Which is exactly what Barry Goldwater was worried about.
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Poll: Are Trump and his supporters really conservatives? Why and why not?
- Thread starter 81usaf92
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So what are your definitions of what it means to be a conservative?
Genuinely curious and not being snarky. You saw mine, and that I think he's violated 2 of the 3.
What is your x+y= conservative?
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It's the manner of thinking of an individual, group, or culture that turns my childhood comic book hero into something that I find hard to identify with...
I'm not speaking for anyone but myself.:smile:
I get confused about whether our political professionals are like those portrayed in "Madam Secretary" or more like those in the season two Netflix series "Ozark"
I like both shows.
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After that post, I think you have an obligation to define "conservatism." In particular, I challenge strongly your assertion that "conservatism" hasn't changed in 50 years. It has...
Trump is definitely not a conservative nor is he really a Republican.
He's a Sociopathic, Narcissistic Tyrant who will act in whatever ways best help him to manipulate people and situations to better serve his own self interests.
As for his followers or 'Trumpers', or 'Trumpets' or whatever term is used to describe them.... I have NO idea what they are because they aren't all the same.
The few friends I have that support him look like absolute tin-foil hat wearing looney toons on social media. I cringe over just about everything they post and talk about.
The main thing I know is that they are huge conspiracy theorists. They believe all that 'Q' insider knowledge nonsense that floats around online and lap it all up like it was unearthed by Snowden. It all paints Trump in a light where he's fighting this behind the scenes war against real traitors, terrorists, and cabal sanctioned pedo rings. It's nuts.
Then the only family member I associate with that supports Trump is my Dad. He laps all of Trump's stuff up because he's a Racist, Ignorant, Bigot just like Trump.
I can't even begin to describe how ashamed I am to be related to the man or for him to even be my father. It's disgusting.
Worse yet I can't willingly get away from it. He's basically on at home hospice right now with me being the only caregiver and he has his TV on Fox News 24/7 and it makes me want to jab ice picks into my ears so I don't ever have to hear Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity or Donald Trump again for the rest of my life.
As for me, I use to be just a normal conservative (whatever that use to be) and now I don't even know what I am. I'm not really a Republican or Democrat or Conservative, or Liberal,.....
I determine how I feel on each and every issue on a case by case basis, and ultimately choose my stance based off my own internal moral code instead of any dogmatic teachings.
He's a Sociopathic, Narcissistic Tyrant who will act in whatever ways best help him to manipulate people and situations to better serve his own self interests.
As for his followers or 'Trumpers', or 'Trumpets' or whatever term is used to describe them.... I have NO idea what they are because they aren't all the same.
The few friends I have that support him look like absolute tin-foil hat wearing looney toons on social media. I cringe over just about everything they post and talk about.
The main thing I know is that they are huge conspiracy theorists. They believe all that 'Q' insider knowledge nonsense that floats around online and lap it all up like it was unearthed by Snowden. It all paints Trump in a light where he's fighting this behind the scenes war against real traitors, terrorists, and cabal sanctioned pedo rings. It's nuts.
Then the only family member I associate with that supports Trump is my Dad. He laps all of Trump's stuff up because he's a Racist, Ignorant, Bigot just like Trump.
I can't even begin to describe how ashamed I am to be related to the man or for him to even be my father. It's disgusting.
Worse yet I can't willingly get away from it. He's basically on at home hospice right now with me being the only caregiver and he has his TV on Fox News 24/7 and it makes me want to jab ice picks into my ears so I don't ever have to hear Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity or Donald Trump again for the rest of my life.
As for me, I use to be just a normal conservative (whatever that use to be) and now I don't even know what I am. I'm not really a Republican or Democrat or Conservative, or Liberal,.....
I determine how I feel on each and every issue on a case by case basis, and ultimately choose my stance based off my own internal moral code instead of any dogmatic teachings.
I've asked him to define conservatism. I'll be very interested in his answer, if I get one. From his post, he has a very firm idea of what a "conservative" is and I think religion has a lot to do with it...
