# 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:** 7
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/121 "2018-10-01T16:38:52Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I’ll go a little further. > > I’m tired of moderate progressives who stand in our way, trying to be the “voice of reason” when there is no reason. > > No use for you anymore. Be silent. Why the fuck are you posting like a right-wing troll? You are beginning to sound like a lefty caricature in a _Mallard Fillmore_ comic strip. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/122 "2018-10-01T17:04:08Z")
Has anyone posted at least one name yet of a “Better Conservative”? I nominate Larry Hogan, Governor of Maryland. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/123 "2018-10-01T17:52:35Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Has anyone posted at least one name yet of a “Better Conservative”? > > I nominate Larry Hogan, Governor of Maryland. There’s him, Mitt Romney would be another. Mitt may not agree with me on anything, but I think he’s a man of honor and integrity. ---
**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, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/124 "2018-10-01T18:13:39Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Has anyone posted at least one name yet of a “Better Conservative”? > > I nominate Larry Hogan, Governor of Maryland. He’s a fairly reasonable candidate, given that he’s a Conservative. > [@BobLibDem](#): > > There’s him, Mitt Romney would be another. Mitt may not agree with me on anything, but I think he’s a man of honor and integrity. Romney isn’t a Conservative. He’s a Reactionary, based on his views on abortion and marriage equality. Note that I’m not saying this to insult him. I’m simply saying that his desire to overturn _Roe v. Wade_ and _Obergefell_ means he wants to undo social change, which is Reactionary by definition. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/125 "2018-10-01T19:00:28Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > He’s a fairly reasonable candidate, given that he’s a Conservative. > > Romney isn’t a Conservative. He’s a Reactionary, based on his views on abortion and marriage equality. > > Note that I’m not saying this to insult him. I’m simply saying that his desire to overturn _Roe v. Wade_ and _Obergefell_ means he wants to undo social change, which is Reactionary by definition. OK, by that definition, sure. But if we define conservatives as wanting no change at all then there won’t be very many conservatives. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/126 "2018-10-01T19:44:05Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > If what the OP is saying is true we are headed for Civil War II. Do you think we are in the lead up to factional warfare? This got derailed into a flame war, of course. Let’s try a different method. I would think that a second Civil War is unlikely because: There’s no clear geographical boundary that separates two clashing ideologies. Not all of California is liberal, not all of Alabama is conservative, etc. Political opinions are mixed among the populace. There is no one side in power enough to deny the other side chief commodities, despite what survivalists think. It all channels through clogged bureaucratic channels in DC, and the usual method is to delay until a new administration takes charge and tempers fade. Very few are willing to give up interstate commerce whole heartedly. Maybe one state refuses to deal with another in a certain industry, such as entertainment, because of gender issues, but tempers eventually fade when dollars stop flowing. Capitalism has a way of doing that. Race war has been a concern for decades, but our children use social technology that erodes racial borders, so they’re less likely to hold on to grudges as our country ages. Things may look bad now, but no society remains static for long. Does that compute? ---
**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, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/127 "2018-10-01T19:48:40Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > OK, by that definition, sure. But if we define conservatives as wanting no change at all then there won’t be very many conservatives. Indeed, which is why I didn’t; I defined it as wanting slow, measured change, with an eye to fixing existing institutions, as opposed to tearing things down and replacing them. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/128 "2018-10-01T19:55:37Z")
I think the GOP leadership has been mostly captured by a small gang of oligarchs. The ideas coming from the top are just so pro-wealthy and anti-democratic that there is no way it could be the summation of the collective will of regular working laypeople. Sometimes Ben Sasse suggests he isn’t a complete kool-aid drinking moron, but his actual voting record doesn’t impress. Anyway, I think a lot of R voters don’t really follow politics. I think a lot of them were not really helped after 8 years of a Democratic administration and just voted for the other guys. I think Hillary wasn’t a strong candidate even ignoring the propaganda campaign against her. I think insofar as you can get these people to acknowledge the absurdity of GOP leadership described in this thread, they’ll respond, “The Dems had a chance and my town was still blighted!” And I think the Rs are going to get voted out over the next two elections. There will still be plenty of suckers (and racists or Muslim haters), but the GOP will have become too ridiculous for the “good republicans” to keep voting for them. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/129 "2018-10-01T20:29:06Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Indeed, which is why I didn’t; I defined it as wanting slow, measured change, with an eye to fixing existing institutions, as opposed to tearing things down and replacing them. But measured change doesn’t have a directional component. Romney was against gay marriage being legalized nationally, sure, but that was before it became law. So he’s not undoing anything there, just against a particular change. He was for civil unions, which is a slower approach. Now undoing Roe v. Wade is indeed undoing something. But change can include changing something that you think isn’t working. And Romney very much was for slow changes on that front. He was pushing not allowing federal funds for abortion and allowing fetal pain laws. He did say he would be delighted to sign a bill that banned abortion nation-wide, but he specifically said that he would only do it if it were the broad consensus of the American people. and that’s in 2011. In 1994 and 2002, he was pro-choice and that Roe v Wade was settled law, since he was running in Massachusetts. And I note that, when he did support it, it was about laws that were unlikely to be passed in Congress. It thus seems to me that this is just an issue he doesn’t really care about, and just picked the side that would help him politically. I just don’t really see Romney as all that reactionary. Maybe a little bit, but he was more conservative. There’s a reason why I’ve said that, while I didn’t vote for him, I would have been okay with him in charge. The only problem would be his coattails of reactionaries. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/130 "2018-10-01T20:45:53Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > This got derailed into a flame war, of course. Let’s try a different method. > > I would think that a second Civil War is unlikely because: > > There’s no clear geographical boundary that separates two clashing ideologies. Not all of California is liberal, not all of Alabama is conservative, etc. Political opinions are mixed among the populace. > There is no one side in power enough to deny the other side chief commodities, despite what survivalists think. It all channels through clogged bureaucratic channels in DC, and the usual method is to delay until a new administration takes charge and tempers fade. > Very few are willing to give up interstate commerce whole heartedly. Maybe one state refuses to deal with another in a certain industry, such as entertainment, because of gender issues, but tempers eventually fade when dollars stop flowing. Capitalism has a way of doing that. > Race war has been a concern for decades, but our children use social technology that erodes racial borders, so they’re less likely to hold on to grudges as our country ages. Things may look bad now, but no society remains static for long. > > Does that compute? Yeah it computes and maybe you are correct. I just meant factional as guerilla warfare of assassinations, bombings, etc. based on association with the extreme fringes of each party. Not as a 19th or 20th century war of geography. That’s why my main concerns deal with the troubling trends of deplatforming and weaponizing language to silence or “consequence” people because of their views. That undermines the concept of self governance and fundamental rights. And when each side increasingly views the other as illegitimate and feels unable to communicate freely passions can get heated. ---
**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, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/131 "2018-10-01T21:02:37Z")
Meanwhile, we have degenerates like **LAZombie** who is asserting that 4chan has proved that the allegations are made out of whole cloth in order to get a building permit… and the resident “honorable” conservatives on the board are generally willing to entertain such a thing. Fucking shameful. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/132 "2018-10-01T21:09:30Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > I think the GOP leadership has been mostly captured by a small gang of oligarchs. The ideas coming from the top are just so pro-wealthy and anti-democratic that there is no way it could be the summation of the collective will of regular working laypeople. Sometimes Ben Sasse suggests he isn’t a complete kool-aid drinking moron, but his actual voting record doesn’t impress. > > Anyway, I think a lot of R voters don’t really follow politics. I think a lot of them were not really helped after 8 years of a Democratic administration and just voted for the other guys. I think Hillary wasn’t a strong candidate even ignoring the propaganda campaign against her. I think insofar as you can get these people to acknowledge the absurdity of GOP leadership described in this thread, they’ll respond, “The Dems had a chance and my town was still blighted!” > > And I think the Rs are going to get voted out over the next two elections. There will still be plenty of suckers (and racists or Muslim haters), but the GOP will have become too ridiculous for the “good republicans” to keep voting for them. I personally know a woman who’s running for the Illinois legislature as a Republican. As far as I can tell, she’s intelligent, decent and socially moderate. She says she’s a Republican because the Dem-dominated state government has run the state’s finances into the ground. (Sadly, this is true.) I told her I couldn’t possibly vote for her because I consider any vote for any Republican anywhere at any level to be a vote for Trump and all the worst elements that let him gain power. “Yep,” she said. “I hear that every day.” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/133 "2018-10-01T22:00:16Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > I personally know a woman who’s running for the Illinois legislature as a Republican. As far as I can tell, she’s intelligent, decent and socially moderate. She says she’s a Republican because the Dem-dominated state government has run the state’s finances into the ground. (Sadly, this is true.) > > I told her I couldn’t possibly vote for her because I consider any vote for any Republican anywhere at any level to be a vote for Trump and all the worst elements that let him gain power. > > “Yep,” she said. “I hear that every day.” I don’t see much reason she couldn’t run as a Democrat, but be the one who doesn’t agree with the way the finances are run. Unless it’s an incumbency issue, where she doesn’t really have a chance of unseating the current holder. Though it must be really bad if running as a Republican gives her a better chance. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/134 "2018-10-01T22:00:21Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > I was gonna post this in the thread I’m quoting you from, but it’s kind of out there for ATMB, so let’s do it here instead. > > The current republican congress has gained victory first and foremost by decimating democratic norms and grabbing power wherever they can. Many of their number are just straight-up terrible people, like Louie Gohmert or Steve King. Racists, white nationalists, conspiracy theorists, science denialists… And that’s congress. The current republican president is not just phenomenally unpopular, but stupid, gross, vapid, and dangerous - and literally everyone except united states conservatives seem to grasp that. The point here being that the room for conservative republicans to be reasonable or rational has shrunk drastically. It is not a coincidence that when you think “republican on the dope whose posts you’re glad to read” it’s usually a pretty short list - at this point, the partisan split in America is very much between the smart party and the dumb party, and so you end up with a situation where smart people flee the republican party in droves, and those who remain have to make ever-more-extravagant concessions to the party. “No, really, it’s okay to support Trump, because…” Looking for a smart, reasonable, rational republican is becoming more and more like looking for a smart, reasonable, rational young earth creationist. > > This isn’t just a problem on the Dope. We usually get the _better_ ones, because we filter. We have our “echo chamber”, which means that people whose entire schtick is post after post after post of “GET ON THE TRUMP TRAIN, NEXT STOP PWNING-THE-LIBS-VILLE”\* doesn’t get to stick around. Go to ChristianForums, and you’ll see what happens when the echo chamber is expanded to include that kind of person - discussion does not get _better_, it gets _impossible_ unless everyone with half a brain collectively blocks the fuckers. Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, the “smart” people who endorse Trump? Yeah, they’re mostly hardline single-issue voters, and that issue is often _race_. The Trump supporters on rationalist forums generally hold that we need to keep the unwashed hordes at bay via better immigration laws to protect American interests because they have lower IQs and that’s genetic and _you see where this is going_. Again, we tend to filter those people out; “being a shitty racist” is one of the things the mods tend to take poorly to. > > Let’s take the Kavanaugh thread for example. Is it a coincidence that _every single republican there_ has staked out a position pretty damn close to **Starving Artist**? **UltraVires** has _also_ offered truly disgusting rationalizations for what’s going on, to the point where I’m shocked that **SA** took a vacation first (“maybe he wasn’t actually trying to rape her” - fucking really!). **Shodan** got a warning for making a pretty fucking gross, victim-blamey rape joke. Both **UltraVires** and **Shodan** believe that this is a democratic “playbook”, and that if this succeeds, the same thing will happen to every republican judicial candidate brought forward afterwards. And why shouldn’t they believe that? That’s _mainstream republican thought now!_ Their president was elected despite 22 fucking accusations of sexual assault, and _bragging about it on tape_; if you don’t think that this is a democratic playbook, how the fuck else do you rationalize this? If you start accepting that most women don’t report being sexually assaulted because of the consequences, if you look at what’s happened to Ford’s life since she made the accusation\*\*, if you pay any attention to #MeToo, if you don’t pretend that all these accusations were bogus against Trump… Well, then you have to come to terms with the fact that you voted for a serial sexual abuser to be the leader of the free world. And at that point, why not just fucking double down on his supreme court nominee? > > So I don’t know where you want to go to find “better” conservatives. They don’t exist. Or rather, to the degree that they do, they’re not republicans any more. They’re independents or democrats. Because decent people don’t support Trump. Decent people don’t support Kavanaugh. Decent people