The Olympics reveal how conservatives are turning on America
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Rooting against Olympians, scoffing at Capitol police, broaching civil war — meet today's conservative movement.
By Zack Beauchamp@zackbeauchamp Aug 3, 2021, 1:20pm EDT /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69672938/1233798304.0.jpg)
The Olympics are typically a boom time for jingoism: patriotic fervor heightening among Americans of all stripes with each gold medal for Team USA. But this year, we've seen an unlikely faction of Americans rooting against our athletes: conservatives.
During a late July rally, President Donald Trump claimed that "Americans were happy" about the women's soccer team losing to Sweden — a loss that he blamed on "wokeism" turning the squad "demented." Tomi Lahren called Team USA "the largest group of whiny social justice activists the Olympics has seen in decades," accusing them in a Tuesday Fox News segment of engaging in "typical leftist so-called activism." And after the men's basketball team lost to France, Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield said he "took pleasure" in their defeat.
"The team is filled with anthem kneelers — and I find it ironic that they're willing to put USA on their chest when, in the not so distant past, they would kneel for the anthem. Somebody ought to go up there and just rip USA off their chest," said Stinchfield, who briefly went off the air earlier this year after insinuating that Jewish Americans are foreigners during a monologue.
These attacks on Team USA are not just culture war red meat; they are a reflection of a rising tendency in the conservative movement to reject America itself. In this thinking, the country is so corrupted that it is no longer a source of pride or even worthy of respect. In its most radical versions, you even see cheerleading for revolution or civil war.
Conservative anti-Americanism still pays lip service to love of country: Its proponents declare themselves the true patriots, describing their enemies as the nation's betrayers. But when the cadre of traitors includes everyone from election administrators to Olympians to the Capitol Police, it becomes clear that the only America they love is the one that exists in their heads. When they contemplate the actual United States — real America, if you will — they are filled with scorn.
"They see no role or place for themselves in America now," says Paul Elliott Johnson, a communications professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies conservative rhetoric.
What's striking about this strain of anti-American thought is how pervasive it is. Naturally, you frequently hear versions of it from rank-and-file conservatives and the carnival barkers of the right-wing echo chamber — but it doesn't stop with them. Its most refined and troubling versions come from the highbrow thinkers of the Trumpist right; leading conservative politicians put their stamps on it.
While not entirely new — this has been bubbling up for years now, especially since Trump's rise — the recent flare-up amid the Olympics and the January 6 hearings only underscores that influential elements of the American right seem past beyond the point of no return. These conservatives do not believe in sharing America with those who disagree with them. Forced to confront the country's political diversity in the Biden era, they are choosing to turn on America rather than accommodate themselves to its reality.
In the Jewish community, many of us have a suspicion of non-Jews who are a little too outspoken about how much they like Jews. These "philo-Semites" often end up being funhouse mirror anti-Semites, spreading stereotypes in the name of praising us. Trump's infamous comment about Jewish accountants — "the only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes" — is a perfect example.
Conservative anti-Americanism is a little like this. It's a hyper-patriotism gone sour: a belief in a fictional ideal of a perfect right-wing America that's constantly betrayed by reality, leading to disillusionment and even disgust with the country as it actually exists.
Trump's 2016 address to the Republican National Convention, which promised "a straightforward assessment of the state of our nation," painted a picture of a country on the verge of collapse. "The attacks on our police and the terrorism in our cities threaten our very way of life," then-candidate Trump said. "Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in third-world condition, and 43 million Americans are on food stamps."
This dark depiction of the state of the country has become a hallmark of the Trumpified GOP, and Democrats' 2020 electoral victories only deepened the conservative sense of betrayal at the hands of their countrymen. In late July, Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance warned that "we have lost every single major cultural institution in this country" — and suggested that America "has built its entire civilization" around selfish, miserable people. Earlier that month, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said "I look at Joe Biden's America, and I don't recognize the country that I grew up in."
The Olympics have brought out this sense of alienation from America on the right. When conservatives see American athletes representing values at odds with their vision for the country, they don't back Team USA in the name of patriotism — they turn on the icons of the nation itself.
Queer female soccer stars demanding equal pay, Black basketball players kneeling to protest police brutality, the world's best gymnast prioritizing her mental health over upholding the traditional ideal of the "tough" athlete — this is all a manifestation of the ascendancy of liberal cultural values in public life. And an America where these values permeate national symbols, like the Olympic team, is an America where those symbols are worthy of scorn.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22758654/1332161142.jpg)
\
"So much of the self-perception of the American right is about losing the culture war. And that, specifically, is where some of this overt anti-Americanism — especially from the grassroots — is coming from," says David Walsh, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Virginia who studies the history of the right.
