3 ms·

Remember when Time Magazine did a Person of the Year that was just a mirror? That's where we are, even harder as (corporate) social media has ramped up. Simplis

Remember when Time Magazine did a Person of the Year that was just a mirror? That's where we are, even harder as (corporate) social media has ramped up. Simplistic conspiratorial "theories" play to people's egos. It's basically the populist outrage playbook the Republicans have been running for the past three decades (while keeping their monster contained in a cage and only feeding off the energy), gradually building more and more steam as they repeat the same tripe (eg myopic nonsense about the "deficit"), and now it has escaped. One of the first steps to righting this ship is to get our terminology straight and stop calling them conservatives. Conservative is not a synonym for Republican. Conservatives respect institutions, America's contribution to the world, fiscal responsibility, want to slow gradual change, etc. In the last election, the conservative option was squarely the Democrats. The modern grassroots Republican parties are populist reactionaries, and the people they've elected are (neo)fascists. The probable landscape is that they are just working for China to destroy this country and sell off the pieces.

anigbrowl 2y ago
True conservatism has never been tried :) The problem with your analysis is that you don't have the power to define what conservatism is; if enough populist reactionaries wrap themselves in the mantle of conservatism (which they absolutely have) then they gain effective ownership of teh term and ruin it for everyone else. I agree with your general thesis but think the rot goes back longer than 3 decades, although it got markedly worse after Newt Gingrich became speaker, around the same time that Fox News started on cable. As an example, consider Phyllis Schlafy's 'Eagle Forum'. Founded in 1972, its always been a reflection of its late founder's strident reactory outlook, to the point that their periodic rants about communism seem quaint and anachronistic. You could be forgiven for thinking it was relevant for political scientists studying the American right in the 20th century...except the US attorney for DC (a guy named Ed Martin Jr) is an Eagle Forum veteran, and a glance at his X timeline shows he's still all in on la Schlafly, doing official government business through his X account (eg publishing documents ther and nowhere else), and generally living down to the stereotype of a wild-eyed ideologue. In short, I don't believe terminological exactitude isn't going to get us out of this. The famously cranky Samuel Johnson, writing disdainfully of a British Prime Minister in 1775, commented 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel'. His point was that any concept invested with general-purpose social value - patriotism, love of nation, belief in community, conserving the body politic - can be exploited for short-term political gain to the detriment of long-term well-being. It's a perennial problem.
- mindslight 2y ago
  I'm certainly not trying to no-true-Scotsman the term conservative. The word does mean something, effectively the opposite of the vandals currently in power. For example I've gotten more conservative with age, but definitely do not consider myself "a conservative". The thrust of my comment was exactly that we need to stop letting them wrap themselves in the cloak of the flag and conservatism, when their actions demonstrate the complete opposite agenda. Anybody cheering on the current destruction yet calling themselves a conservative (likely to absolve themselves from what they're actually supporting) needs to be solidly mocked.

anigbrowl 2y ago

True conservatism has never been tried :) The problem with your analysis is that you don't have the power to define what conservatism is; if enough populist reactionaries wrap themselves in the mantle of conservatism (which they absolutely have) then they gain effective ownership of teh term and ruin it for everyone else. I agree with your general thesis but think the rot goes back longer than 3 decades, although it got markedly worse after Newt Gingrich became speaker, around the same time that Fox News started on cable. As an example, consider Phyllis Schlafy's 'Eagle Forum'. Founded in 1972, its always been a reflection of its late founder's strident reactory outlook, to the point that their periodic rants about communism seem quaint and anachronistic. You could be forgiven for thinking it was relevant for political scientists studying the American right in the 20th century...except the US attorney for DC (a guy named Ed Martin Jr) is an Eagle Forum veteran, and a glance at his X timeline shows he's still all in on la Schlafly, doing official government business through his X account (eg publishing documents ther and nowhere else), and generally living down to the stereotype of a wild-eyed ideologue. In short, I don't believe terminological exactitude isn't going to get us out of this. The famously cranky Samuel Johnson, writing disdainfully of a British Prime Minister in 1775, commented 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel'. His point was that any concept invested with general-purpose social value - patriotism, love of nation, belief in community, conserving the body politic - can be exploited for short-term political gain to the detriment of long-term well-being. It's a perennial problem.

mindslight 2y ago
I'm certainly not trying to no-true-Scotsman the term conservative. The word does mean something, effectively the opposite of the vandals currently in power. For example I've gotten more conservative with age, but definitely do not consider myself "a conservative". The thrust of my comment was exactly that we need to stop letting them wrap themselves in the cloak of the flag and conservatism, when their actions demonstrate the complete opposite agenda. Anybody cheering on the current destruction yet calling themselves a conservative (likely to absolve themselves from what they're actually supporting) needs to be solidly mocked.