Please stop using "conservative" to reference the Republican Party

[rlegro]

"Conservative" is too dignified and milquetoast for the likes of these hacks. Theirs was a genuinely conservative party, once, particularly on economic issues. But a powerful, growing plurality of elected Republicans no longer are conservative, as in reserved, studied, and cautious. No, now they are by and large flaming reactionaries. Angry, loud, negative GOP politicians who never met a non-GOP politician they liked. Or a big, diverse democracy, either.

In our current, social network free-for-all, they have discovered that screaming and lying often pay big dividends. Enlightenment and empathy are now hostages to outrage and generally counter-productive behavior. After all, tearing things down is not only easier than building things up, but it's more dramatic, too. You can recycle your wrecking-crew ways every news cycle, if not more often. Start a fire and then pour gasoline on it. Political arson is exciting and attention-getting precisely because it's chaotic. The GOP isn't grand anymore. It's a movable ambush. It's GOP -- Guerrillas Over People.

Calling modern-day Republicans "conservative" serves to smooth their actual demeanor. It mainly just lends s the imprimatur of responsibility and officialdom. And it implies that they're legitimate anti-progressives. To the GOP crowd, getting to be on the far end of the same scale as lefties and socialists is leverage. When in fact they're really at deep right angles to responsible social reformers.

So, please: Drop "conservative" from your GOP political shorthand. "Reactionary" is much more descriptive and precise. "Lying, reactionary maskhole" for the real hard core.

[blm]

1. Rabid reactionaries.

[GoodRaisin]

2. "Fascists" works. nt

[Celerity]

3. white nationalist QMAGAts

[Caliman73]

4. Understand what you are saying, but "nope".

People need to know that this is exactly where "conservatism" leads every time it is left to its own devices. Conservatism is ineffectual, watered down, fascism. It is just a matter of degrees.

Conservatism has it historical roots in defending Monarchy and blood aristocracy as a governing system. While conservatives were forced to shift their allegiance from kings and queens, they NEVER stopped defending the idea that the ideal governmental system was a pyramid with "them" on top and the rest of us at the bottom serving "them". They shifted the "them" from Kings/Queens/ and nobles by birth, to the aristocracy of Capitalism (wealthy people) and since most of the aristocracy of old were already wealthy, it wasn't a big change in the every day lives of people like Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre who are considered the founders of modern conservative thought.

Thing is, knowing that conservatism is rule by the very few and the benefits of society disproportionately going to those very few, a coalition of others had to be fashioned. The wealthy use the religious fundamentalists and the racists to move their agenda thinking that they will be able to control the rabble, but like in most rightward shifts, the fascists will expand their definition of "us" to gain power before narrowing it again once power is gained.

I say we need to keep using "conservative" to remind everyone that "conservative" movements lead to reactionary and fascist movements each and every time in history that one occurs.

[ms liberty]

5. This. n/t

[DFW]

6. That's in practice, not in theory. Anyone can hijack a word.

Just like every time there has been a so-called "socialist" regime, it has descended into dictatorship of a small elite, complete with a secret political police to make sure no one outwardly expresses dissent. So it has been as well with radical so-called "conservative" regimes.

This is why I separate the term from the reality. "Conservative" in English means one thing. What today's Republican Party has become has nothing to do with the definition of the term, so I don't use it either.

[Caliman73]

12. What is the "theory" behind conservatism?

I listed two foundational thinkers from which others have developed the philosophy of conservatism. Can you tell me what conservatives believe at their core? Not what their policy proposals are (I.E. small government, family values, etc..) those are platitudes. What is their governing philosophy. Where does it come from?


Any human endeavor at governance can lead to authoritarianism, left or right. What I am talking about is the "natural" progression (if you can even use that term for completely socially constructed phenomena) based on core philosophy.

[DFW]

13. Conservative, not conservatism

As far as I am concerned, "conservatism" is like "corporatist:" vague, synthetic words conveniently used to define philosophies (usually someone else's) or people with a negative overtone.

Conservative to me means a tendency toward caution, conserving of resources instead of taking risks by stretching them thin, a reluctance (not refusal) to take risks in general, and a reluctance (not refusal) to go into debt. For example, a true conservative would advocate disbanding the NRA with its promotion of liberally distributing firearms to as many people as can afford them, irregardless of quantity or destructive power. Doing so would fit in nicely within the definition of a tendency toward caution. Republicans don't want to hear that, of course, but then, they have been speaking a different language from the rest of us for some time now. I prefer Webster to Lee Atwater.

[Caliman73]

15. Conservatives will typically follow the philosophy of conservatism.

Taking words without the context in which the terminology is created basically renders any word irrelevant. You can take any word and make it mean what you want it to mean devoid of its origin.

Conservative means adherent to conservatism. You like Webster but will you take Britannica?

https://www.britannica.com/topic/conservatism

[mitch96]

9. "Understand what you are saying, but "nope"." My conservative friends call them SELFS

Conservative.. I will honor their wishes on what to call them selfs..
Just don't try to jam the "conservative" agenda down my throat...YMMV
m

[DFW]

14. Like the so-called "conservatives" in the slow verse here:

[Hotler]

7. I like fascist and I'm leaning towards Nazi. nt

[Tommymac]

8. Sorry, Movement Conservatism is plain evil.

It is the Royalist's kowtowing to Kings.

It is a lead bullet fired by a madman who refuses to give up the past in a theater in Washington DC.

It is the Robber Baron's greed.

It is White Hoods throwing a rope with a noose over a tree branch.

It is Authoritarianism for all.

From the shrill angry wealthy minority opponents to FDR's New Deal, which gave rise to the Great Middle Class of the 20ty Century...

To the fucked up 'Trickle Down' economy foisted upon us by Raygun in the 1980's...

To the blowing up of the Real Estate and Financial bubble in 2008 where NO ONE was held accountable...

And sponsoring a vile misogynistic unhinged unqualified boob in his bid for the Presidency in 2016...

To supporting today's QAnon crazies who are actively trying to destroy Democracy...

Conservatism is a failed philosophy. Time to put it in the dustbin of History once and for all.

[Iggo]

10. I've tried to get people to call things what they are and not call them what they're not.

It doesn’t work.

[LAS14]

11. I totally agree! nt

[JHB]

16. No. Despite Movement Conservatives never merely being conservative rather than radical...

...it's the term they used to describe themselves and the one they gleefully encouraged every right-wing nutbar to identify themselves as.

It's the "moderate conservatives", who somehow didn't see that their team really was and acted as cheerleaders right up to Trump and sometimes past, who need to find a new name for themselves because they crapped all over the one they had.

What "smooths their actual demeanor" is letting them wriggle out of the very thing that brought them to where they are now. Don't give them an "out". Hang them with their own rope. Ask the reasonable ones, that tiny, tiny sliver of them, "Wouldn't you like to be proud of being conservative again? When it wasn't a byword for foaming fanatics? If you want that word back you can start by stop telling yourself that Democrats and liberals are some kind of monsters and start working with us to bring down the people took the word away from you.

And by using "reactionary" you're missing an important point: In American politics, it is a rare, technical, and mostly academic term. It has no bite. The people who know that meaning of the word already agree with us. All you'll get from anyone else are blank looks and confused-puppy head-tilts.

This is a political fight, not a thesis. Don't "accurately describe" them. Hit them.

[RFCalifornia]

17. The GOP is straight up fascist nt

[Champp]

18. Radical right-wing whackos

[DeSmet]

19. If only

Cuckservitude were a word.