Wednesday, March 2, 2016

The end of conservativism

I do not really stand on political labels much. Liberal, libertarian, progressive, leftist, conservative - they're all brands with definitions that change with the political winds.

But Freepers love political labels. They sound so much better than "good" and "evil," which is what they really mean. So now you get to call the politician you hate a Democrat-Marxist, or a crypto-Muslim Internationalist, when you really just mean bad guy. And the politicians you like? Constitutional, conservative, Reaganish...

Until now. Trump's substanceless campaign has leapfrogged the fools and trolls who thought themselves the intellectual leaders of the conservative movement. Everyone from The National Review to the Liberal Fascism guy to Mark freakin' Levin are trying to appeal to their own conservative authority to convince people Trump doesn't check the right boxes.

But Freepers have long moved beyond substance to pure resentment, and Trump makes them feel like they could win again, and stick it to all the unworthies. And isn't that (and closing the border) more important than some Constitution or principle? At first they just called everyone secret liberals and RINOS. Bush, Romney, McCain.

But last year cracks began to appear in the conservative brand. The conservative false consciousness term cuckservative got picked up by white supremacists, and Free Republic was not far behind. Rush became a secret 'globalist,' and the National Review and American Thinker became 'elitist.'

Recently, a long time Freeper has declared himself no longer conservative, but a "Christian Nationalist."

And then yesterday Rubio said Trump was hurting 'modern conservativism,' and it was like floodgates. What Freepers used to say about the GOPe, and then the GOP, they now say about conservativism.

Eddie01 tries to make with the old-style definitional chicanery:
modern conservative movement IS Trump
Viennacon tries to argue that the problem is the 'modern' bit.
Im SICK of the ‘modern’ conservative movement.
mrsmith explains that winning is more important than purity:
The great ones of the modern conservative movement, like Rush, Levin and Sowell are actually educators.

As the saying goes: “Those who can do, and those who can’t teach.”

It’s long past time for someone who can ‘do’ to rise up for conservatives. Even such a middling conservative as Trump.
DesertRhino, though, gets right down to it.
Conservative as a term has been ruined. Now it means constant neocon war, open borders, unlimited immigration, homosexuality, rabid domestic spying and and insane fiscal policy.
Conservativism is no longer all good things. Instead, it is all bad things!

Vince Ferrer argues that there is no movement because Freepers haven't gotten angry enough with conservatives:
There is no current conservative “movement”, because the leadership doesn’t want to go anywhere. In sports, when the teams lose constantly, the coaches get fired. The players want to win, but the coaches are satisfied being coaches and having big salaries. Time for the players to fire the coaches so they can start winning.
semaj's post is from another thread on the issue, but his destructive fervor is too on point not to include:
It no longer matters if Mr. Trump issue a conservative. Our so -called leaders have given us no other choice. Damn the torpedoes! The explosion is going to be spectacular.
Gaffer thinks the problem is that conservatives work within the GOP:
The American Conservatism that is willing to ally itself with the GOP establishment to defeat Trump at any cost to integrity, values or acceptance of the status quo we’ve been given by RINO leadership isn’t something I want to be associated with at any level.
Repealthe17thAmendment thinks the problem was everything after Reagan:
The modern conservative movement ended when George H. W. Bush broke his "No New Taxes" pledge and raised them in 1990. It has been a steady slide since then.

It's amazing that the GOP has been able to limp along for so long without a clue to this.
mulligan goes back further, to argue that it's been RINOS since the movement really began:
Rubio, it ended a long time ago. Go back a few years to the Goldwater/ Johnson campaign. After that the GOP and many conservatives just quit and most became RINO’s.
alloysteel weakly tries for the conservativism can only be failed tautology:
Maybe there never WAS a “conservative movement”.

Conservative government was found to be too difficult to put into practice, and left untried.

The best than can be hoped for is for “our” SOB to defeat “their” SOB (or B, if it should come to that).
manc joins the crowd relabeling conservative as everything Freepers hate:
I’d say there no conservative movement in the modern times.

It’s all about open borders, homosexuality , cross dressing, unfair trade, and spend more to agree with the left.
cymbeline has this cryptic comment:
That conservative movement was moving us in the wrong direction.
We need a Third Way!

uncitizen follows the pre-World War 2 old ways of nationalism:
This race isn’t about conservatism as much as it’s about saving our country from being entirely stolen by the globalists,
yadent goes with 'sovereign nationalist.'
I think most folks are missing the bigger picture. It isn’t that Trump is a ‘true conservative’ or frankly very conservative at all. It’s that Trump is a sovereign nationalist. Without a sovereign country ‘conservatism’ and it’s varying definitions won’t mean much no matter how it’s identified. Up to this point, no other candidate has tapped into this as much as Trump has.......

20 comments:

  1. I always imagined that watching the Republican coalition disintegrate would be less terrifying than this

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You've finally articulated the swelling pit in my gut. Maybe I assumed conservatism's mask was more monstrous than the faces it hid. Now it's like witnessing the slow reveal of something unfathomably uglier. I'm disinclined to drama, but something's off the Republic's rotational axis about all this.

      Delete
  2. The modern conservative movement ended when George H. W. Bush broke his "No New Taxes" pledge and raised them in 1990. It has been a steady slide since then . . . It's amazing that the GOP has been able to limp along for so long without a clue to this.

