OOP put together a very good description of incrementalist center-left liberals, and called it conservatism. The opening premise is a misidentification of what "conservative" means in the context of political ideology. Conservative doesn't mean "maintain the existing system" per se, it means conserving old power dynamics. Conservative politics are the politics of rigid hierarchy. In the US, conservative politics have always directly opposed everything that we consider established norms in the modern day. Labor rights, civil rights, bodily autonomy of every kind, anything that seeks to close the gap between the privileged few and "common" people is anathema to conservative politics.
I don't think OOP misrepresented conservatism. When they said "If we're going to call something conservative then the bare minimum requirement is that it conserve institutions and how they operate", I took that to be in the context of how conservatives view conservatism. Then he showed that current immigration policy doesn't even meet that very low bar.
I mean, if the term was newly minted maybe but it isn't. The definition doesn't describe conservatism. OOP is quite literally describing a wholly different concept and attempting to associate it with conservative political movements - which are fervently and loudly in opposition to what OOP describes.
Conservatives don't view conservatism this way, if they did they'd have abandoned the GOP decades ago. Conservatives like to pretend this is what they believe when confronted with the indefensible things they do believe. They drop the pretense the instant they feel safe from criticism or opposition.
Sure, but that's why you can't rely on neat little etymologies to define what a group "should" believe. The institutions that Conservativism was named for wanting to conserve were like the 18th century French and British aristocracies. Conservativism in 21st century America is its own set of values and view of the world, and a plan to bring the two closer together, not some silly insistence that nothing ever change.
Donald Trump's political views are formed entirely by whatever got the biggest cheers and most consistently positive reaction from conservatives. Not a single aspect of MAGA started with DT. He invented zero of the bigotry, authoritarianism, cruelty, militancy, you name it - all of that came from the existing Republican party and culture. MAGA caught on because its message to republicans was "everything you already believe but is embarrassing in its ugliness and stupidity, loud and shamelessly stated." If stupid resentful fear and hatred didn't appeal to conservatives, donald would have lost the primary in 2015.
I didn't insist nothing ever changes. I pointed out that the fundamental principles of conservative culture haven't. Think if it like saying Christianity's fundamentals (a single omnipotent God created everything, sent an avatar of himself to die as a mortal, etc) remain the same across denominations. The core principles of conservatism are the problem here, which is why we have been repeating the same stupid disaster over and over for millenia.
I really think hierarchy is the only way to understand current Republicans. It's not just that they want to conserve hierarchy, but that hierarchy is how they decide what is good or bad.
They don't expect their leaders to tell the truth. Lying is just another way to exercise power, so it's good when someone high in the hierarchy does it, and bad when someone low in the hierarchy does.
Immigration is bad, because people from other countries are lower on the hierarchy than Americans, and many of them are poor or minorities. They say that it's about following the law, and then gleefully deport people who follow the law. The law is not more important than the hierarchy. Nothing is.
It's the basis of every policy, and also the reason they have no concrete policy on things like healthcare. What they want is for the healthcare system to help or hurt people according to their place on the hierarchy, and the only way to do that more than the system already does is to eliminate subsidies and degrade healthcare for women, which are of course the only things they do with legislation with regard to healthcare.
This hierarchy concept of the Republican party sounds a little scary, but it seems like it fits pretty well around the reasoning why they do what they do. They must look at the caste system in India as a great system. Ugh, I can't believe these people are Americans.
The Indian caste system is bad, because it's Indian and Indian things are low on the hierarchy.
An American system of strict ranking of people would be good, as long as it comported with their ideas of which people are good and bad. Any similarity to the Indian caste system would be denied and rejected.
The funny thing about this is once a certain 'tier', in this instance, immigrants, are put in their place, conservatives will inevitably splinter over who should be next in line for the smackdown. Some white LGBTQ conservatives who bought any one of the party lines about immigrants or poor people or whatever, will find themselves on the chopping block in very short order. Naturalized citizen conservatives who are upset at illegal immigrants for doing it 'the wrong way' will find themselves in the crosshairs of just plain ol' racists. Women conservatives who are rabidly pro-life for religious reasons will find themselves forced back in the kitchen. Hell, even if they managed to make their way through all of those out-groups without managing to collapse in on itself, it'll eventually turn on the white-trash conservatives who just don't fit in with the real owners of the party. It's just a series of purity tests, and no one is safe in the end.
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak up for I was not a communist, etc etc...
