In the original sixties, the stereotype held that liberals were magical thinkers, while conservatives were common sense pragmatists. A liberal might be expected to say: "Maybe if we form a circle and hold hands and project our positive energy out into the universe, we can fix the world's problems". A conservative would be expected to respond: "Well, I'd say that and a dollar will buy you a cup of coffee".
In the 21st century, these roles seem to have flipped.
Republicans now seem to value philosophy over real world experience.
In the year 2000, Republicans introduced the idea of the semi-sentient free market. If we just unshackled the market through deregulation, gave massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and stood back out of the way, the system would sort itself out to produce the strongest economy possible.
We then spent 12 painful years proving this idea to be catastrophically false.
With regulations dismantled and the Bush tax cuts in place, we limped through 8 years of the weakest economy in modern history, followed by the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression. Throughout that time, we amassed conclusive evidence that the Bush tax cuts had done nothing to stimulate the economy, create jobs, or aid in the recovery, they had simply ballooned our debt, while reckless deregulation was a major driver of the economic collapse.
The Republican plan to fix this disaster was unanimous: renew the Bush tax cuts and continue deregulation.
In the 21st century, the bizarro conservatives now say: "Pay no attention the lessons of history! The purity of our vision must not be muddied by facts! If we just believe hard enough while repeating the mistakes of the past, maybe tomorrow an invisible hand will reach down from the sky and make it all work this time."
It has now fallen to liberals to step into the shoes of the common sense pragmatist and respond: "Well, that didn't work. Let's try something else."