    What's amazing is how many times since George HW they have been able to convince their base that it's OK to launch new foreign interventions while cutting taxes, and still be able to condition them to whine about deficits.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What are the practical differences between Christian Nationalist and Islamist?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There area few:

      Racism: Islamists typically don't give a damn about your skin color or native language. Your social position is defined by the religion you choose, not the genetics and geography of your birth.

      Xenophobia: Islamists have little interest in borders beyond the pragmatic. You are either a member of the Ummah of you are not. You don't need a visa or work permit to join ISIS.

      Globalism: Islamists explicitly want a single world Caliphate/Government.

      Consistency: Islamists don't have the inherent contradiction of claiming to worship individual liberty while condemning personal sexuality and so forth.

      Capitalism: Islamists don't approve of investing capital and charging interest. Making money from money (the foundation of Capitalism) is ursury.

      Taxes: Paying taxes specifically to support the poor and disadvantaged (zakat) is a universally agreed obligation (because it is in the Qu'ran). Reducing taxation and shrinking the scope of government are not objectives.

      Islamists are much closer to communist, internationalist revolutionaries than to capitalist, nationalist reactionaries.

      Delete
    2. I'll have to disagree with you on that.

      Islamists are much much closer to reactionaries than communists.

      Islamist thought came from an ancient era even before racism, nationalism and capitalism existed, that's why they seem at odds with the second group.

      Still though, they are obsessed with an ancient golden era with uber strict traditional gender roles and abhor any sort of social progress. They base all this reasoning on ancient written text. They are a text book example of reactionaries and what constituted as the "right-wing" when the term first came into being in post-revolutionary france.

      Delete
    3. I was specifically listing differences.

      I entirely agree about the shared obsession with old manuscripts and the what the prophetic authors (pbut) intended by particular turns of phrase. Both are reactionary in their own native contexts, however they become revolutionary when imposed on each other.

      To an American nativist the notion that individual wealth, liberty and happiness are entirely secondary to the interests of society (Ummah) as a whole is ("communist") revolutionary thought.

      Delete
  4. I see FR (and maybe most of the GOP) has given up the pretense of being "classically liberal." At least conservatives descended from the Enlightment, like liberals. These monsters come from somewhere altogether less intellectual - and much darker.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You could say that they come from... the Dark Enlightenment.

      If you don't know what that is, Google it, but keep your brain bleach handy.

      Delete
  5. "Rep. Steve King: GOP Establishment Could Back Hillary if Trump or Cruz Wins Nomination"

    LeoWindhorse: "If that were to happen , they should be visited in their homes . There needs to be a cost for treason ."

    ReplyDelete
  6. After seven years of Obama, the Stormfront-ization of FR is nearly complete. Ann Coulter was the canary in the coal mine. By November, Freepers will be mocking the Constitution as the "Cuckstitution" and posting cartoons of Trump putting his enemies into gas chambers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree with all you said 100%.
      Freepers realize the constitution gives too many rights to everyone, not just the "right" people.

      They think their "Great White Hope" (aka "The Donald") is going to bring just enough dictatorship to turn the calendar back to the 1950s.

      Delete
    2. So what happens to freeperville when he looses to Hillary in the general?

      Delete
    3. I would love for Hillary to beat Trump, but that is far from certain.
      You think Trump has been dirty in the primary, wait until the general campaign.

      Rosie O'Donnell is going to look like Trump's best friend compared to the way he'll treat Hillary, and unfortunately she has quite a few areas to attack.

      Cruz vs. Sanders would be a real ideological battle.
      Trump vs. Clinton will be nothing but a poo-flinging contest.

      Delete
    4. Trump can't win the mud flinging against a woman running for President AND Hispanics/Latinos. Something has got to give.

      You can't alienate 20% of your own "base" who have said that they specifically refuse to vote for him, a majority of African American voters, Hispanics/Latinos and women and expect to win the election. It's not possible. You're running out of electorate!

      Right now he can barely win his own party much less the majority of American voters who are center to left-of-center.

      Donald is finished.

      Delete
    5. I want to believe you are right. Sorry to say it, but I'm now as interested in donating to Hillary's secret service protection as to her general campaign.

      Delete
    6. Anything is possible, but I strongly believe Trump will not win. If he goes dirty against Hillary, it's likely that will backfire with a lot of people having sympathy for her. He would look like a playground bully. Trump doesn't have the ability to make substantive arguments, he would just start calling her names and that will turn off a lot of voters. If she attacks him, he'll threaten to sue. By the time it's over, Hillary may even get over 60% of the popular vote.

      Delete
  7. "modern conservative movement IS Trump"
    Nothing fascistic or totalitarian about this statement. No siree bob.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Il Douche was the center of Trumpism and portrayed as such. The cult of the Donald was in many respects the unifying force of the Trumpist regime, acting as a common denominator of various political groups and social classes in the Republican party and American society. This leadership cult helped reconcile Americans with the regime despite annoyance with local officials. A basic slogan proclaimed that Trump was always right.

      Endless publicity revolved about him. Newspapers were instructed exactly what to report on him.

      He was generally portrayed in a macho manner, although he could also appear as a Renaissance man, or as military, family, or even common. This reflected his presentation as a universal man, capable of all subjects; a light was left on his office long after he was asleep as part of propaganda to present him as an insomniac owing to his driven to work nature."

      ... with apologies to wikipedia ;)

      Delete
  8. They are already adapting to the idea of thinking of themselves as fascists under a Trump regime. Christian Nationalists...jesus.

    ReplyDelete