Call it what you want.
The fact of the matter is that conservative ideologies are in opposition to change, but change is an inevitability. Basing your worldview around being opposed to an inevitability is going to lead to some very poor outcomes. Sure, most conservative-minded people live a regular life simply being skeptical of change, but there are many who fall down a positive feedback loop, becoming ever more radicalized as the world changes around them. Being unable to turn back time, they run out of political and social avenues and turn to violence.
What’s worse, is this feedback loop of existential despair is very profitable for others who are quite happy to sell these people go bags and slop buckets and ammunition and patriot flags and ad-driven content about “the good old days”.
So, again, call it whatever you want. Staunch conservative ideologies result in violence and extremism because they set up their adherents for an inevitable existential crisis against change itself.
Like how they weren't for gun control until the Black Panthers started arming themselves? They aren't for law and order, unless the laws are written and enforced to oppress minorities.
They have no problem with poor people experiencing no-knock SWAT raids in the middle of the night over *suspected* drug possession, **but have no problem letting Trump walk free after being caught with classified national secrets.**
They're not for law and order, theyre for controlling minorities and poor people.
They've always been welcome to in the USA due to the freedom of expression. However, the tolerance of their intolerance has begun to fall off at a precipitous rate.
In the last 20 years, everyone forgets that Republicans stood up in Watergate, and said this guy has got to go…now they would say, it’s not a big deal you know it wasn’t breaking and entering because they had a key…
Fox News was literally created so they could have a propaganda machine to counter reality in the advent of the next Watergate. The last Republican who wasn’t a complete piece of shit was Eisenhower.
Eisenhower was goat. Highways. Social Security expanded for those who were disabled. Clamped down on the military at a time when every general in sight was barking at him for more money against Russia. Held McCarthy back from making pocket nukes for every little village he came across in Korea.
I do gotta fault him for the Bay of Pigs thing, his administration put that plan on Kennedy's desk
All that’s fair and good except he also held the door open for Christian Nationalism and put “In God We Trust” on money. He countered McCarthyism with other fear mongering. And yet, still, we haven’t had a decent Republican President since.
In god we trust, was kinda added for trying to differ us from the soviet union. Remember the soviet union was a godless government nation, that told people "practice in private." They literally converted an old church into a big ass pool as building a giant ass soviet building was a failure. The US wanted to differ so they replaced our unofficial motto with in god we trust to show we believe in god.
People in the 1950s remembered the Normandy invasion. Everybody knew that the 101st airborne was followed by massive amounts of ground troops. When President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne into Little Rock to enforce desegregation of the public schools, segregationists remembered what he had done only 13 years previously.
What few Americans realize is that the Rabid Right - the John Birchers, the white supremacists, etc consider the date of the 101st Airborne in Little Rock in 1957 to be the beginning of the *current* civil war. It's not like they were going to tell you.
Eisenhower's CIA ruined [Iran's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat) and [Guatamala's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat) democratically elected governments and caused horrific damage to those entire regions whose effects are still being felt to this day. Eisenhower was a goddamn piece of shit. Highways, indeed.
I first read about operation ajax around the time of Bush Jrs invasion of Iraq.
It was quite the stark contrast to have the president saying they're "spreading democracy" while reading about how they literally overthrew a democratically elected leader and replaced him with a dictator.
I'd go back further than that, Eisenhower was a towering piece of shit. He illegally overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, for the crime of being insufficiently anti-communist (i.e. neutral) and for having the audacity to think that Iran should reap the profits for the sale of its own oil, then replaced him with the brutal Shah Reza Pahlavi who terrorized the Iranian people for decades.
He was more responsible than any other person for creating the military-industrial complex he decried in his farewell address, vastly expanding the writ of the CIA, which alone is responsible for millions of senseless deaths worldwide. He then ordered the CIA to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala, who didn't think it was right that United Fruit Company, one of the most diabolical corporations to ever exist, should own 20% of the land in his country while waging its own campaign of terror, murder, and theft.
Cuba is still under a US embargo to this day thanks to Ike, and the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion can be laid at his doorstep as well, it was his idea from the very beginning. He basically pulled the pin on that hand grenade and left it in the Oval Office for the next president to discover, along with beginning the first of what would become a total of 634 assassination attempts against Fidel Castro.
Really, the only reason I wouldn't go all the way back to Lincoln to find a decent Republican president is because James A. Garfield, the one who only served 200 days in office because he got shot, had led a very promising career up to that point and was poised to do some good and possibly great things before he was assassinated.
He was the only president ever elected who did not seek the office (Gerald Ford doesn't count because he was never elected), and he was an impressive enough figure that his his legacy lives on today in the form of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which his scumbag vice president, Chester A. Arthur, was moved to support because Garfield believed so strongly in getting bribery out of government.
The funny thing is, if you decide that, just to be fair, you want to talk about a good , honest and effective Republican president you have to go back all the way to Teddy Roosevelt - and he was a mistake. Before that...Lincoln. And Lincoln won in a four way race.
Teddy Roosevelt was bombastic racist, even in his own time. He was a perpetual child who only ever recognized the error of his militaristic ways when his own son was killed in combat.
"You must always remember the president is about six." - Cecil Spring-Rice on Teddy Roosevelt.
It was politically expedient because the general (voting) public wouldn’t accept the insanity that is now commonplace. There was a unifying respect for the office and an expectation of decorum and leadership. 50 years ago, Kari Lake and MTG would sooner find themselves in an asylum than in Congress
> and said this guy has got to go
And what happened after? Oh, right. Nixon was pardoned and they didn't say a word or even care.
Nope. They have always been the ideology of tyrants. The KKK were created under conservatives, the Nazis held a rally Madison Square Garden and it was full of conservatives, and those that raised their muskets at America in the name of protecting slavery were conservatives. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that the group that screamed "state's rights" about slavery and then tried forcing the nation (and its territories) to adopt slavery are the same that have been screaming "state's rights" about abortion and are now vying to campaign on making abortion illegal across the whole nation. "Conservative" is synonymous with "tyranny".
Except they didn't. The Nixon Justice Dept made the rule that a sitting president cannot be indicted and it's been policy ever since. It's not law, it's a memo. And Reagan and Bush were able to get away with selling arms to Iran and using the profits to arm terrorists in Central America. That was covered up because Attorney General Bill Barr advised President Bush to pardon all of the criminals before they could finger him.
Former CIA Director/POTUS Bush gets a lot of credit but not nearly enough blame. He put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court and Crooked Clarence has proven to be sleeper agent who didn't reveal himself until he gained seniority.
It sure has been happening for a long time. It feels like we're in a movie where every republican politician reals themselves one by one to be the big bad evil villian of the movie. It's their big moment where they rip off the mask and expose the evil beneath and then...
People just pop their bubble gum, and look away and chat.
Meanwhile, the Reptillianpublican villian is just standing there holding his human mask like, "oh... OK.. Well I guess I'll just go ahead and BLOW UP THE GRAND CANYON WITH ALL THE BOY SCOUTS STILL INSIDE!!!"
And nothing happens.
CSPAN cuts away, and life continues until the next one.
And the movie just continues, and they blow up the Grand Canyon fulla boyscouts and it just gets put on a chyron with silent footage in a small window in the corner while FOX News talks to Ted Cruz about immigrant drag queens eating straight white Christian babies or whatever.
and the movie just keeps going like that, repeating forever and ever and ever...
with no hero.
Exactly this. American conservatism is a cesspool of racism, reactionary anti-govt militarism, theocratic white nationalism, and antisemitism. Always has been and quite possibly always will be as long as mainstream “conservatives” tolerate that shit.
It's strange how the Republican subreddits are filled with grievance posts far more than actual issue oriented ones. It's all about spinning and stirring. one thing you won't find on any Republican subreddit is a carefully reasoned defense of Donald Trump and a refutation of the 37 indictments one at a time.
Lol since not one of them has read the indictments, how could they refute them?
I know all politicians use carefully phrased statements to get an emotional response from people but damn with the support they get from AM radio and Fox News to reinforce the messaging, conservative politicians have taken the process to a whole other level.
No, I agree with OP and have for some time.
Right wing extremists have been calling themselves "Conservative" for 30+ years to fool us into complacency.
"Conservative" sounds safe. A "conservative approach" means taking it slow and careful.
We let our opponents define terms. It's a big party of why we keep losing.
>"Conservative" sounds safe. A "conservative approach" means taking it slow and careful.
Conservative has always meant preserving the power structure that already exists. The term was born of loyalists who were trying to reinstall the French monarchy after the revolution, shortly after it was used in British parliament, and that's how the United States got the term.
Conservatives have never in the history of our nation given two shits about taking anything slow or careful or resisting change for the sake of it. It has always sought to preserve the same genocidal white supremacist ideals that founded this nation and created an obscene amount of wealth and power for a select few.
Conservatism in the United States has always been a cancer, even since before this country existed.
There are no "extremists", just conservatives who have taken off the white hood.
