# Better Conservatives? Where?! (A response to Coffeecat) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 30, 2018, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208 "2018-09-30T08:43:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/101 "2018-10-01T04:12:53Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I actually do invite anyone who mentions that there are some good, intelligent conservative voices that we are missing to point them out. Surely they are saying this because they’ve seen them elsewhere online. So point them out. > > Because I have not encountered them. … It’s all talking points and garbage. > > I’ve been into r/the\_donald. I don’t respond, but I did go in to try and understand them. Not a single bit of intelligence there. > > Honestly, I think we have the smartest conservatives here. At least, the smartest I’ve run into online. It really is flabbergasting that this ilk is running the world’s superpower. It couldn’t have happened back in the 19th and 20th centuries. Even if the cigar smokers in the smoke-filled rooms were as _evil_ as the present ilk, they’d never have been so _stupid_. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/102 "2018-10-01T04:13:57Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Both sides are itching for a fight. Echo chambers sure aren’t helping. People on each side, and I’m guilty of this from time to time, are looking at tens of millions of fellow citizens as bizarre caricatures. This is false equivalence to an extreme. One candidate for the 2016 Presidential election threatened to jail his opponent, challenge the result of the election if not his fwvor (and did so even when he won the Electoral College), and transparently lied about something as trivial as the size of his inauguration. The other quietly accepted the result in order to preserve democratic norms despite being accused of unfounded crimes and subject to angry threats by paranoid, angry conspiracy nutters. Ardent Trump supporters look like “bizarre caricatures” because they are; they deny basic facts and adopt groundless conspiracy theories in order to justify their support for person so unqualified to lead the country that he is literally a laughingstock on the international stage, too terrified to shake hands with a small German woman and outmaneuvered by a tinpot dictator a hemit kingdom. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/103 "2018-10-01T04:17:04Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The last Unite the Right was pathetic and Trump’s rallies are happening in smaller venues. We have to stand up with less fear of violence. The point is that fighting effectively against the cosplayer fascists is worrisome, but it is not as fearful as you want to paint it. Yes. And furthermore the path forward involves assembling electoral super-majorities. Mathematically that means higher Dem turnout, lower Repub turnout, and some swing to the Dems. In some combination. ACLU style fights also are relevant. Asahi’s stuff smacks of luxury. Realistically speaking. Or possibly just venting in the pit, which is ok. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/104 "2018-10-01T04:19:07Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > I read the parenthetical in the thread title as “A response to Covfefe”. Anyway, it’s a waste of time today to try to persuade the current crop of rightist supporters of anything. Look at trump’s latest nonsensical commentary about him and one of the worst dictators of all time. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if trump were to actually kill someone in Time Square and get away with it. Oh, I absolutely believe that he could get away with that. Hell, he could wander into a preschool , bristling with weapons, mow down everybody in the place, walk out licking the blood from his hands, and then he and his supporters would find a way to blame it all on Hillary, Democrats, Muslims, gays, or anyone whose skin is darker than a soda cracker. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/105 "2018-10-01T05:14:36Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Wool-coat Republicans went extinct long ago. Their successors were absorbed into the Democratic fold by Bill Clinton, who boasted of going over the budget, “Line by line and dime by dime.” Whatever the accuracy of that marketing claim, it speaks to the sort of coalition he was trying to lead. Once again, I have to say I enjoy your cogent posts on all topics. I’ve heard them called cloth-coat Republicans, because they were Conservative but “of the people” (distinct from being Populist, which is its own strain in politics) enough that their wives wore coats made of cloth instead of mink, but I firmly agree with you: The reason the intelligent Republicans were so scared of Clinton was that he was intelligent enough, savvy enough, and, yes, Conservative enough to form a coalition with the people their party used to have a lock on but which they began to lose over Culture War issues. (BTW, the term “cloth coat” in this context comes from Nixon. In the Checkers Speech. So… yeah. The stench of