In your ideal electorate, what % of the voters would be conservatives?

Politics & Elections
21

I can only assume this means in the US context only. In a global context, the US Overton Window is so far to the right it’s humping the International Date Line. By comparison, in my purported home country (well, one of them) in northern Europe, the extreme whacko right-wing party, which includes literal neo-Nazis and is so extreme that all the serious parties agreed to a pact of not making them part of government no matter their vote share, their stated policies as per the last time I checked out their website (ew) included:

  • Increasing funding to our universal socialised health care system
  • Increased public school and universal free public university system funding
  • Increased foreign development aid (with the argument that if their home countries are better off, their citizens won’t come migrate)
  • Increased pensions
  • All paid for by increased taxes on the wealthy and on businesses, plus environmental taxes

Sure, they’re lying, but they have to lie because being openly right-wing along the US lines of conservatism is just so extreme that it would be totally unacceptable to the electorate.

I’m now in Brazil, it’s election season (not for president), and Brazil has a wide selection of parties including rational right-wing parties and insane trumpian fascist reactionaries like Bolsonaro’s allies. In my opinion the ideal conservative percentage of the electorate and their representatives is precisely 0. The right wing and the majority of the centre have absolutely nothing to offer except bullshit, hypocrisy, the imposition of religious values on people who mostly don’t share their beliefs, and the further enrichment of the already wealthy at the expense of public services, infrastructure, the suffering of the non-wealthy, and (by squeezing purchasing power of the non-wealthy) even impacting the greater enrichment of the wealthy in the medium and long terms.

22

Problem is, that doesn’t really work. Goals are always going to vary given that different factions want fundamentally different things, and it rules out conservatives entirely since they never operate in good faith or for the good of anyone else. And often not even themselves.

23

I tend to think of it another way. Instead of both sides working together for the good of the nation. Each side is trying to preserve its own power within our adversarial based system. I believe this was the wisdom of the founding fathers, knowing those who enter politics like power and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so they use the love for power against itself to maintain freedom. This sets up our system of checks and balances as no one will let another grab their power. Checks and balances not only with in our branches and divisions of government, but also represented by the 2 major political parties. This tend to have one side who tried to seize power met with opposition as the other side tried to maintain its hold on power. That last one is what I believe we have with maga where Don Trump has populated the swamp with those loyal to himself, and the rest in some cases crossing political lines to rally against the attempted takeover of our government and ultimately their power.

But ideally the spread would be 3 bell curves superimposed on each other with the current center running somewhere through the middle bell. As the center moves, the voters in each bell would move fluidly between center and either left or right and left or right to center. With the ends being a repository for left and right ideology of the voters who wish to move the center line and center bell a basic balance which defines the center where voters within themselves are satisfied with our current state of political divide. As such to answer your question I personally would like to see t most 30/70 split between R/L and maintain that ratio of right and left in the R/Center/L curve because of the current maga threat.

24

What I’m getting at is that it all hinges on the good faith and putting the nation or state’s interests first. That’s clearly what the Founding Fathers assumed as well, considering the lack of guardrails on the SCOTUS or Senate.

So for example, if the threat facing the nation is identified as say… depletion of the ozone layer, then the liberals might put forth legislation wanting a total ban of CFCs immediately. Conservatives would balk at that, and maybe demand more research. The push and pull might end up with something like incentives to decrease CFC usage, as well as funding to research alternatives and to research CFC effects. Which would be an example of good governance where everyone is going for the same goal, although not necessarily pulling in the same direction.

This is in an ideal world though; in the real world, it’s all distorted by self interest, greed, outside lobbying/money, etc… And if not aiming for the same goals, not putting country/state first, and not legislating in good faith/being willing to compromise, you end up with say… Democrats being inflexible about their ban under the rationale that CFCs are bad and that the only solution is a ban, for example.

What I’m saying is pretty similar to @kanicbird’s scheme where the political muscle would be spent aiming at that center third, not pulling to the edges and expecting people to choose sides.

25

Yeah. I think you’d have to start by defining “conservative” and “liberal”.