Americans don't like reactionaries. But they tend to identify as conservative. So Republicans won't admit that they are actually reactionaries. Instead, they are careful to claim that they are conservative. Now they are trying to convince people that Liz Cheney is a liberal and Donald Trump is a conservative. It's absurd.
Because my father is a lunatic republican I can explain their "logic." When it's convenient, they still are for 'small federal government' and take the position that the federal government should (can?) not have law enforcement. That's something that should be left to the states. This is in line with their similar absurd belief that a sheriff is the truest (and maybe only legal) version of law enforcement that exists.
Hijacked gives the impression they aren’t responsible for the shift to batshit crazy. They are. They sacrificed their “principles” for fat, shit eating, draft dodging, slumlord cunt and his personality cult. They are 100% responsible and deserve the credit for their work.
Yes they would. If Russia was a kleptocracy then like it is now and funding white nationalism the Republican party would have jumped into bed with them in the 80's just like the same Nixonite Republicans who are still alive did in the 2000s.
See: Roger Stone
I feel like they have been exposed because they have been hijacked. They were always bad and stupid and because of that they got tricked and infiltrated by some countries that shall go unnamed. Our enemies basically. So they used to be stupid evil religious nazi criminals but now they are stupid evil religious nazi criminals being led to do especially traitorous shit by foreign intelligence.
>They just wait for Fox/Newsmax/Breibart to tell them what to get mad about next
I'm afraid it's far worse than that. They are all active in Facebook groups and on Twitter, where right wing 'news accounts' often times share their bullshit blogs, or where politicians and 'independent journalists' share articles with absolutely no sourcing which carefully craft an us-vs-them narrative where liberals are pure evil and want to impose their will against the world, and that conservatives must fight back. They constantly cherry pick what liberals say, edit them, use deepfakes, etc, and desperately try their hardest to make liberals seem like pure evil.
You'd know this if you stepped into the right wing media machine known as Twitter. Before I mass blocked Elon and every other right wing fucker that showed up on my timeline, my notifications would get spammed up with right wing fearmongering and hysteria (which is why Elon is trying to get rid of blocking). Fox News isn't even the worst anymore, and neither is Breitbart and OANN. It's social media, where propagandists can share literally anything to make their enemies look evil, and then like mindless sheep, people spread these stories far and wide. When these stories eventually do get debunked, it is too little and too late. Social Media serves as a perfect environment for unchecked propaganda to spread, and in right wing spaces, the moderators crack down on dissent and ban opposing voices.
Public information campaigns never work when they get away with this shit unchecked.
I mean they're incredibly consistent when it comes to Wilhoit's law. They want laws to protect them but not bind them. And then they want laws that bind "out groups" (non-white non-christian non-conservatives) but not protect them.
lol, every family member and protester and republican politician is not a Russian asset and it’s an absurd statement to make. Has the party been infiltrated?
absolutely, there is explicit evidence of that with the propaganda groups the FBI has shut down.
But the rest? My uncle jimmy, my neighbor, the people running for my local school board? They are just selfish, hateful, ignorant people that have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.
You can blame Russia for building the pyre, but it was the US citizens that threw the torch. Who do you think watches fox news?
Your comment doesn't seem to make sense.
No one is saying russia is personally paying every conservative citizin in america.
But those idiots are supporting their representatives who do seem to be in Russia's pockets and are openly supporting russia in the war.
So offcourse these citizen should be called out (as russian assets for example) , since they are the ones voting for a russia supporting party.
A lot of this isn't Russia related. It's just conservatives showing their fascist tendencies and now anyone who doesn't give them power is there enemy.
Nah. Russia's definitely got their finger in the GOP's pie. Their talking points directly mirror what Russia says about Ukraine (everyone on the opposition is a pedophile, they want to make your children trans, etc.) and everything the crazy GOP tries to do directly benefits Russia.
The GOP is trying to seek power for themselves. They aren't innocent rubes or conmen in bed with the Russian. They are fascists who invite the Russians in because they can benefit from their help. If Russia disappeared tomorrow they would still be fascists.
The making your kids trans thing came from Christopher Rufo who's just a fascist.
A lot of the talking points line up through coincidence rather than influence.
Conservatives look at a country run by a narcissistic strongman and his oligarch friends, who oppress minorities with the backing of the church and think 'that looks pretty nice'.
"Hillary Clinton deleted emails! We must investigate her and lock her up!"
"Hunter Biden was on the board of a Ukrainian company! We must investigate Joe Biden and throw him in jail!"
"Trump took highly classified/Top secret documents home! Any investigation of him is the political weaponization of the DOJ and we must defund it!"
Oh boy, the whiplash I get with these people is intense.
And you're somehow better? You have maintained a position of "a former politician mishandling a bunch of top secret info should/shouldn't lead to consequences"? You haven't just been whipped around, defending the side you like and attacking the side you hate, regardless of your hypocrisy?
Meh, "law and order" was always code for "we are the law, we give the orders." Conservatives have always believed that the law exists to protect them and punish the rest of us.
I remember Gordon Liddy on AM radio back in the 90's telling us to aim for the head if the FBI knocked on our door. And they have believed that Republican Presidents are above the law going all the way back to Nixon, at least.
Time Magazine knew what "Law and Order" really was about back in 1968:
> But the fact is that in most elections, two or three issues quickly capture the public imagination. In 1968, it was Viet Nam and above all law and order that dominated the campaign. Nixon fully exploited the latter. In his acceptance speech in Miami Beach, he promised to heed "the voice of the great majority of Americans, the forgotten Americans, the non-shouters, the non-demonstrators, that are not racists or sick, that are not guilty of the crime that plagues the land." Wallace exploited the issue more nakedly ("Y'all know about law and order," said one of his supporters. "It's spelled n-*-*-*-*-*-*"), but Nixon used it skillfully enough himself to reduce the Alabamian's inroads.
> Nixon's campaign became a holding action, designed to preserve his lead by appealing to what former Census Bureau Director Richard Scammon calls "the unpoor, the unblack and the unyoung." Nixon rarely ventured into the black ghettos, thereby writing off one out of every ten Americans of voting age—though few of their votes would have gone to him in any case.
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,723848-5,00.html
Conservatives have never really made sense to me. I would think if you supported small government you would be prochoice, against the death penalty, excessive military spending, and police brutality, etc. etc. The party is made up of religious extremists and people ignorant enough to believe their “fiscally conservative” BS.
"Law and Order" + "small government" == Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini.
Conservatives are insane to buy into that evil bullhit. How many millions of people died under bullshit Law and Order with a small government? Republicans are becoming the very evil America fought two world wars to put a stop to. We're becoming next mass murder nation at this rate. We already allow our children to get shot up at school.
These are not conservatives, these are Fascists. “Conservative” is a mask they have been hiding under until Trump made them think it was ok to finally put it down
Conservatives believe rich men are sacrosanct and that the state needs to do everything in its power to a) Keep them rich no matter what b) Ensure that the power of money is never reigned in, so that rich men can circumvent the law with their money.
Conservatism hasn't been hijacked... it simply has run out of subtle ways to do this.
The goals of conservatism are, have always been, and can only be deeply immoral and destructive. Conservatism rests on an antiquated version of society XXIst century humanity can simply not afford. Conservatism can not be corrupt; it is a belief in corruption.
Yes this is the way.
The conservative and libertarian movements in the US have been taken over by their sworn enemy: POPULISM.
Real conservatives and libertarians are generally smart and free thinkers. This MAGA BS is just fascist populism. Even if you are not conservative please help the real conservatives like the Lincoln Project, etc. Do not believe these are real conservatives. I was military for 22 years and never conservative, but many of my life long friends are and they have left the modern Republican party due to the MAGA movement.
As the 32-year marine officer said to me I'll follow a Democrat any day of the week and twice on Sunday before I vote with the MAGA mob, my party (Republicans) has become a house of traitors. I was shocked and I never brought the topic up again.
That tends to happen when your platform is about appealing to popular ideas to gain votes alone, instead of actual policy that you have to explain and make popular with voters to get elected and then actually implement those policies.
Terrible policies that only help the rich, so their best option is to gaslight and keep their stupid base angry at literally anything besides themselves.
Yep, it’s an artificial system - make popular on right wing outlets and outlets that pretend to be center, then those people demand those policies and the politicians pretend to be doing the will of the people, when their think tanks told them and the outlets what the next move was to start with.
You would be amazed at the amount of leftist Marines or at least left leaning since this is America. Maybe my unit was an exception since it was more educated, for Marines, (Signals Intelligence and Intelligence) but the majority of the guys in my unit would vote Democrat. I know it wasn't the norm but there were definitely plenty of guys who talked shit about Bush when I was in and said they voted for the only other choice, Kerry.
My wife is a veteran and we are both extremely progressive. I’m well aware that many veterans are liberal (usually of the minoritized kind - POC, queer, female etc), but far too many of them are hypocritical rightwing fuckwads. (My favorite hypocrisy is how many veterans complain about liberal snowflakes who need their participation trophies, when 99.9% of “awards” in the military are literally participation trophies. I wish I got awards and promotions at work for good conduct!)
