rolling explaining conservatism

This was pretty illuminating/infuriating.

the smart money is getting out of the market before the house adjourns democRAT. war on christmas! fire the fed! NO COLLUSION :)

His "Why We Needed Trump" trilogy is available at Amazon

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/01/07/mitt_romney_ready_for_my_close-up_mr_demille_139097.html?rc_fk

conservatism really in a good place RN

Sebastian Gorka is a huge star at CPAC. He enters to that "Best Day of My Life" song, then gets huge cheers for calling Michael Cohen a "rat fink."

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) February 28, 2019

(wondering when my autocorrect will start replacing "conservatism" with "fascism")

gets huge cheers for calling Michael Cohen a "rat fink."

Well, Cohen broke the code of omerta.

Dave Eggers in El Paso:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/02/why-donald-trump-could-win-again-by-dave-eggers

incredible how the entire conservative apparatus exists now solely to cover and run interference for Trump and his family, with sworn enemies like Michael Cohen (RNC finance chair and Trump's right-hand man), Jim Comey (a Republican who singlehandedly threw the election to Trump), and Robert Mueller (a Republican cop). did any Republicans ask Cohen a single question about Trump during the hearing on Wednesday?

The free market said no. pic.twitter.com/1VsN34F9s7

— Carl Zha (@CarlZha) March 2, 2019

come on, that has to be a troll

It was really nice of The Guardian to give Eggers a place to write 19,000 words ruminating on a Trump rally after waking up from that three year coma that prevented him from reading the hundreds of essays identical to this one that have already been written.

i thought eggers already broke up. is this just like his amygdala and a bunch of touring cells cause i don't have time for any of him i don't think

Most conservatives don't really have a political philosophy other than reaction, but those who do have a philosophy can usually be summed up as thinking that wealth and power are too important to society to allow them into the hands of anyone who doesn't already have wealth and power, preferably in the hands of families that have been wealthy and powerful for multiple generations.

They are certain that this provides stability, or at least a reassuring predictability, which comes with reliable hands at the tiller, or it would, if it weren't for the constant agitation and discontent among the slaves servants common people, stirred up by radicals who want to reweave the whole fabric of society just because it has a few flaws and inequalities.

If conservatives could just crush out this ill-advised radicalism, the common people would once more accept their lot in life and be content with things as they are, creating the social harmony and peace that occur naturally in a well-regulated society run by conservatives. Then everyone would be happy.

There's this conservative argument that's been kicking around for some time now in "thinking man conservative" publications that we can't do social democratic policies here in the US because of how large and diverse we are, whereas they work in places like Finland because of relative homogeneity. I always found this to be a bizarre sort of rhetorical move since I doubt the people who make this argument would favor social democratic policies even if the US was homogenous. Also I wouldn't be surprised if those people favor both homogeneity AND libertarian policy.

I wouldn't be surprised if these people were scoundrels and assholes

Pretty sure 'homogeneity' is a dog whistle.

If they're using that argument as a reason to not support those policies then it is definitely cynical and disingenuous but as an explanation for why we're unable to generate the political will to enact these policies it seems like they're probably correct (insofar as it's hard to contest that racism has played a role in undermining support for social liberal policy).

we can't do social democratic policies here in the US because of how large and diverse we are

Translation: we can't have nice things in this country because it conflicts with the white racist imperative to never allow brown-skinned people to have nice things.

Is this kinda like the argument that Socialism failed in the USSR because it was too large and diverse? And backward. Like the US.

racism is comorbid with greed and selfishness but I don’t think it causes them

it's weird those ppl said the _exact_ same thing in 1790 when usa was getting all melty like:

19.38% Africa
53.76% England
7.68% Ulster Scot-Irish
6.91% Germany
3.84% Scotland
2.56% Netherlands
0.26% Wales
0.38% France
0.05% Jews -4
0.05% Sweden
5.12% Other -5

e pluribus douchebags

(those numbers were scammed from wiki crap that addressed immigration, sorry to native populations excluded from my shitpost)

I always found this to be a bizarre sort of rhetorical move since I doubt the people who make this argument would favor social democratic policies even if the US was homogenous.

There is nothing bizarre about this move at all, its a completely logical move. Disingenuous of course, but logical. If there is a danger of a goal going in, then simply move the goalposts and reframe the argument. "You are wrong, and in the event that you may be proven right, you are now wrong for this other reason". What would be the non-bizarre rhetorical move?

Good thread, including comments. The short take: Kavanaugh sure has triggered conservatives!

Good read.

I feel like Tom Cotton and Nikki Hayley are more the future face of the GOP than Hawley but I'm sure I'll be proven wrong.

i don't think the american right has ever been very interested in democracy

I was gonna say conservatism in general and especially in the US pretty much boils down to "I want an aristocracy"

these people marshall is talking about are something called "catholic integralists" though. they are extreme social conservatives not koch brother robber barons.

not that these things are unrelated. but the emphasis of these people is wanting a theocracy.

