The perception that right wing has lost ground is an illusion. There is dramatically less dissent in America today than there was in the past, much less threat of any social movement that would endanger the status quo.
To a large extent, the right wing policies of decades past have worked incredibly well to focus authoritarian force where it is most useful to right wing goals:
- Suppression of the black population, the crack epidemic, and destruction of the black power movement.
- Massive increases in the number of people in prison, but most notable is the successful campaign to make Americans view prisoners as subhuman and deserving of extremely cruel and unusual treatment.
- The dramatic increase in the ideas of American Exceptionalism and the associated force projection after the cold war. It was not certain this was possible, but it has been achieved thanks to successful fear mongering PR about terrorism and militant Islam.
- Dramatic increases in social inequality. There are many reasons for this, but foremost among them is a loss of social power by the have nots relative to the haves, and the resulting shift in wealth patterns.
- Low voter turnout rates. Americans have been made to feel absurdly proud to live in a democracy, yet only around half see any value in casting a vote. This is akin to convincing the people that pine needle tea is delicious and contains many essential nutrients.
- Broad support for unprecedentedly generous corporate welfare. More and more industries are viewed as too important to fail, and significant societal resources are allocated to the preservation of the status quo. Chieftains in those industries have captured massive upside gains while successfully foisting downside risks onto society as a whole. There is no serious consideration among regulators or officials that the incentive system is remotely unjust, and we are told to be grateful that the industries were saved.
- Widespread hero worship of cops, military, and other projections of authoritarian force. The NFL is sponsored by and heavily promotes the US military, and police departments use aggressive PR stories about kitten rescues, etc., to help whitewash their image in the face of more and more examples of profound misconduct. Further, there are rarely any investigations into such misconduct (abuse of power, etc.) that reach beyond low level participants.
Those are just a few examples, but most of the increasing trends are broadly right-wing in their nature and are supported by various groups. Consider the example of US military intervention in foreign lands. Some support it because the "evil" regime oppresses women, some support it because the regime is brown-skinned, some support it to help "ensure stability" in the region, etc. There is now a grab bag of reasons to support American Exceptionalism and glorification of military force projection, which is broadly right wing, yet the options appeal to people across the entire American political spectrum, including the so-called left that seemingly believes that smart bombs are the best way to improve womens' rights worldwide.
Consider the rhetoric around gentrification for a host of other examples of the built-in right wing bias in American culture.
In other words, right wing views have become so utterly dominant in American culture that there is no longer any real need to add oxygen to it, so the political right wing appears to be losing ground.
Consider all the laws that prohibit employees from accepting jobs in the same industry, laws that extent patent protection to absurd time durations, the general public complacency about unauthorized wiretapping and more broadly the Snowden revelations. Nobody cares about this stuff because the right wing view considers it normal and appropriate/acceptable.
Even something as gut wrenching as the ICE camps for children was a major issue only because it offered partisan benefit. Obama took no heat for doing essentially the same kind of detention system. Then magically a few months later everyone has forgotten about it now that it's no longer politically useful.
The illusion of left vs right makes people feel that there is actually dissent in the US. There is very little.