I disagree: OOP put together a description of actual conservative tenets (what we over the pond would specifically call "small-c conservative" or "one nation conservative").
What's happened in the US is that you've adopted an Orwellian newspeak redefinition of both the words conservative and liberal. Since at least the mid-90s the genuine US conservatives have been steadily replaced by reactionary extremists, who describe their radical far-right nastiness as "conservative" when it most definitely isn't.
It isn't newspeak, it isnt a redefinition, it is precisely the original definition and the unbroken throughline of conservative culture for hundreds of years. Whenever conservative politics are ascendant the mask (which is itself the thing you're accusing) of small-c is discarded entirely.
Nobody is being replaced by radicals. They're the same people, radicalizing each other rather than rejecting ideological concepts that simply don't reflect reality. As the right wing gains more and more influence over economics, government, and culture everything deteriorates. Businesses are held less accountable, and rapidly become more exploitative and monolithic. Cosmopolitan multiculturalism is replaced by a move towards monocultural nationalism, disenfranchising and eventually criminalizing increasingly scapegoated ethnicities, LGBTQ people, and anyone critical of what's happening. Rehabilitation is discarded as "weak" in favor of brutal punishment in law enforcement, driving a wedge of fear and distrust between the people and the judicial system, inevitably turning law enforcement into little more than a means of coercion rife with corruption. Foreign policy and trade policy reject aid programs and compromise positions, driving away commerce and earning resentment and distrust from the rest of the world.
The more the right wing is empowered to pursue its goals, the harder it tries to jam a square peg through a whole colander of round holes, the worse overall conditions become, the harder it scapegoats and deflects. It cannot try something new because that's progressive and therefore evil, and retreats endlessly into increasingly worse iterations of history's myriad failed models. Lassez-faire, colonialism, militant imperialism, monarchy, theocracy, only ceasing when forced to compromise by a movement too powerful to subjugate.
He coined the term, "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." That flies in the face of OP's definition of respecting traditional (American) jurisprudence, which operates on the assumption that everyone is equal under the law; there is no one above the law. Nixon saw himself as above the law, and operated as such. The fact that he wasn't prosecuted and held liable for his actions, that he was allowed to resign and then pardoned in an obvious political agreement, was a clear demonstration that yes, he was above the law. All those dynamics are being played out right now with the trump administration: His pardons are politically motivated, he is not being held accountable, the SCOTUS is ruling that he is above the law, etc. Everything being done now was set up by the Republicans in '74, 50 years ago.
Edit: Just to remind everyone, besides many other things, Nixon's biggest crime was rigging the '72 election. It began before the primaries. He was able to sabotage each Democratic leader, so that the only one left was McGovern, the weakest of the bunch. Not being satisfied with that, he also sabotaged the McGovern campaign. There is no direct evidence of this, because he destroyed it, which there is mountains of evidence that he did so. That's what he was being impeached for, destroying evidence and obstruction of justice.
So a criminal became president, and declared himself free of the law. Does any of this sound familiar? And those young Nixon loyalists grew up and created the modern Republican structure, of which trump is the fruit. I have no respect for apologists who see trump as an aberration, when the Republicans have been working very hard to replace Nixon. The honor of the Republican party died with the Eisenhower administration.
Modern American conservatism, MAGA, and right-wing politics have nothing to do with ideology or philosophy. They're just a vibe, nothing more.
The few remaining intellectual conservatives out there are naive if they believe that suburban or rural MAGA followers care about what institutions are preserved or what the founding fathers had in mind.
In the US, conservative politics have always directly opposed everything that we consider established norms in the modern day. Labor rights, civil rights, bodily autonomy of every kind, anything that seeks to close the gap between the privileged few and "common" people is anathema to conservative politics.
All those ideas were new once. Conservatives opposed them when they were new, because they challenged the existing social order/hierarchy. Nowadays, most conservatives favor existing labor rights and existing civil rights, because those are the established order now. They might want to roll back some labor protections and some civil rights, but not all of them. They speak favorably about Martin Luther King Jr (while carefully avoiding any of his actual words except for a few select sentences from "I Have A Dream").
Also, liberals have historically championed labor rights, civil rights, and various other individual protections (but not the right to self-defense, oddly enough). Conservatives, therefore, must oppose those things. "If I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position." -- Monty Python's argument clinic
I'm quite sick of people pretending this administration isn't the logical end game of "classical conservatism". This is always what they wanted, they just didn't think it was politically feasible.