That disdain has also seeped into the right's recent rhetoric toward an institution that conservatives have typically celebrated: law enforcement.
When Capitol police officers testified to the House about their experiences during the 1/6 attack, ostensibly pro-police conservatives vilified them. Fox's Tucker Carlson laughed at Officer Michael Fanone's claim to experience "psychological trauma" after the attack; fellow host Laura Ingraham gave out mock acting awards to the officers, implying their experiences were fake or ginned up.
The willingness to attack police officers who defended an attack on the seat of American government gets at the through-the-looking-glass ugliness of contemporary right-wing patriotism.
Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that leading elected Republicans have "concocted a version of events in which those accused of rioting were patriotic political prisoners and Speaker Nancy Pelosi was to blame for the violence." Their base is listening: a recent poll from CBS-YouGov found that over half of Trump voters believe it's appropriate to describe the events of January 6 as an act of "patriotism."
The intellectual home of the anti-American right
This kind of anti-Americanism isn't just the province of Fox News provocateurs and base voters. It's also prevalent in the movement's most intellectually rarefied corners.
The hub seems to be the Claremont Institute, a think tank based in Southern California, and affiliated institutions like Hillsdale College. Claremont is undoubtedly the most radically pro-Trump of any major right-wing intellectual institution, its thinkers most willing to defend both his presidency and his false claims of a stolen election. Claremont's output in the past year has been astonishingly radical, all but openly calling for regime change and rebellion.
"Increasingly," historian Joshua Tait writes in The Bulwark, "these [Claremont] patriots appear to actively hate America and their fellow citizens."
In a May podcast, Hillsdale College lecturer and former Trump administration official Michael Anton chatted with entrepreneur Curtis Yarvin — a self-described monarchist who wants to appoint a Silicon Valley CEO king of America — about their shared desire to topple what Anton terms the American "regime."
During the episode, Yarvin muses about how an American strongman — whom he alternatively calls "Caesar" and, more honestly, "Trump" — could seize authoritarian control of the US government by turning the National Guard and FBI into his personal stormtroopers. Critic Damon Linker identifies this politics, which meets with little pushback from Anton, as "broadly coterminous with fascism" — and it's hard to see where he's wrong. The pining for a strongman stems from disgust with an America Yarvin and Anton no longer recognize, a country they describe as a "theocratic oligarchy" controlled by a cadre of progressive "priests."
In the American Mind, Claremont's blog, writer Glenn Elmers declares that "most people living in the United States today — certainly more than half — are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term." If Trump voters and conservatives do not band together and wage "a sort of counter-revolution" against these "citizen-aliens," then "the victory of progressive tyranny will be assured."
Elmers intimates that violence will be a part of this struggle. "Learn some useful skills, stay healthy, and get strong," he advises his fellow conservatives. "Strong people are harder to kill."
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22758679/1230458461.jpg)
And an essay in the Claremont Review of Books by scholar Angelo Codevilla describes a country whose government is clinging to "an illusion of legitimacy" after "a half-century of Progressive rule's abuse" has demolished American society.
"The War on Poverty ended up enriching its managers while expanding the underclass that voted for them. The civil rights movement ended up entitling a class of diversity managers to promote their friends and ruin their opponents," Codevilla writes. "There is no end to what the Left can do because there is so little that conservatives do to fight back."
Over email, Tait tells me that Claremont has become the foremost center of anti-American right-wing thinking in large part because of its "sacralized view of American history as an ideal regime."
Even among conservatives, generally a nostalgic bunch, Claremonters are particularly inclined toward veneration of the unique wisdom of the country's founders and early America. This makes them particularly inclined towards a sense of political betrayal — and the same kind of hyper-patriotic anti-Americanism that motivates anti-Olympian, pro-Capitol riot punditry.
Abandoning America
A sense that the country has strayed because of liberalism has long been a core part of American conservatism. But this idea has become particularly dominant now due to the influence of both the Trump presidency and longer-term trends — most notably demographic change and defeats on culture war fronts like same-sex marriage.
Barack Obama's 2008 election victory, powered by an expanding minority population and a left-ward tilt among the young, convinced many Republicans that they might well be consigned to permanent minority status. The left's subsequent total victory in the central culture war topic of the 2000s, same-sex marriage, led many conservatives to believe that they had no power over a culture whose values were tilting inexorably leftward.