impropriety remains.) So they launched a massive smear campaign against the Clintons going back decades, culminating in the Pizzagate insanity. You can trace the descent, kinda: Whitewater was, at least on the surface, an investigation into something which, legitimate or not, was at least the kind of thing it’s reasonable to investigate. Bill’s blowjob was trending to the hysterical, but they could keep screeching about perjury and hope nobody questioned the value of the underlying investigation or why Starr was more interested in that adultery than Hillary seemed to be. Pizzagate went entirely off the rails, something you can’t defend on its merits because it isn’t even minimally sane. However, there were insane conspiracy theories current among the Republicans even back in the Whitewater era, such as the Death List and the supposed murder of Vince Foster. There were also books like “China Doll”, alleging that Bill Clinton was owned by Red China. However, Trump palled around with the people responsible for spreading Pizzagate, showing the devolution of the mainstream Republican Party and the collapse of the GOP itself into the Far-Right Conspiracy Complex of people who spread and believe Infowars-scale conspiracy theories. I do want to introduce another friend from history, the [Rockefeller Republicans](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Republican): > [@RationalWiki](#): > > Rockefeller Republican (named after former New York Governor and Ford’s Vice President Nelson Rockefeller of the Rockefeller family) was a euphemism used to describe members of the moderate wing of the Republican Party. They were the dominant force in the party from the end of World War II until 1964, when the party’s conservative elements backed Barry Goldwater for President and did lasting damage to its influence, but remained a powerful wing of the GOP until the late '70s and the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan. > > They were usually fiscally moderate to center-right,[1] socially moderate to center-left, and slightly hawkish on foreign policy, and were thus sometimes referred to as “liberal Republicans”. Dwight Eisenhower used the term “modern Republicanism” to describe this wing of the Party, as opposed to the Old Right led by Robert Taft and other conservatives. Geographically, they were mostly concentrated on the East Coast, especially New York and Pennsylvania, leading to the nickname “the Eastern Establishment” to describe them at the height of their power. > > Economically, they were opposed to socialism and government ownership of businesses, but still supported the rights of organized labor, some regulations on business, and the basic framework of the New Deal as integral parts of a capitalist system, though as FDR notes, they always dressed their tacit support with “We would like to, uhh, change it, you know?” They believed in investment in education, health care, and infrastructure, supporting low-cost public universities and the Interstate Highway System as a way to supply businesses with an educated workforce and modern highways to facilitate their growth. Like modern Republicans, they favored balanced budgets, though unlike modern Republicans, they were not averse to raising taxes in order to do so. They were strong supporters of Wall Street and big business; many of their ranks came from the worlds of business and finance. They contrasted themselves with the Democratic Party by styling themselves as the party of “good governance” in contrast to the often corrupt (and often Democratic) political machines of the big cities; they were a “protest vote” in urban areas, and when elected, they often came in as reformers. > > Socially, they were broadly supportive of civil rights, feminism, reproductive rights, and other social reform movements, at times to a greater extent than the mainstream of the Democratic Party and certainly more than its white Southern wing. Republicans like Earl Warren presided over many of the early social reforms of the 1950s and early '60s. However, for better or worse, it was typically an upper-class, WASP-y liberalism with a VSP perspective on many such issues, seeking to accept and facilitate changes that were already happening and correct obvious injustices in society, but not rock the boat and push much further. When the New Left emerged in the late '60s, the Rockefeller Republicans often seemed reactionary by comparison. On foreign policy, they repudiated the isolationism of the “Old Right” and were often fiercely anti-communist Cold Warriors, though not rabidly so; Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his Farewell Address, warned about the growing power and influence of the military-industrial complex, and Nixon ran on a platform of ending the Vietnam War “with honor.” Many of the politicians listed below were opponents, or at least critics, of the Vietnam War. Of all those issues, Machine Politics is completely dead. Corruption is now a Republican issue, but not in the form of Boss Tweed and the Tammany Hall Machine and so on and anon. The other issues are ones a good Democrat could run on, and should. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/106 "2018-10-01T05:18:01Z")
Uh, needless to say: Those Rockefeller Republicans? Bill Clinton would have been one of them. No question. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/107 "2018-10-01T07:28:59Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > Oh, I absolutely believe that he could get away with that. Hell, he could wander into a preschool , bristling with weapons, mow down everybody in the place, walk out licking the blood from his hands, and then he and his supporters would find a way to blame it all on Hillary, Democrats, Muslims, gays, or anyone whose skin is darker than a soda cracker. Well, duh. They’d say it was crisis actors hired by those you mention. And, yes, I’m stealing that line about darker than a soda cracker. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/108 "2018-10-01T11:02:09Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Yeah, and Republicans were and are actively working to guarantee any “actual evidence” would never appear. Do you have any evidence to back up that statement? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/109 "2018-10-01T11:16:29Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Most of the Republican party is composed of people who would love to help run a Nazi style death camp, as long as they got to wear an American flag armband instead of a swastika one. It’s a vile organization composed of vile people. I’ll just let you be condemned by your own words. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/110 "2018-10-01T11:18:45Z")
Yeah, **Der Trihs** is not helping. It’s like if **Asahi** took some bad acid and then was put in a time machine and went back 10 years, because he’s been like this _forever_. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/111 "2018-10-01T12:10:08Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I’ll just let you be condemned by your own words. Says the rape supporter. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/112 "2018-10-01T12:22:46Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I’ll just let you be condemned by your own words. They elected a guy who campaigned on blocking every member of a particular religion from entering the country. Do you really think there’s a difference in that outlook and putting people in camps? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/113 "2018-10-01T12:33:46Z")
I left something off. Trump’s supporters loved him campaigning on that ban. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/114 "2018-10-01T13:29:03Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > **This is false equivalence to an extreme**. One candidate for the 2016 Presidential election threatened to jail his opponent, challenge the result of the election if not his fwvor (and did so even when he won the Electoral College), and transparently lied about something as trivial as the size of his inauguration. The other quietly accepted the result in order to preserve democratic norms despite being accused of unfounded crimes and subject to angry threats by paranoid, angry conspiracy nutters. > > Ardent Trump supporters look like “bizarre caricatures” because they are; they deny basic facts and adopt groundless conspiracy theories in order to justify their support for person so unqualified to lead the country that he is literally a laughingstock on the international stage, too terrified to shake hands with a small German woman and outmaneuvered by a tinpot dictator a hemit kingdom. > > Stranger Yes. We KNOW which side kept and still keeps talking about violence, and which side uses so many opportunities to show off their guns. > **[Rudy Giuliani Threatens The American People With Violence If Trump Is Impeached](https://www.politicususa.com/2018/08/23/rudy-giuliani-violence-trump-impeached.html)** > > The desperation is growing from Trump’s legal team, as Rudy Giuliani is warning of a revolt by the American people if the president is impeached. Sky News reported: In an interview with Sky News Rudy… Thu, Aug 23rd, 2018 by Jason Easley Rudy Giuliani Threatens The American People With Violence If Trump Is Impeached That was JUST the latest. > **[Trump warns of 'violence' if GOP loses midterms: News Links](https://www.cleveland.com/nation/2018/08/trump_warns_of_violence_if_gop.html)** > > Also, Vatican knew of Pennsylvania sex abuse cover-up, prosecutor says; Trumpism, progressivism triumph in Tuesday's primaries as key November races take shape; Defense Sec. James Mattis suggests U.S. military exercises near N.K. border are back on Trump warns of ‘violence’ if GOP loses in midterms: A.M. News Links Updated Aug 29; Posted Aug 29 and > **[Perspective | Right-wing warnings pose far more danger to America than...