I'm quite sick of people pretending this administration isn't the logical end game of "classical conservatism". This is always what they wanted, they just didn't think it was politically feasible.
Yup. It's why I stopped considering myself Conservative decades ago. I saw the moral rot infesting American Conservatism and realized exactly where it was leading. And unfortunately I was right.
I for one can't believe that the party that has openly and obviously hated minorities since forever is doing things that demonstrate their hatred for minorities! Clearly this doesn't represent them at all!!
To be honest, this linked comment is fucking stupid.
Radicalism is not a 'left-wing ideology', conservatism does not mean 'to conserve'.
When the right wing militia took to the streets to institute fascist governments by force in Italy they were not being left-wing, they were being right-wing fascists. When conservatives denied rights to groups of people, they were not 'conserving institutions and rule of law' but enacting their political project to enshrine their position of heirarchal power.
The old school “intellectuals” of the republican party loved to give right wing views a veneer of respectability by saying stuff exactly like that comment. They’d pontificate on Sunday morning talking head shows and pretend that their views were the mainstream of right wing thinking and that racism and bigotry were unfortunate aberrations, “no true Scotsman” and all that. These days they’re frowning disapprovingly about trump and acting like they had no part in his rise.
They're conserving a socio-political order that favors their ingroup. Nothing else.
So what you see as regressive is done to maintain their place in the hierarchy.
Nah, they're misrepresenting what conservatism is and has always been. They bought the PR that conservatives tell us, and don't know what it actually is.
Conservatism originates roughly around 1800 when the monarchies in France and England lost power.
This threatened the social order. If there's no monarchy, what place do lords/nobility/aristocrats have?
What does conservatism seek to conserve? Social hierarchy.
That's it. That's the whole point.
It believes there is a natural social order, with some people at the top and others at the bottom (and usually a god at the very tippy-top).
That's where appeals to "personal responsibility" come from. Because if you're poor, it must be your own fault, and we're rich because we deserve it.
That's where low taxes (always lower, never low enough) comes from. Because wealth redistribution threatens the hierarchy.
That's where small government comes from. Because small government is weak government and can't enforce protections for those at the bottom of the hierarchy.
The left vs right terminology comes from the French government during the revolution. Those who supported the monarchy/church/nobility (hierarchy) sat to the right of the president, and those who supported the revolution (equality) sat to the left.
A genuinely conservative approach would defend the stability of the courts, the legitimacy of legal process, and the expectation that the state plays by its own rules.
a conservative asks how we can change that system in a measured, prudent way
Those are not conservative principles. Conservatives only care about stability and process and prudent change if it benefits maintaining inequality.
I think your comment needs to be further up top, I remember reading a little history about conservatism a couple years ago and it read exactly like what you wrote. I think another guy wrote about hierarchy being the most important thing to Republicans and sadly it lines up with this too. We have a new monarchy being supported by Americans without understanding how truly stupid, awful and ironic that is.
That's when the idea of the Neocon was born I think, they realized they can trash everything and be greedy as long as they lie bout trying to help people with legitimate policies.
"If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." <--- We are here.
Thanks for featuring me on this sub. It’s a first and I’m flattered. I’ve been reading the comments and have enjoyed the conversations, but I feel like I should provide some context. Note: the formatting might be wonky because the first version of this response didn’t go through, so I’ve typed it on Google docs.
I was basically trolling because the commenter to whom I was responding proudly said he voted for Trump because he supports anything right-of-center and wanted his team to win. I detest people like this. Of all the reasons to vote for that bloviating a-hole, wanting your team to win is one of the dumbest. I mean, just say that you are afraid immigrants will take your crappy, low-paying job and I’ll at least have some sympathy. I wanted to get him to commit to something that he identified as right-of-center and then blow it up.
I think that the concept of the left/center/right spectrum is overly reductive, but I used it because the commenter to whom I was replying used it. My goal was to show him that Trumpism is radicalism, and then to troll a little bit by identifying it, according to the idea of the spectrum, as a left-wing ideology. Personally, I think radicalism is a destructive human impulse, and is not tied to any particular philosophy, “left” or “right.”