Combine all that with liberal dominance in mainstream American culture — Hollywood, media, academia, and even a growing share of corporate America — and you have a recipe for rising conservative alienation from the country they claim to love.
Part of Trump's political genius was his ability to harness this sentiment among the conservative elite and rank-and-file and make a movement out of them.
There's a reason that the most famous intellectual case for Trump is Anton's "Flight 93" essay — a 2016 argument that a Trump victory was the only way to avoid national suicide. It revealed the sense of desperation that animates the modern right, a deep-seated fear of losing their country permanently.
During his initial campaign and presidency, Trump tapped into this sentiment by explicitly dividing the country into good Americans that supported him and his people and bad ones that did not. He found that there was a market in his party for a style of politics that eschewed unifying bromides and high-minded patriotism in favor of division and cruelty; he made it okay to say openly that you just hated the other side and didn't want to share the country with them anymore.
Trump was all the permission that many in the conservative movement needed to finally express what it really felt about the American experiment. After his defeat, the sense of marginalization that animated his original campaign has come roaring back — a feeling of utter alienation manifesting in vicious attacks on the country's symbols and government.
"For most parts of the right, there was this idea that you could still redeem the country — that you could reverse these long-term trends by political organizing, electing conservatives to political office, etc.," Walsh, the UVA scholar, tells me. "Today, there is this move away from even the trappings of the American democratic tradition — and I think that is linked to the broader sense that this country can no longer be redeemed."
Tags
Who is online
428 visitors
This is a must read article.
I would rather people kneel to support something that is ethically and morally right rather than stand for a lie and bigotry.
Liberals take a knee and support peaceful demonstrations about what they believe in.
Conservatives attempt to overthrow the government.
Lol... Dozens of deaths, hundreds of injuries and billions of dollars worth of damages beg to differ with you (and that was just 2020).
Like what?
You keep spreading that [deleted everywhere - deleted]
There were not billions of dollars worth of damages, no way. Nor dozens of deaths.
I've yet to see what worthwhile things the libs are supporting these days.
And don't tell us that all liberal protests are peaceful. The vast majority of them aren't
Ass backwards, as usual. P.S. who is us? Who else are you speaking for?
Riots sparked by the police killing of George Floyd could cost insurance companies $1 billion to $2 billion — possibly making them the most expensive in US history, an industry group says.
At least 25 Americans were killed during protests and political unrest in 2020
Apparently, there were.
Exclusive: $1 billion-plus riot damage is most expensive in insurance history
Vandalism, looting following Floyd death sparks at least $1B in damages nationwide: report
Well, at least two dozens, anyway.
At least 25 Americans were killed during protests and political unrest in 2020
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah . . . . . how many of those deaths were by the right wing domestic terrorists and agitators - I bet it doesn't note that.
So apparently you do support "taking a knee" after all...???
There weren't any, just like there were no BLM and Antifa at the Capitol riot...according to the left
Prove it...
So the killing of unarmed black men is not worthwhile for you? That explains a lot....
You need that proven to you? Is your memory okay?
They ignore the small fact that protestors are not rioters, and rioters are not necessarily protestors.
Yes. Prove it!!!
When will we protest the propeller, or cows? They take more lives each year than "unarmed black men" are killed by police.
In 2018 there were 685,000 full time law enforcement officers in the United States.
If only 10 percent of them are racist that is 68,500 racist cops.
Ten percent would be a severe low ball figure.
We need to take as much racism out of police forces as humanly possible , and I dont think anyone really believes that has happened yet.
And it seems NO ONE ever touches on the reasons that cops seem to pick on blacks. Every one I have ever seen started with and escalated from non-compliance with officer commands. And it doesn't happen to just blacks. There are stupid white people too that try the same shit.
I agree John.
But the idea that cops are going around murdering unarmed black people to the tune of thousands a year (which most progressives believe) is preposterous.
18 unarmed black people were killed last year according to the Washington Post, and who knows how many of the 18 were Darwin Award winners like Michael Brown. To put that in perspective cows kill 22 Americans each year. We are not having a national meltdown because cows are murdering farmers.
Your source on this?
Literally 5 posts above your comment.....
That's an outright lie
And the response will be all those facts are "outright lies", too.
Well...he cites The Guardian and Axios. So we'll see how that goes.
Proves nothing.
According to arrest reports.
Yup, you deflecting and distracting from facts on hand.