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/09/28/right-wing-warnings-pose-far-more-danger-america-than-left-wing-violence/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9c68e27d6f4d)** > > Authoritarians historically have gained power by pointing to nonexistent violence from their opponents. But the story that a wave of left-wing terrorism threatens America is wrong. The poster child for this false narrative is antifa, a small, weak organization that protests white supremacist aggression. The real threat of violence comes from the right. The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism reports that right-wingers and white supremacists were responsible for 74 percent of the murders committed by political extremists in the United States over the past decade. Only 2 percent were committed by left-wing radicals. Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, has calculated that “terrorists inspired by Nationalist and Right Wing ideology have killed about 10 times as many people as Left Wing terrorists since 1992.” and so it goes. You can include the Cliven Bundy bunch, Lou Dobbs, Alex Jones, and ALL the other rightwing lying assholes who threaten (or warn??) of violence and civil war whenever they don’t get their way. And the Charlottesville Nazis, with their _“blood and soil”_ horse shit. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/115 "2018-10-01T13:29:22Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > I left something off. Trump’s supporters loved him campaigning on that ban. That and “Lock her up!”. Building a wall, deporting all the “bad hombres”, and imprisoning Hillary Clinton for unspecified crimes were as close as his campaign got to having actual policy statements. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/116 "2018-10-01T13:35:11Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > They elected a guy who campaigned on blocking every member of a particular religion from entering the country. Do you really think there’s a difference in that outlook and putting people in camps? But they DO have camps. NOW. > **[Hundreds of immigrant children are being held in fenced cages at border facility](https://www.chicagotribune.com/2018/06/18/hundreds-of-immigrant-children-are-being-held-in-fenced-cages-at-border-facility/)** > > Inside an old warehouse in South Texas, hundreds of immigrant children wait in a series of cages created by metal fencing. One cage had 20 children inside. Scattered about are bottles of water, bag… Hundreds of immigrant children are being held in fenced cages at border facility > **[Trump migrant separation policy: Children 'in cages' in Texas](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44518942)** > > Reporters who visited a migrant detention centre in Texas say they saw 20 children in one enclosure. Trump migrant separation policy: Children ‘in cages’ in Texas And the Trumpies love that shit. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/117 "2018-10-01T14:59:26Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > They elected a guy who campaigned on blocking every member of a particular religion from entering the country. Do you really think there’s a difference in that outlook and putting people in camps? Nazi-style death camps, as **Der Trihs** said? Sure I do. Keeping people out of the country isn’t the same as torturing millions of them to death. [Jesus probably agrees with you,](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5%3A21-22&version=NIV) but I think the two of you failed to make proper distinctions and need to smoke a blunt together and chill. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/118 "2018-10-01T16:19:21Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Says the rape supporter. I don’t support rape. Perhaps you ought to read that thread instead of just reading the title and watch several Dopers make complete idiots of themselves. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/119 "2018-10-01T16:29:04Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > But they DO have camps. NOW. > > [Hundreds of immigrant children are being held in fenced cages at border facility – Chicago Tribune](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-children-border-patrol-facility-20180617-story.html) > > Hundreds of immigrant children are being held in fenced cages at border facility > > [Trump migrant separation policy: Children 'in cages' in Texas](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44518942) > > Trump migrant separation policy: Children ‘in cages’ in Texas > > And the Trumpies love that shit. Pointing out that Trumpists support authoritarianism apparently makes us the problem. We’re apparently supposed to wait until it’s too late then try and do something about the fascists in our nation. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/120 "2018-10-01T16:29:35Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I don’t support rape. Perhaps you ought to read that thread instead of just reading the title and watch several Dopers make complete idiots of themselves. No, you don’t support rape. But you pee your pants when anyone else calls a sexual predator a “sexual predator,” and then you have the gall to talk about the need for more civility (after you stiffed a [female] minimum wage worker on a tip because the chef’s Hollandaise sauce had “no discernible lemon.”) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208.md?page=7)