I realize that my version of conservatism, which other posters have identified as essentially 18th century European, was never ascendant in the United States. I subscribe to classical conservatism as outlined by the Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke, whose “Reflections on the Revolution in France” is the seminal text of classical conservatism. I disagree that conservatism, as I’ve defined it, is the politics of rigid hierarchy. If I were to articulate my conservatism, it would be as follows:
Prudence is a core conservative virtue and requires us to think ahead, weigh consequences, and act with restraint.
Institutions are stabilizing forces, not obstacles to be bulldozed when inconvenient. Undercutting courts, targeting lawful processes, or improvising executive power is not conservative.
The rule of law anchors a free society. Enforcement should be predictable, restrained, and procedurally sound.
A state that expands detention powers, surveillance, or enforcement pageantry is unbound and will end in tyranny or authoritarianism.
Order, which grows out of legitimacy and durable process, is not the same as force, which rushes in when it has an opening.
Institutions are repositories of inherited wisdom that exist in their present form because generations before us discovered, often painfully, what works and what fails.
A conservative approaches society as a steward, not a demolition crew. Conservatism is about maintaining what works, refining what requires improvement, and passing on a functioning civic order.
*When power concentrates, freedom dissolves. A radical state always claims its actions are necessary and uses emergency powers to further itself. I realize I sound a bit like Arendt here.
Society is a contract across generations, and there is wisdom in inherited social institutions
A conservative rejects the fantasy that complex problems have single, dramatic solutions. In Trump’s case, mass deportations, legal shortcuts, and “we’ll fix it with force” thinking are exactly the kind of radical simplifications Burke warned against.
I realize that many would critique Burke as being an advocate of rigid social hierarchy and hereditary aristocracy, but this is a misreading of his philosophy. In the 1700s, the aristocracy served as a stabilizing influence in society, and Burke believed in a stable social order to guard against the radical egalitarianism of the French Revolution (and, though he was long dead by then, what we saw with Soviet Communism). Burke believed every society has a class of people who rise by talent, education, achievement, and character, not hereditary title. These people function as stabilizers, mediators, stewards, and buffers against demagoguery. Modern examples of this “natural” aristocracy would be the career public servants who, up until recently, served across administrations to guard the public from all manner of threats. Think of the people in the Department of Education working to improve accessibility in schools, or the people at the CDC protecting us from diseases, or the scientists at the FDA funding research and keeping our food supply safe. Society needs stabilizing institutions and stabilizing classes, but not elites by birth, but competence, experience, and institutional memory. Burke believed, and I agree, that radical upheaval in social order creates chaos that then justifies authoritarian overreach.
I could write more, but this is the third time I’ve written this and I have a stack of essays to grade. I hope I’ve provided some more context, and my apologies for any errors or imprecise turns of phrase as I’ve worked to write this as quickly as possible. Cheers.
Hey thanks for your response, it seems really thoughtful. I do have a question, your definition of conservatism sounds like you are defining a kind of persons belief outside of the realm of politics, the people who I have met and talk about politics seem to ground their beliefs in the political events of present and don't have any qualms about supporting someone like Trump, even if it means being seen as incredibly hypocritical.
How does the current conservative meet this definition that you have that seems rather lofty?
One has to base their support, and by extension, their vote, based on whoever best exemplifies these values, even if that person is on "the other team." There are many reasons why we have the politics that we have today, but one of the chief causes is that no one has any damn principles anymore, and we've turned politics into a zero-sum game.
This is a good question - the answer is one you won't like though.
You shouldn't help break institutions because without some systems and institutions no one will be there to stop you from getting screwed over.
Courts prosecute criminals and administer punishments / reforms - Institution / System.
EPA - Makes an effort to stop your drinking water from killing you with dangerous chemicals - Institution and System of regulations.
Colleges and Universities - Makes sure students learn facts and real truth - so your doctor actually knows wtf he's doing for example - System / Institution
When push comes to shove - the rich will absolutely sacrifice you without a 2nd thought if it helps themselves.
OOP put together a very good description of incrementalist center-left liberals, and called it conservatism. The opening premise is a misidentification of what "conservative" means in the context of political ideology. Conservative doesn't mean "maintain the existing system" per se, it means conserving old power dynamics. Conservative politics are the politics of rigid hierarchy. In the US, conservative politics have always directly opposed everything that we consider established norms in the modern day. Labor rights, civil rights, bodily autonomy of every kind, anything that seeks to close the gap between the privileged few and "common" people is anathema to conservative politics.