My knee-jerk reaction was something like 20% right /30% left /50% somewhere in the middle and/or sideways; but I don’t want 20% racist religious totalitarians and I don’t want 30% Stalinists either and my idea of the middle would probably be further left than a lot of people’s.

I would very much like “100% willing to learn and consider the actual facts of any given issue” but am not expecting to get that.

That too. Which I am also not expecting to get (nor, I think, is bump.)

We did use to, however, get a higher percentage than we seem to be getting now; so improvement I think is possible. Ditto with willingness to accept facts.

The voting booth, with a reasonable level of frequency.

26

I’m curious why you’d like us to have 5% religious conservative, but not, say, 5% Maoist.

My preferences are to have 0% of either–not through purges, but through people coming to their goddamn senses.

27

Honestly I would agree that I would like to see it at 0% but the only way I see that happening would be through purges or something similar.

There always have been and always will be a small % of people whether Christian or some other religion in the population. My preference would be to see it at 5% or less.

28

5% or less makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

29

… and with the implicit acceptance that sometimes the dragon wins.

30

Yup. What species did you think we’re all part of?*

And what political system do you think guarantees that nobody gets burned?

ETA: But in any case: you didn’t ask what we proposed to make sure that the dragon never wins. You asked what we proposed – oh, I misread you. You didn’t say “deploy on their elected officials”, you said “deploy on their electors.”

I don’t think any of us proposed any method to create our favored mix, let alone to keep it that way. The thread asked “in your ideal electorate”. We’re all dreaming. I think we all know that.
/
/

*well, I think we’re all part of it. Apologies to any dogs, cats, extraterrestials, or other non-humans reading this thread.

31

Zero. Conservatism is a cancer holding back mankind through weaponized fear and hate.

32

To answer this question we need to define what a conservative is. There are lots of reasonable definitions, and my answer will vary with them. I’ll take my definition from this old thread:

Ignore how people self-identify for now. I would be content with 50% conservative, 0% reactionary. But that would involve the collapse of the GOP whose base is 3/4 reactionary. Something over a quarter of Democrats are conservative: they sometimes are referred to as Democratic Mainstays. Independents span the reactionary-conservative-moderate-liberal-other spectrum.

What about my ideal? 10% conservative, 10% socialist, 80% technocratic-wonky-center-left-mutual-admiration-society.

33

That is more or less what I was going to say.

However we distribute the electorate, the definitions of Conservative and Liberal will shift until the about half the country calls itself conservative and half calls itself progressive.

I’d probably want that cut point to be maybe a little bit right of my current views, since I’m far enough left that those much further left than me start getting a bit radical.

34

That’s just silly.

In a perfect world, conservatism would be a necessary and welcome brake on change for change’s sake and constant presence reminding people that there’s worth in tradition and continuity.

The problem today isn’t with conservatism as a political ideology, it’s that those calling themselves “conservatives” are really reactionaries. They aren’t acting as a brake or in a warning capability, they’re trying to push things back to the status quo ante where ante is sometime in 1959 or thereabouts, and in some cases far earlier.

35

Except that since we aren’t and never have been a “perfect world” or anything close to it conservatism - even when not just a code word for “reactionary” has almost always been a force to hold back positive change and progress. Most “tradition” has been a matter of tyranny, bigotry and exploitation; and conservatives seldom show interest in upholding harmless traditions.

36

You are overstating things here, though it’s understandable due to your American experience where, indeed, essentially every positive cultural evolution has been achieved despite and in the face of the bitter opposition of conservative forces.

I am an American who transplanted to Europe a number of years ago. It has been eye-opening in many ways, as you’d expect, but one of them is seeing firsthand what a healthy conservatism looks like. There are reactionary rightwing xenophobes in Europe, of course, but in my country of residence, Luxembourg, that movement hasn’t really gotten a toehold (as I’ve covered in other threads and won’t belabor here).

Nevertheless, Luxembourg is, in the classical sense, a pretty conservative country. Three quarters of our public holidays reflect Catholic observances. The bank still addresses correspondence to our household as “Mr. and Mrs. (husband’s full name).” We are not at the forefront of any of the progressive social movements active in Europe, from gay marriage (we were the tenth country here to recognize it) to marijuana legalization (we haven’t yet, not entirely).

