4 ms·

Sorry but this just sounds salty and like an anecdote (hn edition). If the status quo was conservatism you would expect to see that reflected in elections globa

Sorry but this just sounds salty and like an anecdote (hn edition). If the status quo was conservatism you would expect to see that reflected in elections globally wouldn't you.

HPsquared 3y ago
I took it as more about definitions: conservatism (in theory) is all about conserving the status quo. It's in the name.
velcrovan 3y ago
As indeed we do.
- schleck8 3y ago
  No, what we see is popular parties with watered down centric programmes drawing in the same core voters for decades. Parties that actively advertise resisting change almost never win any elections, unless the political system you use as reference sucks so bad that it's a defacto duopoly.
  - velcrovan 3y ago
    I don’t agree. "Stop this newfangled bullshit and let's go back to the way things used to be" is a very common political message.
  - kennywinker 3y ago
    Idk if you’ve noticed, but centrists aren’t usually pushing radical reformations of our society to make it better. Centrism is just “let’s have the illusion of progress without adopting any change that threatens existing power structures.”
spondylosaurus 3y ago
Are we not seeing a rise in far-right leaders across the globe? Italy, Israel, Poland, Hungary... not to mention growing conservative movements in however many countries not currently governed by far-right populists. (America is certainly one of them. I believe France is another.)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- schleck8 3y ago
  They don't win elections because of their conservative takes but because of protest voters. If you need a concrete statistical example: in the state of Hessen, the far right party AfD gained by far the most new voters from the social democrats which are firmly center left; ten times more than from the largest conservative party. This is an alternative to not voting or destroying your ballot paper because it actually reflects in polls shown on TV (which do not show absent voters). They just want to piss off other parties, it's not motivated by support for the (barely existing) far right's programme for the largest part. Obviously you also have people who actually support the far right ideologies but lot of these voters were recently found to be willing to switch to a new far left party as soon as it runs at an election (catapulting it to 20 % off the cut at a federal level); same motivation. Protest votes
  - spondylosaurus 3y ago
    I'll be honest, I'm inclined not to believe this in the slightest. (Far-right voters voting far-left, or vice versa? En masse? In some kind of ill-defined protest?) But if you have any stats I'd love to see them.
    - schleck8 3y ago
      Source for the far right to far left statistic is Insa Consulere, one of the large public opinion institutes. These companies are so reliable that the live results on election days used to announce a winner on TV are actually from their analyses at polling stations throughout the day, not from government institutions. If the figure should change it's because these people have changed their mind afterwards, but as it stands right now, a lot of far right voters consider it a better alternative. Percentage wise, out of all parties, the far right loses the most to this new far left party. This was already predicted before any statistics were in because they just want to flip the bird to established parties. https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/sahra-wagenknecht-partei-bsw-so-wuerde-sie-laut-insa-umfrage-jetzt-abschneiden-li.2153488 https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/sahra-wagenknecht-parte... The voter movement from center left to far right is from the official election results from a few weeks ago.

Sorry but this just sounds salty and like an anecdote (hn edition). If the status quo was conservatism you would expect to see that reflected in elections globally wouldn't you.

HPsquared 3y ago

I took it as more about definitions: conservatism (in theory) is all about conserving the status quo. It's in the name.

velcrovan 3y ago

As indeed we do.

schleck8 3y ago
No, what we see is popular parties with watered down centric programmes drawing in the same core voters for decades. Parties that actively advertise resisting change almost never win any elections, unless the political system you use as reference sucks so bad that it's a defacto duopoly.
- velcrovan 3y ago
  I don’t agree. "Stop this newfangled bullshit and let's go back to the way things used to be" is a very common political message.
- kennywinker 3y ago
  Idk if you’ve noticed, but centrists aren’t usually pushing radical reformations of our society to make it better. Centrism is just “let’s have the illusion of progress without adopting any change that threatens existing power structures.”

spondylosaurus 3y ago

Are we not seeing a rise in far-right leaders across the globe? Italy, Israel, Poland, Hungary... not to mention growing conservative movements in however many countries not currently governed by far-right populists. (America is certainly one of them. I believe France is another.)

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
schleck8 3y ago
They don't win elections because of their conservative takes but because of protest voters. If you need a concrete statistical example: in the state of Hessen, the far right party AfD gained by far the most new voters from the social democrats which are firmly center left; ten times more than from the largest conservative party. This is an alternative to not voting or destroying your ballot paper because it actually reflects in polls shown on TV (which do not show absent voters). They just want to piss off other parties, it's not motivated by support for the (barely existing) far right's programme for the largest part. Obviously you also have people who actually support the far right ideologies but lot of these voters were recently found to be willing to switch to a new far left party as soon as it runs at an election (catapulting it to 20 % off the cut at a federal level); same motivation. Protest votes
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  I'll be honest, I'm inclined not to believe this in the slightest. (Far-right voters voting far-left, or vice versa? En masse? In some kind of ill-defined protest?) But if you have any stats I'd love to see them.
  - schleck8 3y ago
    Source for the far right to far left statistic is Insa Consulere, one of the large public opinion institutes. These companies are so reliable that the live results on election days used to announce a winner on TV are actually from their analyses at polling stations throughout the day, not from government institutions. If the figure should change it's because these people have changed their mind afterwards, but as it stands right now, a lot of far right voters consider it a better alternative. Percentage wise, out of all parties, the far right loses the most to this new far left party. This was already predicted before any statistics were in because they just want to flip the bird to established parties. https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/sahra-wagenknecht-partei-bsw-so-wuerde-sie-laut-insa-umfrage-jetzt-abschneiden-li.2153488 https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/sahra-wagenknecht-parte... The voter movement from center left to far right is from the official election results from a few weeks ago.