I don't think OOP misrepresented conservatism. When they said "If we're going to call something conservative then the bare minimum requirement is that it conserve institutions and how they operate", I took that to be in the context of how conservatives view conservatism. Then he showed that current immigration policy doesn't even meet that very low bar.
I mean, if the term was newly minted maybe but it isn't. The definition doesn't describe conservatism. OOP is quite literally describing a wholly different concept and attempting to associate it with conservative political movements - which are fervently and loudly in opposition to what OOP describes.
Conservatives don't view conservatism this way, if they did they'd have abandoned the GOP decades ago. Conservatives like to pretend this is what they believe when confronted with the indefensible things they do believe. They drop the pretense the instant they feel safe from criticism or opposition.
Sure, but that's why you can't rely on neat little etymologies to define what a group "should" believe. The institutions that Conservativism was named for wanting to conserve were like the 18th century French and British aristocracies. Conservativism in 21st century America is its own set of values and view of the world, and a plan to bring the two closer together, not some silly insistence that nothing ever change.
Donald Trump's political views are formed entirely by whatever got the biggest cheers and most consistently positive reaction from conservatives. Not a single aspect of MAGA started with DT. He invented zero of the bigotry, authoritarianism, cruelty, militancy, you name it - all of that came from the existing Republican party and culture. MAGA caught on because its message to republicans was "everything you already believe but is embarrassing in its ugliness and stupidity, loud and shamelessly stated." If stupid resentful fear and hatred didn't appeal to conservatives, donald would have lost the primary in 2015.
I didn't insist nothing ever changes. I pointed out that the fundamental principles of conservative culture haven't. Think if it like saying Christianity's fundamentals (a single omnipotent God created everything, sent an avatar of himself to die as a mortal, etc) remain the same across denominations. The core principles of conservatism are the problem here, which is why we have been repeating the same stupid disaster over and over for millenia.
I really think hierarchy is the only way to understand current Republicans. It's not just that they want to conserve hierarchy, but that hierarchy is how they decide what is good or bad.
They don't expect their leaders to tell the truth. Lying is just another way to exercise power, so it's good when someone high in the hierarchy does it, and bad when someone low in the hierarchy does.
Immigration is bad, because people from other countries are lower on the hierarchy than Americans, and many of them are poor or minorities. They say that it's about following the law, and then gleefully deport people who follow the law. The law is not more important than the hierarchy. Nothing is.
It's the basis of every policy, and also the reason they have no concrete policy on things like healthcare. What they want is for the healthcare system to help or hurt people according to their place on the hierarchy, and the only way to do that more than the system already does is to eliminate subsidies and degrade healthcare for women, which are of course the only things they do with legislation with regard to healthcare.
This hierarchy concept of the Republican party sounds a little scary, but it seems like it fits pretty well around the reasoning why they do what they do. They must look at the caste system in India as a great system. Ugh, I can't believe these people are Americans.
I don't think it's even that objective.
The Indian caste system is bad, because it's Indian and Indian things are low on the hierarchy.
An American system of strict ranking of people would be good, as long as it comported with their ideas of which people are good and bad. Any similarity to the Indian caste system would be denied and rejected.
The funny thing about this is once a certain 'tier', in this instance, immigrants, are put in their place, conservatives will inevitably splinter over who should be next in line for the smackdown. Some white LGBTQ conservatives who bought any one of the party lines about immigrants or poor people or whatever, will find themselves on the chopping block in very short order. Naturalized citizen conservatives who are upset at illegal immigrants for doing it 'the wrong way' will find themselves in the crosshairs of just plain ol' racists. Women conservatives who are rabidly pro-life for religious reasons will find themselves forced back in the kitchen. Hell, even if they managed to make their way through all of those out-groups without managing to collapse in on itself, it'll eventually turn on the white-trash conservatives who just don't fit in with the real owners of the party. It's just a series of purity tests, and no one is safe in the end.
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak up for I was not a communist, etc etc...
Wilhoit’s Law seems to say this too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wilhoit_(composer)
https://youtu.be/agzNANfNlTs?si=7vl4mQNa8jnyJZwu
I knew what this was going to be, the alt-right playbook (I guess now the modern, current playbook) is one of the best series in youtube.
I disagree: OOP put together a description of actual conservative tenets (what we over the pond would specifically call "small-c conservative" or "one nation conservative").
What's happened in the US is that you've adopted an Orwellian newspeak redefinition of both the words conservative and liberal. Since at least the mid-90s the genuine US conservatives have been steadily replaced by reactionary extremists, who describe their radical far-right nastiness as "conservative" when it most definitely isn't.