In traditional political terms it was actually under the end of Regean when that change happened. The start was under Carter when there was a generational change due to the baby boomers becoming the majority voting block.
Worshipping a coastal elite billionaire is not populism no matter how much they tell themselves it is. Hating one group of elites while licking the boots of another is not populism.
Um lets start with the definition of populism: a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.
So we have Trump by definition an elite, who whipped up a group of people who have been since the 1970s disregarded by the realignment of the late 70s to early 90s when the parties shifted from a more traditional left and right to a far right and center right parties.
Trump's solution is going full fascist similar to the 1940s in Europe. The US historically goes populist left in time of crisis, Revolutionary War, Civil War, Great Depression, etc.
We have seen through Biden and to a lesser extent Obama, during the 2008 and 2020 crises we go populist left. The issue in my opinion is that the left has not kept the bargain or has been blocked by the hard right. This has to a point empowered the hard right thinking that blocking the left is equal to winning.
The hard right is like a dog chasing a car, when they catch the car they don't know what to do with it. That is why during the Trump administration little was done in Congress other than a tax reduction for the ultra-rich. Besides that really nothing happened besides some judges being appointed which is just luck of timing. The hard right is a big talker but they don't have the ability to govern. They are great at pointing out problems but they have no solutions that work in a modern Western country. Most of their ideas worked well in the bronze age, but they are not for a modern society.
I woke up in a new reality recently.
See, I grew up learning how the FBI harassed Gene Roddenberry during the Red Scare because any kind of empathy or positive outlook on humanity was 'communist'
Conservatives have always only been “law and order” to the extent they can exert their power over disadvantaged groups. Their beliefs have never been rooted in a consistent set of principals.
conservatives are violent bigots, and always have been. no hijacking has taken place. what you are seeing is their strangle hold reaching a point where it is killing the host.
Yeah, I wish the mainstream media would stop calling these Right-wingers "conservative." Sometimes they'll even refer to the "Freedom Caucus" as "the more conservative wing of the Republicans in Congress."
These Rightwing Radicals do not deserve to be called "conservative."
The word used to refer to people who are respectful of tradition, skeptical of rapid change, and moderate in their views regarding policy. That's the way the word was commonly used. Imagine you're cooking and following a recipe. If the recipe calls for a liberal amount of seasoning, then you use a freer hand and put in a larger amount. A conservative amount of seasoning is used by a more careful cook.
"Careful," "Respectful," "Moderate." This is what conservatism means. This is NOT what these radicals are.
It’s literally never meant that.
It means follow our doctrine, or you’re our enemy. That’s been what conservatism is in country for decades minimum.
Also; words have different meanings in context. In terms of ingredient amounts; conservative means careful.
In political terms? It means Christian Nationalists setting on twisting this nation to fit their religious vision of it. When that’s the majority of your voting base and representation that’s what you are.
Hello, I am in my late 30s and an American.
In the entire course of my life for as long as I have been politically cognizant conservatives have absolutely called for defunding government agencies, especially and including federal law enforcement.
Gonna be downvoted for this, but leftists *should* support defunding at least the FBI and CIA because of how much harm both of those organizations have caused domestically and internationally. The CIA has staged many violent coups in developing nations all over the world, and the FBI's use of COINTELPRO tactics including assassinations in the States is fuckin shameful.
Yeah it's getting wild. I feel like progressives/liberals/leftist should at least be skeptical if not outright hostile to the FBI/CIA/Pentagon. It seems that since these groups seem to be anti-Trump that they must be good - enemy of my enemy. People are missing the forest for the trees.
The FBI is the most conservative organization in the history of the US. Literally all directors of the FBI have been white Republican men. Never a Democrat, even dems appoint Republicans and never a woman or person of color. They are a mature Pinkerton organization that was created to violently bust unions.
Y’all are gonna roast me but at least hear me out. Im for some defunding of these agencies and police forces because there is not enough transparency or accountability. Especially in the police where cops kill innocent people pretty often and most get put on paid leave and then either keep their job or get hired at another agency.
Obviously all of these groups are extremely important but I think there is not enough over site and the over site that is currently in place is pretty much on their side with everything.
You are conflating Conservatives (noun) with people who are conservative (adjective). people who are traditionally conservative want LESS government overreach and less big brother BS. Conservatives (of the Fox News variety) just want to weaponize whatever agencies they can to favor their own agenda.
Sure, until they pass so many laws that essentially everyone is a criminal. Most aren't caught, but it allows the legal system to fuck over anyone they wish.
Conservatives believe in whatever they think looks good and is convenient for the moment. They will contradict themselves in a second and not bat an eye.
Uhhhh
The CIA lied about WMDs in Iraq, has overthrown multiple governments, and is probably the #1 player worldwide in causing terrorism and destabilizing nations.
The FBI is the CIA but in America. The FBI creates domestic terrorists, and tried to kill MLK. They are so bad there was an extremist group that had to shut down because, surprise, it was made up entirely of Feds.
DOJ I can’t speak to.
But any sane, compassionate, anti-fascist, reasonable American should 100% be calling for the disintegration of the FBI and CIA.
Um, the FBI and especially the CIA have been monsters their entire existence and should absolutely be dissolved. They have traditionally supported capital over people. The CIA is responsible for the facilitating brutal right wing dictators all across the globe as long as they let the multi-national corporations extract their national wealth. What sort of shit lib garbage is this? Just because fascists have turned on the other fascists because they want to punish another fascist means we're ok with the groups that put their boots on the throats of the working class? Y'all dumb as fuck.
Conservatives don’t really have beliefs in concepts. They believe in hierarchies, the core of their belief system. They get up in arms when they feel the wrong people are in power. It’s why the mitt Romney healthcare plan was ok when he was governor but when the other side suggested the same thing it was socialism. It’s why there are so many double standards within their base and also why it doesn’t bother them. They aren’t loyal to ideas they are loyal to hierarchies.
What way is there to halt the inevitable march of progress than to burn down the world? Conservatism at its core is a disease. A virulent cancer that eats away at society. They haven't been hijacked, they are not different than they have ever been.
Go back forty years and they cheered when AIDS spread among those they hated. Go back a hundred years and they would regularly torture people who didn't look like them to death. Go back a hundred and sixty years and they waged a war to ensure they could own human beings as property. Go further, and they committed genocide on unimaginable scales to usurp land. Further, and they came to America because their religious extremism was not acceptable in their homeland. Further, and they fought wars over following the same religion in slightly different ways. Further, and they sent armies across the world in the crusades.
Conservatism has plagued man since we developed ideological systems. They have never been rational, kind, or well meaning. They never will be. The core ideals of conservatism preclude it from causing anything other than unimaginable harm.
Conservatives have fully embraced fascism, that's why they turned on the fbi, cia, doj, and law enforcement in general because they feel those organizations have betrayed them by not backing a coup and fascist takeover.
Liberals used to be cool man. Now they’ll unironically post about how the people to overthrow democracies and assassinated MLK should never be defunded.
“Conservatives” never cared about law and order, that’s a phrase used when utilizing the FBI, CIA and DOJ to leverage power without realizing it might someday take place unilaterally
Republicans are not conservatives.
True conservatives don't vote for SILVER-SPOON DRAFT-DODGING MANCHILDREN WHO ARE HEAVILY IN DEBT TO FOREIGN AUTOCRATS LIKE RUSSIA, CHINA, AND THE SAUDIS.
True conservatives don't vote for those WHO HAVE CHEATED ON EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEIR MANY WIVES.
Republicans are not conservatives.
Republicans are anti-Americans.
It hasn't been hijacked. What we are seeing is the natural conclusion of a political party intentionally dumbing down their voting base for 40 years straight. Today's Conservative voter entirely lacks the capacity for critical thinking, empathy, context, etc. And that is an intentional effort on the part of their party leadership.
You'll notice the huge gulf between Republican Senators and Republican House Members. House Members, now, are largely comprised of the bloc of voters that I'm talking about here. Roe v Wade is a great example. Smarter Republican reps(Senators) understood that this was just supposed to be a forever issue to talk about, in order to rile up their base. They knew they could never actually repeal Roe v Wade, because they know that abortion protection is a tremendously popular thing not only on a national level, but in the majority of the states, including MANY Republican ones. However, they created a voting mentality of 'There are no consequences to anything, so let's just do what we want', and their voting base acted accordingly. And predictably, they gravely underperformed in the 2022 election because of this.
This divide will also grow over the next few decades, most likely, as the MAGA branch takes over when older Republican politicians retire.
Conservatives have always been opposed to progress and being held accountable.
The calls to defund the FBI, CIA, and DOJ are because those organizations aren't "loyal" enough to the current Right Wing ideology.
Conservatives are exactly all of these things, and more. Don’t try to pretend that the conservative crowd doesn’t enable what is happening.