And yet — the conservative impulse here is not the same as it is in the US. Our traditional right wing is not screaming about a return to the good old days, and the hazards of change. Instead, our political dialog is about the pace and nature of our national evolution. Basically, there is an abstract consensus that we do, indeed, need to adapt to a changing world. The left wants to gallop forward. The conservatives pull back on the reins to ensure we move forward slowly and thoughtfully — but (a few anti-EU cranks excepted) they don’t advocate moving backward.

Marijuana legalization is a good example. With other countries in Europe making progress on this, the debate naturally came here. The left pointed to places where it’s been proven that relaxation of the laws hasn’t led to social collapse and said “let’s do that, right now.” The right accepted those examples, and accepted the overall calculus that cannabis prohibition is a financial and social failure, but they pumped the brakes and said “let’s do it right.” We’re currently in a strange gray area where personal use is legal but there’s not yet an authorized sales-and-distribution channel by which cannabis can be easily acquired, but it’s coming. Slower than I’d like, maybe, but the right isn’t blocking it, just slowing it down, thinking it through point by point.

That is a healthy conservatism. It does exist and it can work. It’s not common, I grant you, and certainly in the US it has mutated into a violent, reactionary radicalism.

But it’s flat-out inaccurate to generalize conservative thinking as always angry and repressive and hateful and destructive, because I’m living in a country that emphatically disproves the generalization. And I’m saying this as someone who sees Bernie Sanders as being closer to the center than me.

37

The problem isn’t TODAY, there isn’t a single time in the entire history of mankind that conservatives have not just been wrong but also evil.

38

I’m not sure absurdly hyperbolic statements are really useful to the discussion.

The thing to remember is that both sides of the ideological spectrum have their extreme poles, and neither would actually be a good thing if they had free rein. So IMO, it takes both sides to hammer out a solution somewhere in between.

What @Cervaise describes with the conservative “pumped the brakes” w.r.t. cannabis is an example of where conservatism as a principle isn’t a bad thing.

But he’s also dead on when he says that it’s now a violent, reactionary, radicalism. Used to be that conservatives came up with stuff like cap & trade for carbon emissions (although now it’s the Devil apparently), and other eminently good ideas that allowed for the change that the left wants, but in a more measured, thought-out way. But now they’ve pulled so far toward the right pole, and today’s middle as they reckon it is fairly far right of center.

39

And Obamacare, which was based on a Republican plan in one of the states.

40

I agree with that.

There is, at least theoretically, a conservatism that wants to conserve things. And not necessarily negative things.

There’s a conservatism that doesn’t want to get rid of the pay phones while people are still using them, but is willing to recognize when people aren’t any longer. There’s a conservatism that wants to keep downtown groceries and drugstores open, instead of sending everybody to the mall or online. There’s a conservatism that wants to be able to keep doing things the way people used to, unless there’s a damn good reason otherwise; but is willing to recognize both when there is such a reason, and that some individuals are going to want to do things differently and that this isn’t automatically a problem, but may be either a matter of individual differences and/or a useful test of whether something new works OK.

There’s a very strong tendency in modern society to say “Hey! Bright new thing! Everybody start doing it immediately!” Then, five or fifty years later, we’re trying to deal with the consequences; when if we’d said “How about some people try this out and the rest of us wait?” we could have understood the consequences; and maybe the rest of us wouldn’t have done that, or maybe we’d have learned how to deal with the consequences bit by bit.

“Conservatism” in the USA has had a very great tendency, lately, to come down to civil rights issues – for which the above is pretty much just an unreasonable delaying tactic, and for which delaying does massive damage to people who are alive at the given moment. And I think that does drive, justifiably, a lot of the opposition to it in this thread.

But the conservative impulse – to not jump immediately into everything that’s new – applies to all sorts of areas. We’d have more walkable towns and cities doing a lot less damage to both environment and individual lives if we hadn’t leapt into engineering everything for rapid automobile travel, for instance; and we’re now spending time, money, and energy trying to undo some of the damage that was done, and will never be able to undo some parts of that damage.