It isn't newspeak, it isnt a redefinition, it is precisely the original definition and the unbroken throughline of conservative culture for hundreds of years. Whenever conservative politics are ascendant the mask (which is itself the thing you're accusing) of small-c is discarded entirely.
Nobody is being replaced by radicals. They're the same people, radicalizing each other rather than rejecting ideological concepts that simply don't reflect reality. As the right wing gains more and more influence over economics, government, and culture everything deteriorates. Businesses are held less accountable, and rapidly become more exploitative and monolithic. Cosmopolitan multiculturalism is replaced by a move towards monocultural nationalism, disenfranchising and eventually criminalizing increasingly scapegoated ethnicities, LGBTQ people, and anyone critical of what's happening. Rehabilitation is discarded as "weak" in favor of brutal punishment in law enforcement, driving a wedge of fear and distrust between the people and the judicial system, inevitably turning law enforcement into little more than a means of coercion rife with corruption. Foreign policy and trade policy reject aid programs and compromise positions, driving away commerce and earning resentment and distrust from the rest of the world.
The more the right wing is empowered to pursue its goals, the harder it tries to jam a square peg through a whole colander of round holes, the worse overall conditions become, the harder it scapegoats and deflects. It cannot try something new because that's progressive and therefore evil, and retreats endlessly into increasingly worse iterations of history's myriad failed models. Lassez-faire, colonialism, militant imperialism, monarchy, theocracy, only ceasing when forced to compromise by a movement too powerful to subjugate.
All I'll say is if that is the definition of "conservatism," then it was completely shredded by Nixon over fifty years ago.
Care to expand on this?
He coined the term, "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." That flies in the face of OP's definition of respecting traditional (American) jurisprudence, which operates on the assumption that everyone is equal under the law; there is no one above the law. Nixon saw himself as above the law, and operated as such. The fact that he wasn't prosecuted and held liable for his actions, that he was allowed to resign and then pardoned in an obvious political agreement, was a clear demonstration that yes, he was above the law. All those dynamics are being played out right now with the trump administration: His pardons are politically motivated, he is not being held accountable, the SCOTUS is ruling that he is above the law, etc. Everything being done now was set up by the Republicans in '74, 50 years ago.
Edit: Just to remind everyone, besides many other things, Nixon's biggest crime was rigging the '72 election. It began before the primaries. He was able to sabotage each Democratic leader, so that the only one left was McGovern, the weakest of the bunch. Not being satisfied with that, he also sabotaged the McGovern campaign. There is no direct evidence of this, because he destroyed it, which there is mountains of evidence that he did so. That's what he was being impeached for, destroying evidence and obstruction of justice.
So a criminal became president, and declared himself free of the law. Does any of this sound familiar? And those young Nixon loyalists grew up and created the modern Republican structure, of which trump is the fruit. I have no respect for apologists who see trump as an aberration, when the Republicans have been working very hard to replace Nixon. The honor of the Republican party died with the Eisenhower administration.
Probably referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
Modern American conservatism, MAGA, and right-wing politics have nothing to do with ideology or philosophy. They're just a vibe, nothing more.
The few remaining intellectual conservatives out there are naive if they believe that suburban or rural MAGA followers care about what institutions are preserved or what the founding fathers had in mind.
All those ideas were new once. Conservatives opposed them when they were new, because they challenged the existing social order/hierarchy. Nowadays, most conservatives favor existing labor rights and existing civil rights, because those are the established order now. They might want to roll back some labor protections and some civil rights, but not all of them. They speak favorably about Martin Luther King Jr (while carefully avoiding any of his actual words except for a few select sentences from "I Have A Dream").
Also, liberals have historically championed labor rights, civil rights, and various other individual protections (but not the right to self-defense, oddly enough). Conservatives, therefore, must oppose those things. "If I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position." -- Monty Python's argument clinic
> most conservatives favor existing labor rights and existing civil rights
no they don't, they literally vote for dismantling the unions
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The only classical thing this administration is is classically Nazi.
I'm quite sick of people pretending this administration isn't the logical end game of "classical conservatism". This is always what they wanted, they just didn't think it was politically feasible.
Yup. It's why I stopped considering myself Conservative decades ago. I saw the moral rot infesting American Conservatism and realized exactly where it was leading. And unfortunately I was right.