It's not like they want a poor theocracy

boils down to "I want an aristocracy"

Dunno. It depends on the flavor of conservatism. The oligarchs want to maintain the current oligarchy. The evangelicals and conservative Catholics want to establish a theocracy. The racists just want the full restoration of white supremacy. Then there are the uneasy masses who just want everything 'put back the way it was', except the past they yearn for is a fantasy that never existed.

"Hierarchy" is the better word. Some people are born to rule, others to follow. Corey Robin's book is pretty good on the subject.

With a proper hierarchy, you always know who you must grovel to and who must grovel to you.

(those numbers were scammed from wiki crap that addressed immigration, sorry to native populations excluded from my shitpost)

― Hunt3r, Monday, May 20, 2019 6:58 PM (three weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

quick note that indigenous populations weren't considered humans by colonialists at that time if they were considered at all. much of the continent was considered "terra nullius." so you can't be blamed for the wiki's bullshit— plenty of reasonable population estimates for the time period exist, but i'm sure that because they can't be *proven* some racist nerds at wikipedia edit them out all the time.

I’m at the Hotel Imperial in Vienna, Austria. Almost 200 rooms… But the elevator has been broken for 3 days.

Please don’t bring European-style socialism to America. 🚯 pic.twitter.com/axeygJSoBi

— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) June 18, 2019

must...resist...urge...to yell at frank luntz....on twitter...

No elevator in America has ever been or will ever be broken.

Current Austrian government a coalition between well-known socialists, the People's Party and the Freedom Party.

life on earth is bribery

is that why you want the tax returns?

liberals are fundamentally perfidious and want to destroy us and our way of life. it is actively dangerous to trust anything they say. in order to protect ourselves from this existential threat, we have to be willing to do to them all of the things we know in our heart they want to do to us, and we have to do it first, before it's too late. self-defense is never wrong, so while some of the things we have to do would be wrong under other circumstances, we are just Standing Our Ground, which is not only blameless but morally necessary.

"Imagine killing an unarmed child and then suing his parents." https://t.co/fwWXwNOMZf

— 🎄⛄️ Eoin Jinglins ⛄️🎄 (@EoinHiggins_) December 4, 2019

not so much an explanation as a distillation

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/03/its-the-spirit-of-the-age-jared-kushner-edition

Conservatives in general, and in particular the white evangelicals who make up Trump’s base, hate expertise because their world view is a farrago of magical thinking that wouldn’t stand up to ten seconds of actual critical scrutiny, which is why they take great care to avoid that experience at all costs.

The modern conservative movement holds these truths to be self-evident

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/coronavirus-trump-dhs-undocumented-workers-essential.html

good article, too bad i agree with the hopeless conclusion

more of the same being available is not quite hopeless. but to get change we do have to demand it be changed, and must be able to elect persons to do that. otherwise it will actually get much worse. we won't shrug and settle will we?

Read this in the Amazon reviews of Amanda Marcotte's book "Troll Nation," and I think it is a great summary of the current "conservative" mindset:

1. Trolling is destructive to discourse (agree)
2. Trolling does not provide a coherent political vision for reform (agree)
3. But you ignored the main issue: why (really) do Trump and his followers troll? And the answer is not hatred.
It's a tactic to destabilize the tenuous parasitic leftist coalitions that are built on a dizzying array of incompatible grievances against imagined enemy institutions. These enemies of leftists include most of the most stable, successful institutions that make civilization possible: religion, capitalism, meritocratic education and commerce, strong national defense, controlled borders, and solvent government spending. The incessant attacks on these institutions by the left are largely encouraged by the DC establishment and most state and local governments, and the result has been failure of safety, solvency, competence, and sanity. Leftism causes parasitic failure across the board. To defend leftist policies on merit is impossible, so the left decided the primary tactic for persuasion should be defamation, intimidation, and even criminal extortion, persecution, and assault. So the right has had enough, and has decided, symbolized by and led by Trump, to assail the leftist establishment with criticism, skepticism, insults, and challenges to their authority and power at all levels. Like in any street fight, you can't win if you aren't willing to use the tactics your enemy is willing to use. So the right trolls, because the left smears. As long as the left smears and commits crimes to further their agenda, the right will troll and be willing to stop those crimes with equal or greater force. That is why the right trolls. Not because of your imagined telepathic detection of deep seated Nazi hatred, but because your leadership are a bunch of parasitic communist thugs who aspire to totalitarian tyrannical rule, and deserve trolling.

Third part just seems lifted straight out of Trump Jr's book.