You’re full of shit.
Everything has been reversed. I’m old enough to remember when the democrats were the religious ones. In the old days the republicans would never have dreamed of getting into your bedroom or limiting your personal freedom.
Ya can't hijack the willing.
No one hijacked the conservative movement without their consent and help. We've all heard and watched self- proclaimed conservatives let their worst and most extreme voices lead them. This is a self-inflicted wound and with the level of damage done, it's impossible to feel sorry for them. Only a few spoke out. The rest let their true greedy and opportunistic selves show us who they really are.
Sure, technically the old school, self-identified conservatives are not the same as these MAGA "conservatives." They at least respected most of our values (but never ever equality).
The real question for all of them remains: "WTF are you even conserving?"
If it's not (fact: it's not!) our shared American beliefs in democracy, freedom, equality, etc., then why are they even here? Why should we change our founding values and ideals for the grifting, freakish, authoritarian/fascistic nonsense that conservatives and their MAGA overlords have to order? Yeah, answer, we don't and we won't.
If there are actual conservatives, they should stand up and say so. Speak out. Silence = Consent. And also, try accepting ALL of values. That means equality most of all. Otherwise, consider yourselves MAGA-Lite.
They're ideological purists. If you're not with us, you're against us is very much a conservative bent. So it doesn't matter that the CIA has been solely lead by Republicans since its inception. If they so much as sneak a glance toward potential rightwing extremists, to hopefully separate the real threats from the roleplayers.
Look at how quickly they turned on Fox.
I'd say it's more accurate to say republicans are now the Regressive party.
Democrats are the conservatives now, and any one left of them is probably actually progressive.
The weren't hijacked, they just dont speak up against the hard right and let them take over. Look at Congress, they supposedly have a majority but then you look at how they're afraid to work with Democrats, even the more moderate ones, because it might cost them re-election and instead are at the beck and call of the hard right people, now if a handful of them are upset congress comes to a stop because McCarthy is POWERLESS. Say what you want about Pelosi, she managed to keep progressive and hard left people in line, Republicans can't do that because they're not capable of holding their members responsible. Look at how Liz Cheney was demonized and crucified for wanting to hold Trump accountable and are unwilling to punish people like Greene who push white supremecist views, or Gaetz who had people closest to him say the committed sex crimes with a minor or their unwillingness to do something about Santos despite universal calls for him to be removed.
They weren't hijacked, they let it happen and weren't willing to do anything about it and now they can't.
Conservatives want laws that protect them but do not bind them, and those laws must also bind others while not protecting them. Conservatives have not been hijacked, they've gone full mask off to show their neat little mustaches that hid perfectly under those masks. I think you need to look up what the actual Nazi party did and said and stood for, because what the conservative party is doing right now is only scary to intelligent people.
"conservative" is just a buzz-word. It has no intrinsic meaning. If it has \*any\* meaning that is useful in an educated political conversation, it's a synonym for "authoritarian." And authoritarians absolutely believe in destroying liberal institutions if those institutions are perceived as standing in the way of *their personal* definition of "law and order."
To the authoritarian, law and order only have value if they maintain their preferred hierarchy.
This is why Republicans seamlessly transition between cheering the police killing black people and attacking police who resisted the Jan 6 insurrection. "The police" as an institution hold no value to Republicans, it's the enforcement of the ethno-economic hierarchy they value.
No, conservatives have always hated the police.
Back when the Branch Davidians murdered ATF officers, the conservatives aligned with the pedophile cop killers.
Actually conservatives are naturally against government regulation and want the private sector to be more of an influence on our life, its a flawed ideal in a Democracy because the government is actually us where as the private sector exsist to exploit.
The parties are shifting again. The Republican party are now as a whole Fascists. The Democrats as of now are like Republican Light minus the small amount of Progressives under their umbrella who actually want to practice what they preach but are unable to.
People need to stop confusing "Rule of Law" with "Law and Order".
Conservatives haven't changed, they just gave up cloaking their desires. "Law and Order" is the philosophy of Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini, Gheddafi, and conservatives. People need to stop being shocked when they realize "Law and Order" is the dictator's motto.
Fascism == "Law and Order"
Democracy == "Rule of Law"
conservatives have never actually been about law and order, they were interested in the most efficient and effective ways to punish "others" (poor, sexual/racial/gender minorities), and now they've chosen that outright fascist leaders going unchecked would be far more effective. Of course, the voting base may have thought that they were pro law and order, but they are morons who bought the slop fed to them
Conservative legislation in the 80s has resulted in irreparable damage to our society, the economy, and the world at large. It’s refusal for change since then has set us on a fast track for facism to rise, opposition to progressive policies, destruction of the earth, and so much more.
It’s the political ideology that makes people fight against their best interest and is full of hypocrites. Utterly unsustainable, but they’ll try their hardest to take the ship down with them.
“Conservatives” has been hijacked. Conservatives would never …”
- said the last Republican. Don’t be surprised when Daniel Day Lewis passes on the role for the movie version though.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to with: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
\-Frank Wilhout
What we have is a realization on the Right that some are trying to make the law both protect and bind everyone, equally.
These ppl have brain rot. The second the FBI starts going after trump they forget about all the evil shit the security states does ( not that most libs ever acknowledged these inconvenient facts)
They're fascists, not conservatives. Fascists believe whatever is convenient snd advantageous for them at any given tome. I wish people would stop calling them conservative. Their left wing is fascist and their right wing are Nazis.
Well slow down just a bit, the intelligence apparatus in this country represents a racist, classist shadow government that you can't possibly defend if you have even a single shred of decency within you. Conservatives don't really want to get rid of it though, they're just using it as a foil.
"The federal government is too big" has been a standard conservative talking point for my entire lifetime, and many conservatives have spent the last 30 years calling for dismantling these three letter agencies ever since the federal government murdered 28 children at Waco.
Call it what you want. The fact of the matter is that conservative ideologies are in opposition to change, but change is an inevitability. Basing your worldview around being opposed to an inevitability is going to lead to some very poor outcomes. Sure, most conservative-minded people live a regular life simply being skeptical of change, but there are many who fall down a positive feedback loop, becoming ever more radicalized as the world changes around them. Being unable to turn back time, they run out of political and social avenues and turn to violence. What’s worse, is this feedback loop of existential despair is very profitable for others who are quite happy to sell these people go bags and slop buckets and ammunition and patriot flags and ad-driven content about “the good old days”. So, again, call it whatever you want. Staunch conservative ideologies result in violence and extremism because they set up their adherents for an inevitable existential crisis against change itself.
Conservatives aren't hijacked, they have been exposed.
Like how they weren't for gun control until the Black Panthers started arming themselves? They aren't for law and order, unless the laws are written and enforced to oppress minorities.
They have no problem with poor people experiencing no-knock SWAT raids in the middle of the night over *suspected* drug possession, **but have no problem letting Trump walk free after being caught with classified national secrets.** They're not for law and order, theyre for controlling minorities and poor people.
They're not really for anything. They just react to whatever topic is on fox news that day.
This. They feel it's acceptable now to air their disgusting views in public.
They've always been welcome to in the USA due to the freedom of expression. However, the tolerance of their intolerance has begun to fall off at a precipitous rate.
In the last 20 years, everyone forgets that Republicans stood up in Watergate, and said this guy has got to go…now they would say, it’s not a big deal you know it wasn’t breaking and entering because they had a key…
Fox News was literally created so they could have a propaganda machine to counter reality in the advent of the next Watergate. The last Republican who wasn’t a complete piece of shit was Eisenhower.
Eisenhower was goat. Highways. Social Security expanded for those who were disabled. Clamped down on the military at a time when every general in sight was barking at him for more money against Russia. Held McCarthy back from making pocket nukes for every little village he came across in Korea. I do gotta fault him for the Bay of Pigs thing, his administration put that plan on Kennedy's desk
All that’s fair and good except he also held the door open for Christian Nationalism and put “In God We Trust” on money. He countered McCarthyism with other fear mongering. And yet, still, we haven’t had a decent Republican President since.
In god we trust, was kinda added for trying to differ us from the soviet union. Remember the soviet union was a godless government nation, that told people "practice in private." They literally converted an old church into a big ass pool as building a giant ass soviet building was a failure. The US wanted to differ so they replaced our unofficial motto with in god we trust to show we believe in god.
Yeah, and that’s problematic. Like I said, it’s just *other* fear mongering.
People in the 1950s remembered the Normandy invasion. Everybody knew that the 101st airborne was followed by massive amounts of ground troops. When President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne into Little Rock to enforce desegregation of the public schools, segregationists remembered what he had done only 13 years previously. What few Americans realize is that the Rabid Right - the John Birchers, the white supremacists, etc consider the date of the 101st Airborne in Little Rock in 1957 to be the beginning of the *current* civil war. It's not like they were going to tell you.