don’t vote republican. There is _no such thing as a good republican_. No good republican pundit. No good republican politician. No good republican justice. No good republican voter. _Period_. They do not exist any more; being a republican disqualifies you as a decent person. > > \*I’m really not exaggerating for effect here. Seriously. You do _not_ want the /r/The\_Donald crowd around any rational discussion. > > \*\*Doxxing, death threats, driven out of her fucking home, [and don’t even think for a goddamn minute that **UltraVires** wasn’t fucking scum about _that_, too](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=21220205&highlight=doxxed#post21220205). You seem to be going from Republican to conservative and using the terms interchangeably. Then you talk about voters. I just wanted to point out that you are very inconsistent in your OP as to what, exactly, you have an issue with. Is it all republicans? Or republican voters? Or voters who voted for Trump (some of which are republicans, but some of which were former democrats or independents…some of which who would be conservatives, some of which wouldn’t, depending on the issue). Or is it conservatives? All conservatives? Conservative voters? Conservative voters who voted for Trump? Or who vote for other republicans? What about democratic conservatives? What about independent conservatives? I think that the reason that there aren’t a lot of good conservative posters on this board (I think there are some, depending on the topic) is that this place isn’t really a good environment for them. There used to be some very good ones, IMHO and, again, depending on the topic. That’s the thing…it depends on what exactly we are talking about. If we are talking about fiscal conservatism then there were posters who were very good at that. If we are talking about small government conservatism, then there were posters who were good at that. Social conservatism? Well, I’m biased and don’t think there ARE any good social conservatives (or republicans, or democrats or whatever). Same goes for the religious conservative types of any stripe. But just saying ‘republican’ or ‘conservative’ paints, IMHO, with way too broad a brush. On some subjects, I totally agree with liberal posters on this board…on others I totally disagree with those same posters. Same goes with conservative posters. Or moderate posters. Hell, I have agreed with you, the OP on some things…but not on others. And I’m sure vice versa (well, I’m sure you disagree with me anyway :p). On the Trump thingy, I totally agree…it’s hard to defend the man, IMHO. Or his actions. Or his policies. It’s hard to defend Kavanaugh. I’ve played devil’s advocate in the cluster fuck thread in Elections, but honestly I think the dude is a snake and I wouldn’t vote to nominate him for dog catcher. However, I think that a lot of the arguments in that thread boil down to who’s Gore is being oxed. A lot of the info, especially early on, was purely speculative wrt his drinking and standing in line for group rapage being discussed as if it were established fact instead of statements by former classmates or the like. I, personally found Ford’s testimony compelling, but there is a big difference between compelling and established 100% fact. But trying to keep folks grounded in that thread was impossible, and they leaped from compelling to it’s an established fact and then using that to speculate as if their speculation is grounded in fact. It was an old fashioned SDMB bandwagon with speculation piled on speculation reinforced by more folks on the bandwagon and losing sight of reality. IMHO and all that. To me, the most compelling arguments in that thread were from the folks saying that, regardless of the merits of Ford’s accusation or what, if anything the FBI is actually able to verify (or not) in a week, Kavanaugh’s performance pretty much proves he is definitely not suited to becoming a USSC justice…or anything else. Hell, it puts into question, IMHO, his suitability for his current position, whether anything is provable wrt Ford or not. The dude is a weasel, and while I think he too slippery to be caught in a provable lie, I think he lied plenty and used lawyer speak to ensure you couldn’t prove he lied…or that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Anyway, just my two cents (and a bargain at double the cost!)… ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2018, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/135 "2018-10-01T22:30:07Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I don’t see much reason she couldn’t run as a Democrat, but be the one who doesn’t agree with the way the finances are run. > > Unless it’s an incumbency issue, where she doesn’t really have a chance of unseating the current holder. Though it must be really bad if running as a Republican gives her a better chance. Unfortunately, Illinois Democrats who publicly disagree with the Speaker of the House (who’s held that office almost continuously since 1983) see their political careers end swiftly. I truly would vote GOP in state elections, but I feel it’s more important to damage the national GOP however possible, because Trump. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/136 "2018-10-02T01:39:33Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > Unfortunately, Illinois Democrats who publicly disagree with the Speaker of the House (who’s held that office almost continuously since 1983) see their political careers end swiftly. I truly would vote GOP in state elections, but I feel it’s more important to damage the national GOP however possible, because Trump. Okay. Makes sense. Still an incumbency problem, but not the one I thought. Any chance you can get her to post here? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/137 "2018-10-02T04:14:27Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > 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.”) As I’ve said before, fuck civility. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/138 "2018-10-02T11:51:58Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > I left something off. Trump’s supporters loved him campaigning on that ban. This is the essence of it right here. Trump supporters have known all along what they’re supporting. His appeal wasn’t that he was a compassionate conservative, but that he was an asshole with bigoted tendencies - that is what attracted his supporters to him like flies to shit. His administration has caused real injury to people, including children. His supporters don’t question it; they cheer him on. He’s not hiding who he is or what his administration does to people. His supporters know; they just don’t care. They know that Trump is callously separating migrant children from their parents - in some cases permanently - to fan the flames of racial animus. They know; they just don’t think it’s a big deal - or not to themselves personally. It’s possible that some people may not fully realize the impact of having people like Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka in his administration, but people know who they are and what they’re about. It’s not a secret. It’s not ignorance. It’s a willful decision to reject the value system of inclusion and equal protection, instead turning this country into a club where people are admitted and advance based on group membership. It’s the stuff that civil unrest and global wars are made of. In the past, I had no problem remaining friends with conservatives even though I strongly opposed their views on things like abortion and economics. It was easy to remain on friendly terms with conservatives before because conservatism generally meant things like attending church and protecting yourself financially so that you don’t have to rely on the government for help. In modern times, though, conservatism means something quite different. The Trump era has personal consequences for me. I cannot remain friends with people who want to take America back to some of the worst chapters in our history. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/139 "2018-10-02T12:00:11Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Has anyone posted at least one name yet of a “Better Conservative”? > > I nominate Larry Hogan, Governor of Maryland. It doesn’t really matter, in my mind. The entire party is poisonous. The “good” Republicans are doing everyone a disservice by giving their wicked party a shred of credibility. Moderates can look to a guy like Hogan or Kasich and say “See, they’re not all bad.” Hogan and Kasich have absolutely no hope of recapturing the old spirit of the Grand Old Party; it’s not their party anymore. The old moniker “Republican In Name Only” actually fits them pretty accurately, because they are not respected in any sense by the Republican establishment in 2018. It’s Trump’s party. It’s Trump’s rules that everyone has to play by. If they really want to demonstrate civic duty, they should either switch to the Democratic party, or at minimum become Independents. But every day they leave an R by their name without any sort of real ability to influence their party’s leadership, they’re adding legitimacy to what their party does. There are NO good Republicans. None. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208/140 "2018-10-02T12:44:09Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Yeah it computes and maybe you are correct. I just meant factional as guerilla warfare of assassinations, bombings, etc. based on association with the extreme fringes of each party. Not as a 19th or 20th century war of geography. > > That’s why my main concerns deal with the troubling trends of deplatforming and weaponizing language to silence or “consequence” people because of their views. That undermines the concept of self governance and fundamental rights. And when each side increasingly views the other as illegitimate and feels unable to communicate freely passions can get heated. That’s always been the case. Galileo got heat from the church because he said Earth wasn’t the center of the universe. Advocating for the abolition of slavery used to be a \*bad \*thing. There’s always going to be a faction that doesn’t like to have its core tenets challenged, because to relent would mean to lose power and influence. You favor conservatism, which means you’re going to be inclined to point out when you think non-conservatives are suppressing conservative viewpoint. The SDMB is its own entity of a couple thousand users who have little to no governmental control/influence other than visiting the voting booth every couple of years. If you feel your views are being stamped down here, you always have the option of finding a friendlier audience elsewhere on the web. Today’s technology allows us to do that. You no longer have to be a rock or an i-i-i-island. Your minority views are not in danger of being silenced, unless you prefer this environment above all others and aren’t willing to relocate. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-conservatives-where-a-response-to-coffeecat/822208.md?page=8)