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> modern American conservatism is now defined by hating everything that liberals love Please stop giving this movement a disguise by continuing to call it cons

> modern American conservatism is now defined by hating everything that liberals love Please stop giving this movement a disguise by continuing to call it conservatism. I know that word has had negative connotations to a large segment of liberals/progressives, but conservatism actually has a bunch of worthwhile values - despite being harmful when taken to the extreme, like everything. What we're dealing with now is better described as populist reactionary fascism. There is nothing conservative about it beyond that the people supporting it used to align with conservatism but then got really angry because their fundamentalist mantras didn't pan out. The current home of actual conservatism is the Democratic party, who still have values like believing in American institutions and America being a force for good in the world.

pstuart 1y ago
> conservatism actually has some worthwhile values Did you read the whole of my comment? As to who to ascribe as "conservatives", the GOP and its voters are a not entirely unreasonable association. If you have public communicators for "modern conservatism" that you'd care to share I would be happy to check them out as I'm interested in broadening my understanding of the world.
- mindslight 1y ago
  Yes, I did. We are coming from places that are mostly in agreement - I'm not trying to thump some slightly-different no-true-Scotsman version of conservatism here. I am a libertarian, and I was unaligned and came to see the wisdom and failings of both tribes. My first point is that the people calling themselves conservatives are nowhere close to those values - the people who remain truer to conservatism get called "RINOs" and pushed out of the party (part of the large trend of othering). My main point is that this distinction is important because calling this movement "conservatism" ends up supporting it - it gives them cover as if they are merely advocating for some measured stick-with-traditions cautious reform and reverting recent developments, while they are actually actively lighting the better part of a century's American institutions on fire and dancing around the blazes - NASA, universities, scientific research, relationships with our allies, foreign outreach, USD as a reserve currency, etc. Never mind their rejection of much older American freedoms like freedom of assembly, right to keep and bear arms, etc.

pstuart 1y ago

> conservatism actually has some worthwhile values Did you read the whole of my comment? As to who to ascribe as "conservatives", the GOP and its voters are a not entirely unreasonable association. If you have public communicators for "modern conservatism" that you'd care to share I would be happy to check them out as I'm interested in broadening my understanding of the world.

mindslight 1y ago
Yes, I did. We are coming from places that are mostly in agreement - I'm not trying to thump some slightly-different no-true-Scotsman version of conservatism here. I am a libertarian, and I was unaligned and came to see the wisdom and failings of both tribes. My first point is that the people calling themselves conservatives are nowhere close to those values - the people who remain truer to conservatism get called "RINOs" and pushed out of the party (part of the large trend of othering). My main point is that this distinction is important because calling this movement "conservatism" ends up supporting it - it gives them cover as if they are merely advocating for some measured stick-with-traditions cautious reform and reverting recent developments, while they are actually actively lighting the better part of a century's American institutions on fire and dancing around the blazes - NASA, universities, scientific research, relationships with our allies, foreign outreach, USD as a reserve currency, etc. Never mind their rejection of much older American freedoms like freedom of assembly, right to keep and bear arms, etc.