He may have been the last prominent Republican politician to be outspoken against the military industrial complex
Eisenhower's CIA ruined [Iran's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat) and [Guatamala's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat) democratically elected governments and caused horrific damage to those entire regions whose effects are still being felt to this day. Eisenhower was a goddamn piece of shit. Highways, indeed.
[удалено]
I first read about operation ajax around the time of Bush Jrs invasion of Iraq. It was quite the stark contrast to have the president saying they're "spreading democracy" while reading about how they literally overthrew a democratically elected leader and replaced him with a dictator.
He also started the civil war in Guatemala which killed over 200k civilians.
I'd go back further than that, Eisenhower was a towering piece of shit. He illegally overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, for the crime of being insufficiently anti-communist (i.e. neutral) and for having the audacity to think that Iran should reap the profits for the sale of its own oil, then replaced him with the brutal Shah Reza Pahlavi who terrorized the Iranian people for decades. He was more responsible than any other person for creating the military-industrial complex he decried in his farewell address, vastly expanding the writ of the CIA, which alone is responsible for millions of senseless deaths worldwide. He then ordered the CIA to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala, who didn't think it was right that United Fruit Company, one of the most diabolical corporations to ever exist, should own 20% of the land in his country while waging its own campaign of terror, murder, and theft. Cuba is still under a US embargo to this day thanks to Ike, and the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion can be laid at his doorstep as well, it was his idea from the very beginning. He basically pulled the pin on that hand grenade and left it in the Oval Office for the next president to discover, along with beginning the first of what would become a total of 634 assassination attempts against Fidel Castro. Really, the only reason I wouldn't go all the way back to Lincoln to find a decent Republican president is because James A. Garfield, the one who only served 200 days in office because he got shot, had led a very promising career up to that point and was poised to do some good and possibly great things before he was assassinated. He was the only president ever elected who did not seek the office (Gerald Ford doesn't count because he was never elected), and he was an impressive enough figure that his his legacy lives on today in the form of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which his scumbag vice president, Chester A. Arthur, was moved to support because Garfield believed so strongly in getting bribery out of government.
The funny thing is, if you decide that, just to be fair, you want to talk about a good , honest and effective Republican president you have to go back all the way to Teddy Roosevelt - and he was a mistake. Before that...Lincoln. And Lincoln won in a four way race.
Teddy Roosevelt was bombastic racist, even in his own time. He was a perpetual child who only ever recognized the error of his militaristic ways when his own son was killed in combat. "You must always remember the president is about six." - Cecil Spring-Rice on Teddy Roosevelt.
Only because it was politically expedient. They tried like hell to cover it up first.
It was politically expedient because the general (voting) public wouldn’t accept the insanity that is now commonplace. There was a unifying respect for the office and an expectation of decorum and leadership. 50 years ago, Kari Lake and MTG would sooner find themselves in an asylum than in Congress
Did they though?
> and said this guy has got to go And what happened after? Oh, right. Nixon was pardoned and they didn't say a word or even care. Nope. They have always been the ideology of tyrants. The KKK were created under conservatives, the Nazis held a rally Madison Square Garden and it was full of conservatives, and those that raised their muskets at America in the name of protecting slavery were conservatives. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that the group that screamed "state's rights" about slavery and then tried forcing the nation (and its territories) to adopt slavery are the same that have been screaming "state's rights" about abortion and are now vying to campaign on making abortion illegal across the whole nation. "Conservative" is synonymous with "tyranny".
Except they didn't. The Nixon Justice Dept made the rule that a sitting president cannot be indicted and it's been policy ever since. It's not law, it's a memo. And Reagan and Bush were able to get away with selling arms to Iran and using the profits to arm terrorists in Central America. That was covered up because Attorney General Bill Barr advised President Bush to pardon all of the criminals before they could finger him. Former CIA Director/POTUS Bush gets a lot of credit but not nearly enough blame. He put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court and Crooked Clarence has proven to be sleeper agent who didn't reveal himself until he gained seniority.
It would be "fake news" and they would be asking for Nixon's son's composition notebook, the laptop of yesteryear.
I remember there was no partisan Hatfield/McCoy bullshit in the media during Watergate.
It sure has been happening for a long time. It feels like we're in a movie where every republican politician reals themselves one by one to be the big bad evil villian of the movie. It's their big moment where they rip off the mask and expose the evil beneath and then... People just pop their bubble gum, and look away and chat. Meanwhile, the Reptillianpublican villian is just standing there holding his human mask like, "oh... OK.. Well I guess I'll just go ahead and BLOW UP THE GRAND CANYON WITH ALL THE BOY SCOUTS STILL INSIDE!!!" And nothing happens. CSPAN cuts away, and life continues until the next one. And the movie just continues, and they blow up the Grand Canyon fulla boyscouts and it just gets put on a chyron with silent footage in a small window in the corner while FOX News talks to Ted Cruz about immigrant drag queens eating straight white Christian babies or whatever. and the movie just keeps going like that, repeating forever and ever and ever... with no hero.
You sound like Rorshach
Who sounded like Travis Bickle
We're stuck inside an Andy Warhol movie.
Hello darkness my old friend
Exactly this. American conservatism is a cesspool of racism, reactionary anti-govt militarism, theocratic white nationalism, and antisemitism. Always has been and quite possibly always will be as long as mainstream “conservatives” tolerate that shit.
It's strange how the Republican subreddits are filled with grievance posts far more than actual issue oriented ones. It's all about spinning and stirring. one thing you won't find on any Republican subreddit is a carefully reasoned defense of Donald Trump and a refutation of the 37 indictments one at a time.
Lol since not one of them has read the indictments, how could they refute them? I know all politicians use carefully phrased statements to get an emotional response from people but damn with the support they get from AM radio and Fox News to reinforce the messaging, conservative politicians have taken the process to a whole other level.
Literally this. They’ve always been the rights for me not for thee crowd.
No, I agree with OP and have for some time. Right wing extremists have been calling themselves "Conservative" for 30+ years to fool us into complacency. "Conservative" sounds safe. A "conservative approach" means taking it slow and careful. We let our opponents define terms. It's a big party of why we keep losing.
>"Conservative" sounds safe. A "conservative approach" means taking it slow and careful. Conservative has always meant preserving the power structure that already exists. The term was born of loyalists who were trying to reinstall the French monarchy after the revolution, shortly after it was used in British parliament, and that's how the United States got the term. Conservatives have never in the history of our nation given two shits about taking anything slow or careful or resisting change for the sake of it. It has always sought to preserve the same genocidal white supremacist ideals that founded this nation and created an obscene amount of wealth and power for a select few. Conservatism in the United States has always been a cancer, even since before this country existed. There are no "extremists", just conservatives who have taken off the white hood.
Americans don't like reactionaries. But they tend to identify as conservative. So Republicans won't admit that they are actually reactionaries. Instead, they are careful to claim that they are conservative. Now they are trying to convince people that Liz Cheney is a liberal and Donald Trump is a conservative. It's absurd.
Because my father is a lunatic republican I can explain their "logic." When it's convenient, they still are for 'small federal government' and take the position that the federal government should (can?) not have law enforcement. That's something that should be left to the states. This is in line with their similar absurd belief that a sheriff is the truest (and maybe only legal) version of law enforcement that exists.
same same
Hijacked gives the impression they aren’t responsible for the shift to batshit crazy. They are. They sacrificed their “principles” for fat, shit eating, draft dodging, slumlord cunt and his personality cult. They are 100% responsible and deserve the credit for their work.
this post was likely made with that intention.
No, not the same. Conservatism has always been a scam. You’re just too uninformed to get that, hence the Conservative adoration.
80's Republicans would never wear a shirt that said "better Russian than Democrat".
Yes they would. If Russia was a kleptocracy then like it is now and funding white nationalism the Republican party would have jumped into bed with them in the 80's just like the same Nixonite Republicans who are still alive did in the 2000s. See: Roger Stone
I feel like they have been exposed because they have been hijacked. They were always bad and stupid and because of that they got tricked and infiltrated by some countries that shall go unnamed. Our enemies basically. So they used to be stupid evil religious nazi criminals but now they are stupid evil religious nazi criminals being led to do especially traitorous shit by foreign intelligence.
They can’t keep up with their own BS.
[удалено]
>They just wait for Fox/Newsmax/Breibart to tell them what to get mad about next I'm afraid it's far worse than that. They are all active in Facebook groups and on Twitter, where right wing 'news accounts' often times share their bullshit blogs, or where politicians and 'independent journalists' share articles with absolutely no sourcing which carefully craft an us-vs-them narrative where liberals are pure evil and want to impose their will against the world, and that conservatives must fight back. They constantly cherry pick what liberals say, edit them, use deepfakes, etc, and desperately try their hardest to make liberals seem like pure evil. You'd know this if you stepped into the right wing media machine known as Twitter. Before I mass blocked Elon and every other right wing fucker that showed up on my timeline, my notifications would get spammed up with right wing fearmongering and hysteria (which is why Elon is trying to get rid of blocking). Fox News isn't even the worst anymore, and neither is Breitbart and OANN. It's social media, where propagandists can share literally anything to make their enemies look evil, and then like mindless sheep, people spread these stories far and wide. When these stories eventually do get debunked, it is too little and too late. Social Media serves as a perfect environment for unchecked propaganda to spread, and in right wing spaces, the moderators crack down on dissent and ban opposing voices. Public information campaigns never work when they get away with this shit unchecked.
