felt in the stomach and seen though the eyes. We realize that we're getting poor. Why? We see guys holding hands without being arrested. Could there be a connection?
The angry white male cult then gets a new convert. The angry white male club is paid for by rich people who tell us that we're getting poor because of taxes.
So we're getting poor because of taxes for guys that hold hands! We're not getting taxed for the military, we're getting taxed so that guys who hold hands can get into the military!
If you're skeptical that anybody actually thinks this way, remember that lots of people buy lottery tickets. Based on horoscopes.