Right on cue, and exactly as predicted.
The cartoon is more reflective of the cartoonist than it is of anything else.
That's true Hal, but it clear shows the loser mindset of a lot of the athletes this time around. Display your supposed gripes and complaints in a venue where someone gives a shit.
Transgender weight lifters and relay runners? No wonder very few watched.
I did not see any of that.
Are you talking to me?
Haha Sorry, couldn't resist.
And yet...every time it happens.. .so many Trump supporters manage to whine about it endlessly.
(Perhaps, as you implied,they haven't even watched it....no surprise there, actually!
)
Ever wonder...how come while other people do that... Trump supporters would never, ever do anything like that?
(Strange, eh?
)
No I am not talking to you. I am talking about people like you.
People like me? ... never met one.
Pretty sure that goes for all of us.
Modern conservatives are not pro-American nor are they pro-police. Idiots need to remember that this country was founded on Liberalism. (All the "founding fathers" were political and social Liberals.) I don't understand how these people can call themselves American patriots. Additionally, every time I see a "Blue Line" flag I just want to rip it off the vehicle. These folks do anything but support the police. If someone/something goes against the party narrative they will turn on it in a heartbeat. These kind of people have no morals or ethics but to defend their own obscene positions.
After the shit they said about the Capitol Police last week, they can take their blue line flags and stuff 'em up their asses.
I'm waiting to the GQP to start issuing pograms against various people like liberals, Jews, Catholics, gays, etc. That's my rant for the day.
I say rant away. Haha
You know that patriotism has taken a wrong turn when it becomes jingoism.
What makes you think that?
What makes you ask that?
It really does make you wonder what it would realistically take to satisfy them. Conservatives are such a hot mess that they don’t even appear to know this answer themselves. I think their only answer is “if everyone would just think like me”.
Even then I don't think they would be happy. There always has to be a boogie man.
Its all about America gradually becoming a majority non white country. Thats all its always been about.
American demographics are just a reality, so what are their thoughts on how to change the ratios? This isn’t Rwanda. Are they seriously thinking that another civil war would benefit them? How is perpetual cynicism improving their fate?
I think many conservatives see their idealized America like the amusement parks of the past which were frequented by almost all white Christian children and their parents, the smiling 'Leave it to Beaver' family, and the lines were short, you could go on rides all day long without ever having to wait more than 5 minutes. Then more and more Americans were able to afford and visit the parks and the crowds grew larger and more diverse and the lines went from 5 minutes to almost an hour wait for any ride in the park. I believe this is how white Christian conservatives view America today, like their old favorite amusement park has become too crowed with lots of people they're uncomfortable standing in line with for far too long. What they now want is for all white Christian conservatives to be issued a "fast pass" that allows them to skip the lines and go back to the 1950's when they were the privileged class and minorities, gays, atheists and other non-Christians would go back to being second class citizens, essentially forcing them back into the closet where white Christians don't have to see them, think about them or compete with them for any resource. I believe that is the only outcome that would truly satisfy them.
But, realistically that could not possibly happen without an insanely violent uprising. They know that isn’t realistic, so what is their pragmatic idea of where to go? Or is it just one big suicide pact? Rational people need to be sleeping with one eye open around these nihilistic curmudgeons.
I think many do envision some violent uprising. They've been stockpiling their arsenals for decades hoping and praying that some progressive Democrat comes to try to take their guns away so they feel justified in unleashing hell. You'll often hear them claiming the liberals and progressives are going to come and try to take their guns and put them in internment camps or reeducation camps which is obviously insane but for them I think it's more of a wish so they could fight back and, as they see it, 'water the tree of liberty' with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
I wonder this about liberals all the time.
I think the answer is the same for both groups.... They really don't know. They're children having meltdowns. They've lost the ability to comprehend reality.
Liberals can tell you in granular detail what they want, even though we have varying degrees of support for certain issues. Conservatives can’t even put what they want into words - at least not words suitable for public consumption.
They want "their" country back and they want everyone to worship 1776.
No you can't.
Sometimes you tell us what you think you want. Very frequently what you want is everybody else to change behavior so you'll feel better about something.
One of the major reasons you get so much pushback is because everybody else knows what you claim you want is not going to actually make you happy and you'll be back later bitching about how you want more of what didn't work before. You kinda have this pattern established.
You can't even define the "fair share" of taxes you think rich people should be paying. Several of you claim you want single-payer healthcare, but most of you realize what an utter disaster that would be.
