The Republican Party Abandons Conservatism
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/republican-party-conservative/571747/
...Perhaps the collapse of modern conservatism came out most clearly in Kavanaugh’s own testimony—its self-pity, its hysteria, its conjuring up of conspiracies, its vindictiveness. He and his family had no doubt suffered agonies. But if we expect steely resolve from a police officer confronting a knife-wielding assailant, or disciplined courage from a firefighter rushing into a burning house, we should expect stoic self-control and calm from a conservative judge, even if his heart is being eaten out. No one watching those proceedings could imagine that a Democrat standing before this judge’s bench in the future would get a fair hearing. This was not the conservative temperament on display. It was, rather, personalized grievance politics.
R eal conservatives have always prided themselves on their willingness to stand up to their own kind in the name of moral principle. Think of Senator Robert Taft opposing the North Atlantic Treaty, knowing that those positions could destroy his political career. Taft was wrong in his views, but he was principled, he was courageous, and he went down speaking truth as he saw it. William F. Buckley took on the John Birch Society in the middle of the 20th century, and the anti-Semites in the conservative camp later on. In 1993, when Buckley had to choose between loyalty to Joseph Sobran, his longtime protégé and colleague at the National Review , and rejection of bigotry, principle won and he fired his friend.
During the Ford and Kavanaugh testimonies, Americans watched the cranky maunderings of Senator Chuck Grassley and the spitting, menacing fury of Senator Lindsey Graham. The combination of calm strength and good humor that characterized the modern conservative icon, Ronald Reagan, was nowhere to be found. But that spirit, the spirit of a president who celebrated America as a city on a hill that was generous abroad, welcoming to newcomers, and self-confident at home, has been replaced by the sour meanness of a party chiefly of men, who build walls to keep the world out, erect tariffs to destroy free trade, despise the alliances that keep Americans secure, and sanction the deliberate plucking of babes from their mothers’ breasts in order to teach illegal immigrants a painful lesson. In such a world, decorum and courtesy are irrelevant.
There has always been a dark side to American conservatism, much of it originating in the antebellum curse of a society, large parts of which favored slavery and the extermination of America’s native population, the exclusion of immigrants from American life, and discrimination against Catholics and Jews. Many of us had hoped that the civil-rights achievements of the mid-20th century (in which Republicans were indispensable partners), changing social norms regarding women, and rising levels of education had eliminated the germs that produced secession, lynching, and Indian massacres. Instead, those microbes simply went into dormancy, and now, in the presence of Trump, erupt again like plague buboes—bitter, potent, and vile.
The last twitches of conservative independence consisted of Senator Jeff Flake securing a week-long FBI investigation of Ford’s charges. For the rest, there was not a profile in courage to be seen. Not one.
It is impossible at this moment to envisage the Republican Party coming back. Like a brontosaurus with some brain-eating disorder, it might lumber forward in the direction dictated by its past, favoring deregulation of businesses here and standing up to a rising China there, but there will be no higher mental functioning at work. And so it will plod into a future in which it is detested in a general way by women, African Americans, recent immigrants, and the educated young as well as progressives pure and simple. It might stumble into a political tar pit and cease to exist or it might survive as a curious, decaying relic of more savage times and more primitive instincts, lashing out and crushing things but incapable of much else.
Tags
Who is online
75 visitors
Kavanaugh's speech was his regular teenage Sunday confession, punched up with a few partisan paragraphs making it more current.
Yes they need more conservatives like Ron and Rand Paul. Strong conservatives that won’t compromise their beliefs and negotiate with the enemy is what they need.
Ron has a drool cup strapped to his head now and Rand was neutered on national TV by trump. Those 2 sheet wearing teabags can go fuck themselves.
Meanwhile, the Democrats make the pizzagate conspiracy nuts look like the Manhattan Project.
Good lord, the obsession over farting and beer drinking in high school. One can only imagine if Republican Senators were interrogating a Democratic Nominees about their high school drinking habits and what they called farts. Not to mention leaking letters from a alleged sex crime victim who wanted to remain anonymous. Talk about a war on women!
In saner times, historians will look back at the democrats conduct the last few weeks as one of the greater moral panics in Us history. The Salem witch trials, the red scares and the Democrats assault on logic and the burden of proof all go hand in hand together. When people are seriously claiming that objective evidence that contradicts a witness's testimony actually supports it, it's clear we've entered a twiligt zone where reason doesn't apply.
I wouldn't be surprised if the goalpost movers next demand that Kavanugh be thrown in the water to see if floats to see if the allegations that he turned someone into a newt during junior high are true before a vote take place.
Good seed.
"Conservatism" used to mean a set of ideas. Nowadays it means unthinking support of the Leader. In the race to become Leader, Donald Trump won. So... "conservatism" means "support Trump".
There was a time when conservatives had ideas. Now they have invective.
So the democrats were conservative during the Obama administration, at least by your definition. I'll bet there are a bunch of them that are going to be surprised to hear that.
No.
Did Hell just freeze over or is somebody wildly full of shit? Does the Left actually have respect for William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan now?
You know all they stuff they say about this or that Republican being evil, insane, incompetent, and hating women and people of color? You know how they always talk about how Republicans are going to destroy the world or start WWIII? They said all that shit about Reagan. Every one of those things. Suddenly he's someone to emulate?
I'm having a hard time swallowing that.
Agreed.
Reagan was bad.
Bush I was Reagan-reheated.
Bush II was worse, and an idiot.
And Trump trumps them all.
All that the GOP has accomplished since Reagan is to make the already-richer ever richer. That was why they were elected.