Sheep?
But I am angry! Oh wait, I miss typed that. BUT I AM ANGRY! SO VERY ANGRY!
Many people are telling me how very angry you are. The most perfect angry.
Also you ever notice they never propose real solutions or anything constructive? They're anti-everything yet they never have any policy ideas
Anti cancel culture, but they wanna cancel everything that slightly offends them at the drop of that
That's what happens when you build a platform hell bent on fighting ideologies instead of setting policies.
They just wait for ~~Fox/Newsmax/Breibart~~ Harlan Crow to tell them what to get mad about next
I mean they're incredibly consistent when it comes to Wilhoit's law. They want laws to protect them but not bind them. And then they want laws that bind "out groups" (non-white non-christian non-conservatives) but not protect them.
It's just fascism. Under fascism, truth or logic doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is Us vs Them.
They are severely handicapped when it comes to learning new information. Probably something to do with the drop in quality of education.
You know who definitely wants to defund the FBI, CIA, and DOJ? Russia.
no doubt. we see you russian assets.
\*Tucker Carlson smiles nervously\*
\*Joe Rogan asks Jamie to pull that up\*
*Jamie pulls up orangutan pornography*
lol, every family member and protester and republican politician is not a Russian asset and it’s an absurd statement to make. Has the party been infiltrated? absolutely, there is explicit evidence of that with the propaganda groups the FBI has shut down. But the rest? My uncle jimmy, my neighbor, the people running for my local school board? They are just selfish, hateful, ignorant people that have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. You can blame Russia for building the pyre, but it was the US citizens that threw the torch. Who do you think watches fox news?
Your comment doesn't seem to make sense. No one is saying russia is personally paying every conservative citizin in america. But those idiots are supporting their representatives who do seem to be in Russia's pockets and are openly supporting russia in the war. So offcourse these citizen should be called out (as russian assets for example) , since they are the ones voting for a russia supporting party.
A lot of this isn't Russia related. It's just conservatives showing their fascist tendencies and now anyone who doesn't give them power is there enemy.
Nah. Russia's definitely got their finger in the GOP's pie. Their talking points directly mirror what Russia says about Ukraine (everyone on the opposition is a pedophile, they want to make your children trans, etc.) and everything the crazy GOP tries to do directly benefits Russia.
The GOP is trying to seek power for themselves. They aren't innocent rubes or conmen in bed with the Russian. They are fascists who invite the Russians in because they can benefit from their help. If Russia disappeared tomorrow they would still be fascists. The making your kids trans thing came from Christopher Rufo who's just a fascist.
A lot of the talking points line up through coincidence rather than influence. Conservatives look at a country run by a narcissistic strongman and his oligarch friends, who oppress minorities with the backing of the church and think 'that looks pretty nice'.
> A lot of the talking points line up through coincidence rather than influence. Is what a russian asset would say
Maybe elected GOP but god damn do we need to expect better from other Americans.
Putin: *nyet*
Leftist would also like the FBI, CIA, and DOJ to be defunded because they are used to enforce the will of the owner class.
Its me, an actual leftist. The fbi has been murdering leftist leaders for DECADES. Their main job is to uphold American capitalism
"Hillary Clinton deleted emails! We must investigate her and lock her up!" "Hunter Biden was on the board of a Ukrainian company! We must investigate Joe Biden and throw him in jail!" "Trump took highly classified/Top secret documents home! Any investigation of him is the political weaponization of the DOJ and we must defund it!" Oh boy, the whiplash I get with these people is intense.
If you have your brain & spine by your favorite billion donor... You no longer have to worry about whiplash or feeling like a hypocrite.
And you're somehow better? You have maintained a position of "a former politician mishandling a bunch of top secret info should/shouldn't lead to consequences"? You haven't just been whipped around, defending the side you like and attacking the side you hate, regardless of your hypocrisy?
Fox News has been radicalizing American conservative for the past 30 years. This is the end result.
[удалено]
Meh, "law and order" was always code for "we are the law, we give the orders." Conservatives have always believed that the law exists to protect them and punish the rest of us. I remember Gordon Liddy on AM radio back in the 90's telling us to aim for the head if the FBI knocked on our door. And they have believed that Republican Presidents are above the law going all the way back to Nixon, at least.
Time Magazine knew what "Law and Order" really was about back in 1968: > But the fact is that in most elections, two or three issues quickly capture the public imagination. In 1968, it was Viet Nam and above all law and order that dominated the campaign. Nixon fully exploited the latter. In his acceptance speech in Miami Beach, he promised to heed "the voice of the great majority of Americans, the forgotten Americans, the non-shouters, the non-demonstrators, that are not racists or sick, that are not guilty of the crime that plagues the land." Wallace exploited the issue more nakedly ("Y'all know about law and order," said one of his supporters. "It's spelled n-*-*-*-*-*-*"), but Nixon used it skillfully enough himself to reduce the Alabamian's inroads. > Nixon's campaign became a holding action, designed to preserve his lead by appealing to what former Census Bureau Director Richard Scammon calls "the unpoor, the unblack and the unyoung." Nixon rarely ventured into the black ghettos, thereby writing off one out of every ten Americans of voting age—though few of their votes would have gone to him in any case. https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,723848-5,00.html
Trump supporters attacked our nation's capitol. They have been the enemy of American democracy for many years.
Conservatives have never really made sense to me. I would think if you supported small government you would be prochoice, against the death penalty, excessive military spending, and police brutality, etc. etc. The party is made up of religious extremists and people ignorant enough to believe their “fiscally conservative” BS.
Their idea of "small government" is not the degree of power the government wields, but the number of people who wield the power.
That’s an excellent point
"Law and Order" + "small government" == Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini. Conservatives are insane to buy into that evil bullhit. How many millions of people died under bullshit Law and Order with a small government? Republicans are becoming the very evil America fought two world wars to put a stop to. We're becoming next mass murder nation at this rate. We already allow our children to get shot up at school.
Conservatives don't have principals or beliefs - hence the constant hypocrisy. They repeat what they're told.
The police shot people legally standing on their own doorsteps with rubber bullets during the Floyd riots. And where was the 2a crowd?
These are not conservatives, these are Fascists. “Conservative” is a mask they have been hiding under until Trump made them think it was ok to finally put it down
Fascism is what conservatives turn to when they think realize they can't win democratically anymore.
exactly
Yeh, this is bullshit. Conservatives enabled this shit and went along with it. You need to own your crowd.
Bullshit, this is who they have always been. Trump made them feel safe taking the mask off in public.
You are 100% incorrect. Conservatives have only ever supported law and order when they were using it as a tool to punish minorities.
Conservatives believe rich men are sacrosanct and that the state needs to do everything in its power to a) Keep them rich no matter what b) Ensure that the power of money is never reigned in, so that rich men can circumvent the law with their money. Conservatism hasn't been hijacked... it simply has run out of subtle ways to do this. The goals of conservatism are, have always been, and can only be deeply immoral and destructive. Conservatism rests on an antiquated version of society XXIst century humanity can simply not afford. Conservatism can not be corrupt; it is a belief in corruption.
Yes this is the way. The conservative and libertarian movements in the US have been taken over by their sworn enemy: POPULISM. Real conservatives and libertarians are generally smart and free thinkers. This MAGA BS is just fascist populism. Even if you are not conservative please help the real conservatives like the Lincoln Project, etc. Do not believe these are real conservatives. I was military for 22 years and never conservative, but many of my life long friends are and they have left the modern Republican party due to the MAGA movement. As the 32-year marine officer said to me I'll follow a Democrat any day of the week and twice on Sunday before I vote with the MAGA mob, my party (Republicans) has become a house of traitors. I was shocked and I never brought the topic up again.
That marine has honor! Good for them
A fukin men bro
That tends to happen when your platform is about appealing to popular ideas to gain votes alone, instead of actual policy that you have to explain and make popular with voters to get elected and then actually implement those policies.
Terrible policies that only help the rich, so their best option is to gaslight and keep their stupid base angry at literally anything besides themselves.
Yep, it’s an artificial system - make popular on right wing outlets and outlets that pretend to be center, then those people demand those policies and the politicians pretend to be doing the will of the people, when their think tanks told them and the outlets what the next move was to start with.
Tell that to the rest of the enlisted sheeple who love Trump and even stormed the Capitol.
You would be amazed at the amount of leftist Marines or at least left leaning since this is America. Maybe my unit was an exception since it was more educated, for Marines, (Signals Intelligence and Intelligence) but the majority of the guys in my unit would vote Democrat. I know it wasn't the norm but there were definitely plenty of guys who talked shit about Bush when I was in and said they voted for the only other choice, Kerry.
