Pat Buchanan’s interview with Ralph Nader has got to be the most fascinating thing I’ve seen this election, and it augurs well for what I suspect will be the next major shift in party politics in America. As I proposed in my essay on boobiegate, the tenuous peace between social conservatives and free market liberals that underlies the success of today’s Republican Party is starting to fracture.

Of course, after being in bed together for so long, neither old-fashioned conservatism nor free market liberalism have remained unchanged. What appears to have emerged is some unholy conjugation of all the worst facets of both: a jingoistic nanny whose idea of liberty is that there should be absolutely no constraints on wealth.

Ralph Nader may be a bit paranoid, and something of a monomaniac to insist on running in 2004, but what his breed of progressive shares with Buchanan’s conservatives is an innate distrust of power. Power corrupts; wealth infects; the same corporations that are willing to pollute the physical environment will pollute the social environment. Nader’s reference to “corporate pornography” is politically brilliant. After Janet Jackson, social conservatives took a long hard look at the cultural landscape and realized that they can’t serve both God and Mammon. Bush may claim to be born-again, but he is very much beholden to the same corporations that make all the stuff conservatives find so destructive.

It’s hard to say what the effect on this election will be. Kerry’s wealth and “Massachusetts liberalism” still play poorly against Bush’s bumbling populism—even if Bush is just as wealthy and elite as Kerry. In the absence of the right running mate, Kerry is unlikely to pick up many of these disgruntled conservatives. But over the next decade the Republicans may find themselves with an increasingly disloyal base; Christianity has more ideological lability than most people suspect. Support for environmental causes, for instance, is growing even among fairly conservative sects. It’s not that much of a leap to imagine conservative Christians taking more of an interest in corporate responsibility and dovish foreign policies. As the plutocrats reveal more of their unbridled greed, the social ideals of fraternity and fairness inherent in Christian theology will become increasingly apparent. Let’s hope so.