OWS spent 6 months sleeping in a park without a clue in hell what they wanted.
Do tell us all what it would take to get all these athletes to stop "taking a knee", and why they didn't just pick up the phone and schedule lunch with their governors so they could ask in person. (Because when you're in the NFL...you can do that.) While we're on that...if black lives mattered half as much as white liberal feelings, we'd have actually done something helpful by now.
I can never understand why it bothers someone to see someone "taking a knee". It is a personal decision on their part to protest .... whatever.
Same thing would hold true if conservative football players started taking a knee to protest same sex marriage. If thats how they want to spend the period when the national anthem plays, so be it.
The idea that this should infuriate people seems kind of bizarre to me.
Neither do I. I don't see the problem with it. If anything (and historically speaking), taking a knee shows a greater form of respect.
Many people are irrational and emotional and react accordingly.
I don't think any country that has universal healthcare would give it up.
I wouldn't call Medicare, Medicaid or the VA a disaster.
It's not actually a protest. It has no stated aim. There is not even a suggestion about what should be done differently.
Personally, I don't care what they do. But "granular detail"?? That's hilarious.
Personally, I don't care what they do. But "granular detail"?? That's hilarious.
That’s because you are a staunch conservative, and as such you couldn’t even recognize granular detail if you were on a beach. You are an eternal contrarian, quick with a cynical comeback that serves to only halt a conversation and move the ball anywhere but forward. There’s a reason that policy on the left side of the isle is deemed progressive - when the right is in charge of policy decisions nothing changes until it’s hopelessly broken and has no option left but to change.
So much so I voted for Biden. Try again. Unless you're going to try to call him a conservative, which should be hilarious.
When presented with dipshittery, always. Every time. Not sorry.
I have zero interest in validating the feelings of people who cannot wait to pave our road to hell with their good intentions.
It's telling that you mistake "pragmatism" for "conservatism". Especially since conservatism hasn't actually been very practical for about 15 years.
No, they're deemed "progressive" because the dipshits advocating them made such a laughing stock of the word "liberal", they had to re-brand themselves.
Progressive athletes kneel, disrespect the flag, turn it into a protest for personal profit audition and it's conservatives' fault people don't like that?
It's the same old story. Democrats act divisively and then blame conservatives for pointing it out.
Is putting Donald Trump's name or face on a large American flag disrespectful to the flag?
Sean, is putting an image of Donald Trump on an American flag divisive? yes or no ?
Putting that sack of shit on the American flag is beyond disrespectful, divisive and disgusting.
Sure it is.
Is any American athlete waiving a Trump flag on the podium? If they were, would the MSM, and left wing propaganda outlets like Vox claim it was Unamerican to criticize Trump flag waiving athletes?
Left wing propaganda outlets - the deflection/projection/denial is neve rending with the trumpturdians.
Only to rampant TDS sufferers.
You said it is disrespectful to America for athletes to kneel during the national anthem, and I say it is disrespectful to America to put Trumps image on an American flag.
Why do Trump supporters want to disrespect America?
Has any Trump supporting American athlete used an Olympic medal ceremony to wave a Trump flag?
Has anyone major media outlet claimed you've turned on America for criticizing someone for waiving a Trump flag?
When that happens you have an actual apples to apples comparison.
Why would anyone say that?
I could care that the women's soccer team lost to Sweden and then Canada; nor do I care about the US men's basketball team losing to France. Some US athletes have gotten too big for their britches; and have forgotten what they are there for. Some athletes are just self entitled assholes that are only at the Olympics for themselves; the endorsements it will bring; or whatever BS political message they want to send; and should be treated as such. Maybe if they spent more time practicing and preparing for their opponents; and less time being self absorbed they wouldn't be under performing and losing.
As for Simone Biles, it wasn't just conservatives that were calling her out for not performing. I am considered by many on this site to be very conservative and I support her fully, and still think she is the G.O.A.T.
I am actually going to break down and agree with you.
An international stage Imo, that is suppose to bring countries together and foster healthy competition is no place to bring domestic problems.
That said, I don't watch the Olympics. Haha
I watched the "women's" skateboarding with a degree of disbelief last night.
The youngest competitor was 12? Two of the medalists were 13?
But it was a joy to watch these young teens cheer for each other sincerely and congratulate each other with meaning.
When the last competitor fell, sealing a Bronze for Sky Brown,
(born in Japan, raised in California but skating for Great Britain? )
other girls raced to her aid and comforted her.
Truly amazing how happy they were for each other.