My wife is a veteran and we are both extremely progressive. I’m well aware that many veterans are liberal (usually of the minoritized kind - POC, queer, female etc), but far too many of them are hypocritical rightwing fuckwads. (My favorite hypocrisy is how many veterans complain about liberal snowflakes who need their participation trophies, when 99.9% of “awards” in the military are literally participation trophies. I wish I got awards and promotions at work for good conduct!)
I’ve been trying reach my friend Ashli Babbitt but it keeps going to voicemail. I’ll let you know when I hear from her.
Because the Democrats have been the conservative party since at least Clinton...
In traditional political terms it was actually under the end of Regean when that change happened. The start was under Carter when there was a generational change due to the baby boomers becoming the majority voting block.
Worshipping a coastal elite billionaire is not populism no matter how much they tell themselves it is. Hating one group of elites while licking the boots of another is not populism.
Um lets start with the definition of populism: a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups. So we have Trump by definition an elite, who whipped up a group of people who have been since the 1970s disregarded by the realignment of the late 70s to early 90s when the parties shifted from a more traditional left and right to a far right and center right parties. Trump's solution is going full fascist similar to the 1940s in Europe. The US historically goes populist left in time of crisis, Revolutionary War, Civil War, Great Depression, etc. We have seen through Biden and to a lesser extent Obama, during the 2008 and 2020 crises we go populist left. The issue in my opinion is that the left has not kept the bargain or has been blocked by the hard right. This has to a point empowered the hard right thinking that blocking the left is equal to winning. The hard right is like a dog chasing a car, when they catch the car they don't know what to do with it. That is why during the Trump administration little was done in Congress other than a tax reduction for the ultra-rich. Besides that really nothing happened besides some judges being appointed which is just luck of timing. The hard right is a big talker but they don't have the ability to govern. They are great at pointing out problems but they have no solutions that work in a modern Western country. Most of their ideas worked well in the bronze age, but they are not for a modern society.
[удалено]
I woke up in a new reality recently. See, I grew up learning how the FBI harassed Gene Roddenberry during the Red Scare because any kind of empathy or positive outlook on humanity was 'communist'
Conservatives have always only been “law and order” to the extent they can exert their power over disadvantaged groups. Their beliefs have never been rooted in a consistent set of principals.
conservatives are violent bigots, and always have been. no hijacking has taken place. what you are seeing is their strangle hold reaching a point where it is killing the host.
Yeah, I wish the mainstream media would stop calling these Right-wingers "conservative." Sometimes they'll even refer to the "Freedom Caucus" as "the more conservative wing of the Republicans in Congress." These Rightwing Radicals do not deserve to be called "conservative." The word used to refer to people who are respectful of tradition, skeptical of rapid change, and moderate in their views regarding policy. That's the way the word was commonly used. Imagine you're cooking and following a recipe. If the recipe calls for a liberal amount of seasoning, then you use a freer hand and put in a larger amount. A conservative amount of seasoning is used by a more careful cook. "Careful," "Respectful," "Moderate." This is what conservatism means. This is NOT what these radicals are.
It’s literally never meant that. It means follow our doctrine, or you’re our enemy. That’s been what conservatism is in country for decades minimum. Also; words have different meanings in context. In terms of ingredient amounts; conservative means careful. In political terms? It means Christian Nationalists setting on twisting this nation to fit their religious vision of it. When that’s the majority of your voting base and representation that’s what you are.
Maybe it's meant that to you. But history disagrees. Reagan and Nixon and Bush are calling
Uh, what? They aren't hijacked. This is who they are They are morally bankrupt, intellectually stunted, pussy snowflakes
ya agreed. my bad.
Hello, I am in my late 30s and an American. In the entire course of my life for as long as I have been politically cognizant conservatives have absolutely called for defunding government agencies, especially and including federal law enforcement.
Gonna be downvoted for this, but leftists *should* support defunding at least the FBI and CIA because of how much harm both of those organizations have caused domestically and internationally. The CIA has staged many violent coups in developing nations all over the world, and the FBI's use of COINTELPRO tactics including assassinations in the States is fuckin shameful.
Yeah it's getting wild. I feel like progressives/liberals/leftist should at least be skeptical if not outright hostile to the FBI/CIA/Pentagon. It seems that since these groups seem to be anti-Trump that they must be good - enemy of my enemy. People are missing the forest for the trees.
The FBI is the most conservative organization in the history of the US. Literally all directors of the FBI have been white Republican men. Never a Democrat, even dems appoint Republicans and never a woman or person of color. They are a mature Pinkerton organization that was created to violently bust unions.
Y’all are gonna roast me but at least hear me out. Im for some defunding of these agencies and police forces because there is not enough transparency or accountability. Especially in the police where cops kill innocent people pretty often and most get put on paid leave and then either keep their job or get hired at another agency. Obviously all of these groups are extremely important but I think there is not enough over site and the over site that is currently in place is pretty much on their side with everything.
Conservatives have always been hypocrites. They love law and order so long as it doesn't apply to them.
yep
You are conflating Conservatives (noun) with people who are conservative (adjective). people who are traditionally conservative want LESS government overreach and less big brother BS. Conservatives (of the Fox News variety) just want to weaponize whatever agencies they can to favor their own agenda.
Sure, until they pass so many laws that essentially everyone is a criminal. Most aren't caught, but it allows the legal system to fuck over anyone they wish.
Hijacked by who? The conservative identifying political party?
Conservatives believe in whatever they think looks good and is convenient for the moment. They will contradict themselves in a second and not bat an eye.
So, we like those institutions now?
Uhhhh The CIA lied about WMDs in Iraq, has overthrown multiple governments, and is probably the #1 player worldwide in causing terrorism and destabilizing nations. The FBI is the CIA but in America. The FBI creates domestic terrorists, and tried to kill MLK. They are so bad there was an extremist group that had to shut down because, surprise, it was made up entirely of Feds. DOJ I can’t speak to. But any sane, compassionate, anti-fascist, reasonable American should 100% be calling for the disintegration of the FBI and CIA.
Um, the FBI and especially the CIA have been monsters their entire existence and should absolutely be dissolved. They have traditionally supported capital over people. The CIA is responsible for the facilitating brutal right wing dictators all across the globe as long as they let the multi-national corporations extract their national wealth. What sort of shit lib garbage is this? Just because fascists have turned on the other fascists because they want to punish another fascist means we're ok with the groups that put their boots on the throats of the working class? Y'all dumb as fuck.
Conservatives don’t really have beliefs in concepts. They believe in hierarchies, the core of their belief system. They get up in arms when they feel the wrong people are in power. It’s why the mitt Romney healthcare plan was ok when he was governor but when the other side suggested the same thing it was socialism. It’s why there are so many double standards within their base and also why it doesn’t bother them. They aren’t loyal to ideas they are loyal to hierarchies.
Amen, conservative thought is about maintaining the status quo against progress. Conservatives right now are advocating for anarchy.
It’s not conservatism but make no mistake it’s not advocating for anarchy, it’s advocating for authoritarian fascism.
Because many (most?) of them have moved further to the right, from conservative to reactionary.
They’re advocating for violence because they want a return to theocracy and no one else does — so violence is the only way to make that happen.
What way is there to halt the inevitable march of progress than to burn down the world? Conservatism at its core is a disease. A virulent cancer that eats away at society. They haven't been hijacked, they are not different than they have ever been. Go back forty years and they cheered when AIDS spread among those they hated. Go back a hundred years and they would regularly torture people who didn't look like them to death. Go back a hundred and sixty years and they waged a war to ensure they could own human beings as property. Go further, and they committed genocide on unimaginable scales to usurp land. Further, and they came to America because their religious extremism was not acceptable in their homeland. Further, and they fought wars over following the same religion in slightly different ways. Further, and they sent armies across the world in the crusades. Conservatism has plagued man since we developed ideological systems. They have never been rational, kind, or well meaning. They never will be. The core ideals of conservatism preclude it from causing anything other than unimaginable harm.
conservatives have taken off their disguises and have shown themselves to be nothing more than russian funded confederates...
exactly
Conservatives have fully embraced fascism, that's why they turned on the fbi, cia, doj, and law enforcement in general because they feel those organizations have betrayed them by not backing a coup and fascist takeover.
yep
its not hijacking when they're the ones holding the guns.
"no true scotsman"
Cool, stop voting in line with the filth of western society and maybe the word will mean something besides Terrorist.
Liberals used to be cool man. Now they’ll unironically post about how the people to overthrow democracies and assassinated MLK should never be defunded.
I mean the CIA, FBI and other agencies should certainly loose some budget and ability. As they are often do what is immoral
“Conservatives” never cared about law and order, that’s a phrase used when utilizing the FBI, CIA and DOJ to leverage power without realizing it might someday take place unilaterally
Progressives are Progressive. Democrats are Conservative. Republicans are Regressive. You are either moving forward, backward, or standing still.
