Slow on the uptake?

Despite the boorishness of those GOP debate audiences, James Joyner (a Republican) agrees with Jon Chait that it's unlikely many "conservative Republicans feel visceral hostility toward sick, uninsured people or gay soldiers. Rather, their booing is an expression of tribal partisan solidarity." This assessment sounds about right (and I certainly hope it's true). Joyner writes: "If you’re over 50, especially if you’re not living in a major metropolitan area, the world we live in simply isn’t recognizable as the one in which you grew up in. I’m a bit younger than that and it’s shocking how much different things are than when I started high school. Married women now routinely have careers outside the home. Our industrial base, at least as we used to understand that concept, has moved to China, India, and elsewhere. Our social mores have changed radically on issues ranging from the coarsening of the language to gender rules to the widespread acceptance of homosexuality. This all has a whole lot of people afraid, angry, and confused. Things they’ve believed all their lives are now socially unacceptable or even demonstrably untrue. And they’re surrounded by people going through the same thing and, increasingly, have their fears and anger stoked by self-selected media outlets who reinforce rather than challenge their worries. Having spent most of my life around these people, it’s my sense that they're decent folks who just need a little more time to adjust." And I guess time will tell.