[removed]
Exactly....well said!
This article boils down to claiming that criticism of progressivism and/or progressives is now anti-American.
Totalitarianism and the left walk in hand in hand. I'm waiting for the Dems thought police to open up their old tried and true methods oft reeducation camps, concentration camps and the guillotine.
[removed]
[deleted]
Then you're going to have to wait a very very long time since those are tactics used by conservative fascists, not progressives and liberals. Just because someone calls you a dork for not wearing the latest fashion fads doesn't make them a totalitarian. Progressives have made it 'cool' or 'hip' to care about the planet, to be climate conscious, racially sensitive, open to varied gender and sexual orientations, accepting of vegans, vegetarians, atheists and other non-Christians. Just because you feel like they're calling you a dork for not being 'cool' and accepting of the same things doesn't make them totalitarians. Sure, conservatives might feel pressure to 'fit in' as any kid in school might have when seeing all the other kids wearing the new fashion trends, but no one is forcing them to change, they just feel like they're getting left behind and that their old stubborn conservative 'white culture' isn't as popular anymore which is why they were screaming to "Make America Great Again" by taking it back to the 1950's when they were the most popular and considered the 'cool' kids.
Let's face it, liberals and progressives have continued to make America a "more perfect union" as our founders intended. Progressives fought for women's right to vote, fought for black Americans right to vote, fought against segregation, fought to end bans on interracial marriage, fought to end bans on gay marriage, they've constantly been battling conservatives for the heart of America and to make a better nation for all, and they've been winning even though it may takes years to defeat the entrenched conservatives who fought to keep the status quo. But after fighting to make America a more perfect union for over 200 years American liberals and progressives have never used reeducation camps, concentration camps or guillotines to achieve their goals. To believe they're somehow likely to start now is bat shit crazy and akin to believing Democrats eat babies, the moon landing was faked, fluoride is a mind control drug and that the earth is flat and only 9,000 years old.
Love the revisionist history. The Jacobins (look it up if need be) and communists are now "Conservative fascists". Some people would be too worried their audience has a basic familiarity with history to write that publicly. I guess you know your audience though.
I had to stop after the next sentence. I don't like seeing strawmen ritually abused.
they just feel like they're getting left behind and that their old stubborn conservative 'white culture' isn't as popular anymore which is why they were screaming to "Make America GreatAgain"
But when, exactly, was America actually "great"?
Trump's MAGA-Supporters explain . . .
(Youtube - Jordan Klepper Comedy Central - When Was America Great? - 6,751,142 views - Jul 22, 2016)
The last line was hilarious !!!
To a degree, social conservatives (which have now been allied with political conservatives for a good 60 years) are always going to be chafing at change in American culture and bemoaning the demise of what once was. It’s kind of the nature of being conservative.
But conservatism needn’t be closed-minded. People can resist change without being completely closed off to it. Healthy conservatism should be slow to change because it sees value in the old ways and carefully considers the consequences of change. But conservatism that is closed to any and all change has morphed into extreme fundamentalism.
It’s even worse when the conservative clings to the past by extolling all the pros of tradition and yet ignoring all the cons. Are some traditions worth holding on to? Of course! But if you can’t acknowledge the injustices and inequities of the past, then that kind of conservatism is toxic. Unfortunately, that is where much of the Right is now.
I feel like if your culture has value and relevance, it doesn’t need to worry about losing a culture war.
There are days you hit it out of the park, Tacos. Today is one of those days
Some of the comments are on topic, some of them arent in imo.
This is the topic of the seed , imo
My plan to deal with liberals destruction of America is to go Galt. We are quickly approaching the final chapter of Atlas Shrugged.
He looks severely constipated
Who is Ayn Rand? ... /S
The world is coming to an end!
Dean, there is no such thing as "rights" without government to enforce them.
John Galt says near the end, "build....a world of mutual respect".
That is not the world that exists.
Libertarianism is a utopia, and utopias are not possible in the real world.
And liberalism or whatever the far left wants to call it, is not the answer to todays problems.
What fucking nonsense.
Gee I missed you!
You can't actually believe that garbage.
Sounds like you live in the past.
Soo...... It's just like liberal anti-Americanism, then, only righty-tighty instead of lefty-loosey.
There's a certain amount of truth in that. It has become very trendy for some to accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being "anti-American."
I was going more with the "fictional ideal of a perfect America that's constantly betrayed by reality, leading to disillusionment and even disgust with the country as it actually exists."