Sir - and I speak respectfully,
Ronald Reagan may not have done the best job in the world of balancing the budget (there's an understatement). But since he's supposed to be the patron saint of modern Republicanism and is cited by every Republican now as if he's one step short of Jesus His Own Self, let's consider a few things. Consider the words of the late liberal commentator Jack Germond:
I agreed with Ronald Reagan on few if any issues. I thought his economic and fiscal policies were disastrous, and the invasion of Grenada a national shame. But it was always clear that he had values he wanted to defend and goals he wanted to achieve. You might not agree with them, but you could not question the sincerity with which Reagan pursued them.
I would also note that then Senator Barack Obama - and he caught all kinds of hell from Hillary for it - stated that Reagan "changed the trajectory of America in a way that (Nixon and Clinton) did not." He further credited the GOP with "challenging conventional wisdom" for 10 to 15 years. He said this in 2008 when he was still not yet the Democratic nominee (and at least gave me hopes that he wasn't a hard left ideologue).
Reagan wasn't the brightest bulb in the box - and to his credit, he knew that. But he was what every successful President is - a pragmatist that may have to bend his ideology in a way that disappoints his voters but with the long-term betterment of the country in mind. Reagan's deficits have to be viewed NOT through the old "well, the Democrats ran the House" (that is a major part of the budget dance, yes, but there's more) so much as they were WAR deficits (it was called the Cold War) that were in part the result of inflation caused by the efforts LBJ went through to hide exactly how much the Vietnam War was costing us. That war crippled the Presidencies of Nixon, Ford, and Carter.
The point, however, is this: Reagan's basic ideology was a commitment to a series of principles that included a strong national defense, essential personal liberty, a commitment to law and order, low taxes that permit people to keep more of their own money, fewer government regulations (that had admittedly gotten WAY out of hand), and courts that would exercise judicial restraint - and a sort of federalism where things were done primarily at the local level. Now - when you get into political arguments on such things, distortions or excesses are bound to happen. To give one well-known example, his fervor for "protecting religious liberty" (a fair enough concept) at Bob Jones University and the Goldsboro, NC school system ran afoul of the conflict with denying tax exemptions if you practice discrimination. But the point is this: whether you liked it or not, Reagan had an inner compass AS DO MOST PEOPLE of goals he wanted to try and meet.
While Reagan was staunchly pro-life, the reality is that he realized early on that there was no way he was going to get Roe v Wade overturned. But he went about ways of limiting it as he could INCLUDING (so controversial at the time) the recommendation of his Surgeon General - an evangelical Christian named C. Everett Koop, who was no fan of abortion himself - to making contraceptives available on college campuses (this was sort of an offshoot of the attempt to limit AIDS, one of Reagan's great failures in terms of response). Koop, too, was a pragmatist - he was commissioned to do a study that would somehow prove that abortion caused mental problems and other things......but Koop was also something rejected nowadays, he was a SCIENTIST - and his research did not support that idea.
Reagan was not perfect or even close, but he was respected by a majority of the country, including the majority of those that did not vote for him. He wasn't as beloved as everyone pretends in retrospect that he was (nor was JFK but I digress), but IN MOST CASES he responded to the challenges given him AND he did so without being beholden to his ideology.
He HAD an ideology, but he was not a slave to that ideology, either. It was Reagan - and this was shocking - that wound up negotiating with the Soviet Union to set back the Doomsday Clock. When he did, it was right-wing nuts in this country that freaked out - and liberals who sung his praises. You see, once upon a time right-wing nuts didn't trust Russians.
Reagan bungled Lebanon, yes.
He bungled the AIDS response, yes.
He bungled sending arms to Iran, yes.
But he also vociferously denounced an endorsement in 1980 by a local chapter of the Klan, dismissing them as "those that no longer understand our country." He didn't play "both sides at Charlottesville" or pretend he didn't have a damned clue who David Duke was (who was also publicly denounced by Pres Bush 41 BEFORE the 1991 LA governor election).
Donald Trump is none of these things.
Barry Goldwater had genuine concerns that Social Security as an entitlement program was going to cause some budget problems - and this was before Medicare or a bunch of added monies to the COLAs thanks to Wilbur Mills in the 1970s. His concern was fiscal, it wasn't "let's take Grandma's check from her."