The dog finally caught the car
I for one can't believe that the party that has openly and obviously hated minorities since forever is doing things that demonstrate their hatred for minorities! Clearly this doesn't represent them at all!!
To be honest, this linked comment is fucking stupid.
Radicalism is not a 'left-wing ideology', conservatism does not mean 'to conserve'.
When the right wing militia took to the streets to institute fascist governments by force in Italy they were not being left-wing, they were being right-wing fascists. When conservatives denied rights to groups of people, they were not 'conserving institutions and rule of law' but enacting their political project to enshrine their position of heirarchal power.
Yeah, the upstream comment about how what Trump is doing is actually left wing because it's radical is absurd.
Saying conservatives must mean "to conserve" is so dumb. Please stop using words this way.
The old school “intellectuals” of the republican party loved to give right wing views a veneer of respectability by saying stuff exactly like that comment. They’d pontificate on Sunday morning talking head shows and pretend that their views were the mainstream of right wing thinking and that racism and bigotry were unfortunate aberrations, “no true Scotsman” and all that. These days they’re frowning disapprovingly about trump and acting like they had no part in his rise.
They're regressive, they're not conserving anything
They're conserving a socio-political order that favors their ingroup. Nothing else. So what you see as regressive is done to maintain their place in the hierarchy.
Nah, they're misrepresenting what conservatism is and has always been. They bought the PR that conservatives tell us, and don't know what it actually is.
Conservatism originates roughly around 1800 when the monarchies in France and England lost power.
This threatened the social order. If there's no monarchy, what place do lords/nobility/aristocrats have?
What does conservatism seek to conserve? Social hierarchy.
That's it. That's the whole point.
It believes there is a natural social order, with some people at the top and others at the bottom (and usually a god at the very tippy-top).
That's where appeals to "personal responsibility" come from. Because if you're poor, it must be your own fault, and we're rich because we deserve it.
That's where low taxes (always lower, never low enough) comes from. Because wealth redistribution threatens the hierarchy.
That's where small government comes from. Because small government is weak government and can't enforce protections for those at the bottom of the hierarchy.
The left vs right terminology comes from the French government during the revolution. Those who supported the monarchy/church/nobility (hierarchy) sat to the right of the president, and those who supported the revolution (equality) sat to the left.
Those are not conservative principles. Conservatives only care about stability and process and prudent change if it benefits maintaining inequality.
I think your comment needs to be further up top, I remember reading a little history about conservatism a couple years ago and it read exactly like what you wrote. I think another guy wrote about hierarchy being the most important thing to Republicans and sadly it lines up with this too. We have a new monarchy being supported by Americans without understanding how truly stupid, awful and ironic that is.
Super interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Somebody gets it but tbh even the Republicans during Reagans terms would be salivating over what Trump is doing
That's when the idea of the Neocon was born I think, they realized they can trash everything and be greedy as long as they lie bout trying to help people with legitimate policies.
Was the comment deleted?
To my knowledge the full comment is still there. Here is the full-context since it's buried quite deep in the thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Askpolitics/comments/1pj58pe/trump_calls_affordability_crisis_a_hoax_in_pa/ntceoov/?context=10000
Thanks, I can only see that in old reddit oddly enough.
"If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." <--- We are here.
Thanks for featuring me on this sub. It’s a first and I’m flattered. I’ve been reading the comments and have enjoyed the conversations, but I feel like I should provide some context. Note: the formatting might be wonky because the first version of this response didn’t go through, so I’ve typed it on Google docs.
I was basically trolling because the commenter to whom I was responding proudly said he voted for Trump because he supports anything right-of-center and wanted his team to win. I detest people like this. Of all the reasons to vote for that bloviating a-hole, wanting your team to win is one of the dumbest. I mean, just say that you are afraid immigrants will take your crappy, low-paying job and I’ll at least have some sympathy. I wanted to get him to commit to something that he identified as right-of-center and then blow it up.
I think that the concept of the left/center/right spectrum is overly reductive, but I used it because the commenter to whom I was replying used it. My goal was to show him that Trumpism is radicalism, and then to troll a little bit by identifying it, according to the idea of the spectrum, as a left-wing ideology. Personally, I think radicalism is a destructive human impulse, and is not tied to any particular philosophy, “left” or “right.”