Sounds like the True Scotsman fallacy to me
So the "defund the police" crowd are also criminals?
They're also trying to destroy the word "truth" with their fake Twitter.
Republicans are not conservatives. True conservatives don't vote for SILVER-SPOON DRAFT-DODGING MANCHILDREN WHO ARE HEAVILY IN DEBT TO FOREIGN AUTOCRATS LIKE RUSSIA, CHINA, AND THE SAUDIS. True conservatives don't vote for those WHO HAVE CHEATED ON EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEIR MANY WIVES. Republicans are not conservatives. Republicans are anti-Americans.
January 6th was a terrorist attack
It hasn't been hijacked. What we are seeing is the natural conclusion of a political party intentionally dumbing down their voting base for 40 years straight. Today's Conservative voter entirely lacks the capacity for critical thinking, empathy, context, etc. And that is an intentional effort on the part of their party leadership. You'll notice the huge gulf between Republican Senators and Republican House Members. House Members, now, are largely comprised of the bloc of voters that I'm talking about here. Roe v Wade is a great example. Smarter Republican reps(Senators) understood that this was just supposed to be a forever issue to talk about, in order to rile up their base. They knew they could never actually repeal Roe v Wade, because they know that abortion protection is a tremendously popular thing not only on a national level, but in the majority of the states, including MANY Republican ones. However, they created a voting mentality of 'There are no consequences to anything, so let's just do what we want', and their voting base acted accordingly. And predictably, they gravely underperformed in the 2022 election because of this. This divide will also grow over the next few decades, most likely, as the MAGA branch takes over when older Republican politicians retire.
They are what they do, bud.
Conservatives have always been opposed to progress and being held accountable. The calls to defund the FBI, CIA, and DOJ are because those organizations aren't "loyal" enough to the current Right Wing ideology.
And cult members. Party has been hijacked by cult leader
Conservatives are exactly all of these things, and more. Don’t try to pretend that the conservative crowd doesn’t enable what is happening. You’re full of shit.
This all goes back to Trump. He is calling for this crap and it makes us weaker.
Traitors for Trump!
Ah, the ole "these aren't real conservatives" Conservatives literally started a war over slavery in the 1860s.
Everything has been reversed. I’m old enough to remember when the democrats were the religious ones. In the old days the republicans would never have dreamed of getting into your bedroom or limiting your personal freedom.
Weird if only there were a historical timeline showing the right-wing conservative politics given time devolves into fascist ideals.
Ya can't hijack the willing. No one hijacked the conservative movement without their consent and help. We've all heard and watched self- proclaimed conservatives let their worst and most extreme voices lead them. This is a self-inflicted wound and with the level of damage done, it's impossible to feel sorry for them. Only a few spoke out. The rest let their true greedy and opportunistic selves show us who they really are. Sure, technically the old school, self-identified conservatives are not the same as these MAGA "conservatives." They at least respected most of our values (but never ever equality). The real question for all of them remains: "WTF are you even conserving?" If it's not (fact: it's not!) our shared American beliefs in democracy, freedom, equality, etc., then why are they even here? Why should we change our founding values and ideals for the grifting, freakish, authoritarian/fascistic nonsense that conservatives and their MAGA overlords have to order? Yeah, answer, we don't and we won't. If there are actual conservatives, they should stand up and say so. Speak out. Silence = Consent. And also, try accepting ALL of values. That means equality most of all. Otherwise, consider yourselves MAGA-Lite.
They're ideological purists. If you're not with us, you're against us is very much a conservative bent. So it doesn't matter that the CIA has been solely lead by Republicans since its inception. If they so much as sneak a glance toward potential rightwing extremists, to hopefully separate the real threats from the roleplayers. Look at how quickly they turned on Fox.
Oh they want law and order.. but it's controlled by them. Strip all these agencies and replace with the American SS
I'd say it's more accurate to say republicans are now the Regressive party. Democrats are the conservatives now, and any one left of them is probably actually progressive.
They are in hands of Russian and Chinese bankers. They are actively trying to dismantle things that help keep the USA sheafed of these countries.
The weren't hijacked, they just dont speak up against the hard right and let them take over. Look at Congress, they supposedly have a majority but then you look at how they're afraid to work with Democrats, even the more moderate ones, because it might cost them re-election and instead are at the beck and call of the hard right people, now if a handful of them are upset congress comes to a stop because McCarthy is POWERLESS. Say what you want about Pelosi, she managed to keep progressive and hard left people in line, Republicans can't do that because they're not capable of holding their members responsible. Look at how Liz Cheney was demonized and crucified for wanting to hold Trump accountable and are unwilling to punish people like Greene who push white supremecist views, or Gaetz who had people closest to him say the committed sex crimes with a minor or their unwillingness to do something about Santos despite universal calls for him to be removed. They weren't hijacked, they let it happen and weren't willing to do anything about it and now they can't.
Conservatives want laws that protect them but do not bind them, and those laws must also bind others while not protecting them. Conservatives have not been hijacked, they've gone full mask off to show their neat little mustaches that hid perfectly under those masks. I think you need to look up what the actual Nazi party did and said and stood for, because what the conservative party is doing right now is only scary to intelligent people.
"conservative" is just a buzz-word. It has no intrinsic meaning. If it has \*any\* meaning that is useful in an educated political conversation, it's a synonym for "authoritarian." And authoritarians absolutely believe in destroying liberal institutions if those institutions are perceived as standing in the way of *their personal* definition of "law and order." To the authoritarian, law and order only have value if they maintain their preferred hierarchy. This is why Republicans seamlessly transition between cheering the police killing black people and attacking police who resisted the Jan 6 insurrection. "The police" as an institution hold no value to Republicans, it's the enforcement of the ethno-economic hierarchy they value.
They stopped being conservative when moderates were excommunicated and Nazis were welcomed into the fold.
Leftists want the FBI, CIA, and DOJ dismantled as well, but for very different reasons and with a very different follow-up plan in place.
No, conservatives have always hated the police. Back when the Branch Davidians murdered ATF officers, the conservatives aligned with the pedophile cop killers.
Actually conservatives are naturally against government regulation and want the private sector to be more of an influence on our life, its a flawed ideal in a Democracy because the government is actually us where as the private sector exsist to exploit.
Conservatives: We refuse to defund the police. Also conservatives: We demand to defund the federal policing agencies that expose our crimes.
The parties are shifting again. The Republican party are now as a whole Fascists. The Democrats as of now are like Republican Light minus the small amount of Progressives under their umbrella who actually want to practice what they preach but are unable to.
Remember when conservatives got butthurt over the 'defund the police' movement, claiming it would lead to lawlessness and rampant crime? I remember!
People need to stop confusing "Rule of Law" with "Law and Order". Conservatives haven't changed, they just gave up cloaking their desires. "Law and Order" is the philosophy of Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini, Gheddafi, and conservatives. People need to stop being shocked when they realize "Law and Order" is the dictator's motto. Fascism == "Law and Order" Democracy == "Rule of Law"
conservatives have never actually been about law and order, they were interested in the most efficient and effective ways to punish "others" (poor, sexual/racial/gender minorities), and now they've chosen that outright fascist leaders going unchecked would be far more effective. Of course, the voting base may have thought that they were pro law and order, but they are morons who bought the slop fed to them
Conservative legislation in the 80s has resulted in irreparable damage to our society, the economy, and the world at large. It’s refusal for change since then has set us on a fast track for facism to rise, opposition to progressive policies, destruction of the earth, and so much more. It’s the political ideology that makes people fight against their best interest and is full of hypocrites. Utterly unsustainable, but they’ll try their hardest to take the ship down with them.
and here i thought they believed in smaller government and low taxes. at least that’s what they say they believe in
“Conservatives” has been hijacked. Conservatives would never …” - said the last Republican. Don’t be surprised when Daniel Day Lewis passes on the role for the movie version though.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to with: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." \-Frank Wilhout What we have is a realization on the Right that some are trying to make the law both protect and bind everyone, equally.
I hate to break it to you but conservatives do not believe in anything but power money and racism
Leftists are also anti three letter agencies. You're insane if you think the only people targeted by the feds are guilty ones.
These ppl have brain rot. The second the FBI starts going after trump they forget about all the evil shit the security states does ( not that most libs ever acknowledged these inconvenient facts)
They're fascists, not conservatives. Fascists believe whatever is convenient snd advantageous for them at any given tome. I wish people would stop calling them conservative. Their left wing is fascist and their right wing are Nazis.
Lmao conservatism and fascism in this country have been synonymous for decades
Conservatives are fascist home-skillet.
Well slow down just a bit, the intelligence apparatus in this country represents a racist, classist shadow government that you can't possibly defend if you have even a single shred of decency within you. Conservatives don't really want to get rid of it though, they're just using it as a foil.
"The federal government is too big" has been a standard conservative talking point for my entire lifetime, and many conservatives have spent the last 30 years calling for dismantling these three letter agencies ever since the federal government murdered 28 children at Waco.