As for economic conservatism, well an ungenerous social safety net, keeping spending to a minimum and an aversion to debt can be considered conservative in a basic sense.
But an aversion to regulations and an unfetterd marketplace seem to fly in the face of what is conservative in the first sense, and is only conservative in a round-about sense in that they are part of a cherished tradition in the US. The term “economic liberalism” certainly has been used to describe this sort of climate. However it does lend itself to classism, which is traditional as well as at times a restrictive influence.
So in other words, an unregulated “liberal” yet traditional free market enhances to ability of businessmen to become wealthy and powerful and thus enhances their ability to keep out the riff-raff.
I can tell you a typical response, “Big deal. My watches run at slightly different rates sitting next to each other in the sock drawer. And they’re quartz!!”
It seems to me that part of the problem is that most peoploe who label themselves as ‘Conservatives’ are actually Regressives. They want to turn the US back to the 1950s when women and minorities knew their place, everyone was God-fearing (or at least pretended to be) and the American white-man ruled the earth. To be fair, they would have been conservatives in the 1950s but time has left them behind.
So you end up with legitimate conservative views, things like ‘change should be slow and measured’ or ‘the Government should spend within it’s budget’ mixed in with all the Regressive ‘I want it to be like the Good Old Days’ nuttery.
This has never been Conservative doctrine. It’s always been what they claimed, until they got into office and started spending like drunken sailors while giving the richest people tax breaks.
More and more, I get the feeling that it would be easier to get the Democratic Party to embrace some more conservative economic ideas than it would be to get the Republican Party to not be completely insane and ridiculous…
And the economic stuff that bothers me seems less and less of a big deal compared to this fundie bullshit that so many people are spouting. (or is just that they’re louder?)
I’m an unabashed captitalist - why the hell should that require supporting complete fuckwads who don’t believe in evolution, relativity, or civil liberties? Bah.
If you really want an answer to this, it begins with Nixon and the Southern Strategy.
Quoting Kevin Phillips, a Nixon strategist (Boyd, James (May 17, 1970). “Nixon’s Southern strategy: ‘It’s All in the Charts’”. The New York Times. pp. 215):
This meant that Republicans had to get in bed with the Wallace vote, an unabashedly racist contingent of social conservatives, and that meant cozying up to their religious groups and giving them deals. This takes you straight to setting up and knocking down a straw-man version of evolutionary theory called ‘Darwinism’ (as if modern biology were the worship of Charles Darwin), insisting that real sex ed makes kids promiscuous little faggots and dykes, and, at one time, insinuating that AIDS isn’t a problem for Real Americans.
The big money Republicans don’t care much about that; they get their tax breaks and regulatory agencies get defanged and that’s all right for them. Meanwhile, the Falwell contingent gets its agenda in the form of Intelligent Design being debated as if it were a real science like what the grown-ups have, marriage being restricted to one man and one woman [del]of the same race[/del] (coming soon… ), and any medical research they disagree with losing funding because Good Americans don’t really need an Alzheimer’s cure.
It’s a Big Tent party in the classic, most horse-trading sense. It has managed to collect some of the worst elements in or near the mainstream of American politics and I despair of it ever getting shut of them.
has anyone noticed that it doesn’t matter which side of the ideological fence you’re standing on, once you win a national election your IQ plummets. ‘he’s a genius, he’s a rocket scientist…he gets elected to office…he’s playing with his poopoo behind a 7-11,’ to quote Henry Rollins.