Richard Nixon, in fact, mouthed the Republican tune of conservatism while expanding the federal budget and regulations. But for all his flaws, he opened China.
Oh and one more thing on judges and abortion here........I'll never understand why the GOP gets a free pass on the judges.
Reagan nominated three (O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy) and elevated Rhenquist to Chief.
Bush 41 nominated two (Souter and Thomas).
That's SIX judges right there when you only need five to overturn abortion (note: Rhenquist was one of the two dissenters in Roe).
What do my GOP friends say? They blame the Democrats for shooting down Bork.
But even if you do that.....you still have five. It should be noted that Reagan and Bush never once (so far as anyone knows) asked any judge HOW they would rule in a certain case, including Roe. Reagan, in fact, set up a group (OLP) that screened judges' records and found some with generally conservative philosophies. THIS (in my view) is defensible. Asking a judge how he will rule on a theoretical case is NOT defensible, nor did I think Bill Clinton was correct in promising that any judge he appointed would have to promise to uphold Roe (I had no problem with him promoting his philosophy nor Reagan nor anyone else).
This current guy? He wants to know up front if Kavanaugh or Gorusch will rule against him. I'll give you a hint- I think they will.
Neither Reagan nor Bush got judges on the basis of what those judges would do FOR THEM PERSONALLY; that's all Trump wants - how will this affect me, will I have to obey the law.
Reagan was born to the town drunk and made himself into something - several somethings in fact.
Bush was born to wealth and was a far more successful businessman than Trump ever dreamed of being.
Conservatism under Goldwater (as he said it), Reagan, and Bush - in general - was "we can do these things, but we can't/won't do those."
Modern conservatism is, "God is on my side, and you are going to Hell." This scares me to death as an evangelical - maybe it's the fact I grew up in Europe and studied the history of all those people who were fighting over - as George Carlin liked to say it - who had the biggest imaginary friend. Now, I'm an evangelical seminarian myself, but I'm sick to the soul over what I see.
If I wanted trillion dollar deficits yearly, foreign policy isolationism, and an economy propped up by Chinese money, I used to could have supported a Green New Deal; now, I can just vote Republican and blame the pinko socialists for the fact I don't get laid much anymore.
Are we still waiting on the definition of conservatism? Me thinks we may be waiting quite a while.
"Today's" conservatism is the opposite of what liberals conservatives want today, updated daily."
Fify
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Fify
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Conservatism hasn’t changed and never will. It is what it is. Interpretation has most certainly changed. I, like you, gave up on Republicans when they embraced big government. Both parties give that in totally irresponsible levels. The only difference is what they waste the money on.
I’d say the modern “conservative” is more a cafeteria conservative because they seem to like to pick and choose which principles they want to espouse at any one time.
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I’m not getting all the “Conservatives are all theocrats demanding all to repent and embrace Christianity.” I mean there’s Roy Moore but who else? Not really seeing that as a platform. That’s almost like saying all Liberals are demanding everyone becomes either homosexual or have gender reassignment.
The “all or nothing” stance that the left and right enforce are why many are so disgusted with politics in general. Now the fringes on both sides are so dangerous that it frightens me for our country.
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The “all or nothing” stance that the left and right enforce are why many are so disgusted with politics in general. Now the fringes on both sides are so dangerous that it frightens me for our country.
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Haven't you heard? If you voted for Trump you are 100% racist, fascist, bigot, intolerant, and secretly cheer for Tennessee. If you didn't vote for Trump, you are a commie socialist snowflake who wants the government to pay for everything, and you secretly cheer for the barn. There is no middle ground. Battle lines have been drawn. Generals Hannity and Maddow will tolerate no dissension. You will toe the party line. Moderates from wither side will be weighed, measured, found lacking, and discarded. (Just ask Biden)
Even I wouldn't make that claim
though it cannot be denied that the GOP is completely in the bag for the Theocrats. It is why Trump has record levels of evangelical support
Agree completely. Although, the GOP hasn't completely cornered the market....
Florida Dem proposes bill requiring Bible courses, allowing prayer in public schools
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey74Is0zwaM
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