I realize that my version of conservatism, which other posters have identified as essentially 18th century European, was never ascendant in the United States. I subscribe to classical conservatism as outlined by the Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke, whose “Reflections on the Revolution in France” is the seminal text of classical conservatism. I disagree that conservatism, as I’ve defined it, is the politics of rigid hierarchy. If I were to articulate my conservatism, it would be as follows:
Prudence is a core conservative virtue and requires us to think ahead, weigh consequences, and act with restraint.
Institutions are stabilizing forces, not obstacles to be bulldozed when inconvenient. Undercutting courts, targeting lawful processes, or improvising executive power is not conservative.
The rule of law anchors a free society. Enforcement should be predictable, restrained, and procedurally sound.
A state that expands detention powers, surveillance, or enforcement pageantry is unbound and will end in tyranny or authoritarianism.
Order, which grows out of legitimacy and durable process, is not the same as force, which rushes in when it has an opening.
Institutions are repositories of inherited wisdom that exist in their present form because generations before us discovered, often painfully, what works and what fails.
A conservative approaches society as a steward, not a demolition crew. Conservatism is about maintaining what works, refining what requires improvement, and passing on a functioning civic order.
*When power concentrates, freedom dissolves. A radical state always claims its actions are necessary and uses emergency powers to further itself. I realize I sound a bit like Arendt here.
Society is a contract across generations, and there is wisdom in inherited social institutions
A conservative rejects the fantasy that complex problems have single, dramatic solutions. In Trump’s case, mass deportations, legal shortcuts, and “we’ll fix it with force” thinking are exactly the kind of radical simplifications Burke warned against.
I realize that many would critique Burke as being an advocate of rigid social hierarchy and hereditary aristocracy, but this is a misreading of his philosophy. In the 1700s, the aristocracy served as a stabilizing influence in society, and Burke believed in a stable social order to guard against the radical egalitarianism of the French Revolution (and, though he was long dead by then, what we saw with Soviet Communism). Burke believed every society has a class of people who rise by talent, education, achievement, and character, not hereditary title. These people function as stabilizers, mediators, stewards, and buffers against demagoguery. Modern examples of this “natural” aristocracy would be the career public servants who, up until recently, served across administrations to guard the public from all manner of threats. Think of the people in the Department of Education working to improve accessibility in schools, or the people at the CDC protecting us from diseases, or the scientists at the FDA funding research and keeping our food supply safe. Society needs stabilizing institutions and stabilizing classes, but not elites by birth, but competence, experience, and institutional memory. Burke believed, and I agree, that radical upheaval in social order creates chaos that then justifies authoritarian overreach.
I could write more, but this is the third time I’ve written this and I have a stack of essays to grade. I hope I’ve provided some more context, and my apologies for any errors or imprecise turns of phrase as I’ve worked to write this as quickly as possible. Cheers.
Hey thanks for your response, it seems really thoughtful. I do have a question, your definition of conservatism sounds like you are defining a kind of persons belief outside of the realm of politics, the people who I have met and talk about politics seem to ground their beliefs in the political events of present and don't have any qualms about supporting someone like Trump, even if it means being seen as incredibly hypocritical.
How does the current conservative meet this definition that you have that seems rather lofty?
One has to base their support, and by extension, their vote, based on whoever best exemplifies these values, even if that person is on "the other team." There are many reasons why we have the politics that we have today, but one of the chief causes is that no one has any damn principles anymore, and we've turned politics into a zero-sum game.
Shit link.
Regressives.
It was a good comparison, but the title of this will undoubtedly invite brainless political attacks.
Conservatives want to do nothing but destroy Conservatives actual values.
Like owning a home and a car and having 3 or 4 kids....while working 40 hours a week with an annual 2 week vacation.
The legendary "good conservatives" which have never been seen since the reactionary Edmund Burke
Looks like he’s just comparing the current admin’s immigration policies to what classical conservatism should look like
And why should I a lawful citizen participate in upholding institutions that are now broken? Further, why shouldn't I help break them completely?
This is a good question - the answer is one you won't like though.
You shouldn't help break institutions because without some systems and institutions no one will be there to stop you from getting screwed over.
Courts prosecute criminals and administer punishments / reforms - Institution / System.
EPA - Makes an effort to stop your drinking water from killing you with dangerous chemicals - Institution and System of regulations.
Colleges and Universities - Makes sure students learn facts and real truth - so your doctor actually knows wtf he's doing for example - System / Institution
When push comes to shove - the rich will absolutely sacrifice you without a 2nd thought if it helps themselves.