I can only assume that by “Global” you mean “The Western, Democratic World”. In that context, yes, the US is conservative.
But in a GLOBAL context, that includes Russia, China, the Middle East, and Africa? The US is a liberal paradise compared to many of the world’s countries.
They’re called “liberals”, and sneered at by conservatives for wanting to conserve and protect.
There’s a reason the phrase “bleeding heart liberals” exists; the essence of conservatism is malice. The cruelty is the point.
Well I sure am glad I spent all that time typing my long post.
Are you going to provide any evidence for any of these claims?
I appreciated it.
It’s called “the world”.
That’s not how citing evidence works.
Me too; since although I was being replied to, most of what I said doesn’t seem to have been noticed, and most of the reply doesn’t seem applicable to the bit that was quoted.
@Der_Trihs: if you’re going to define “conservatism” as “malice”, then you’re not talking about what I was talking about.
As did I. And so did at least, what, 2/3’s of the posters in the thread that asked for, or used their own valid definitions of conservative, or drew a distinction between MAGA and conservatives.
Well the unredeemed American World anyway.
Thatcher’s Britain was far to the left of Carter’s America. If I lived in Europe, Japan, or other OECD country outside of the US, I could easily see myself voting for a center-right (or center-left) party. Nixon had his personality defects, but he did have a streak of, “Doing things right”. But that branch of US public discussion was taken over by center-left Clintonistas, and the national GOP never tried to take it back. Today the writers Matt Yglassias, Noah Smith, and Kevin Drum are all of the “Let’s do it right” variety and they all are center left. But I can imagine them being center-right in an OECD-outside-of-the-US context.
I conclude that conservatives are superfluous in America. They honestly have little to add. They certainly don’t deserve any points for intellectual diversity given their predictablility and dishonesty in presentation. There is a highly defensible case for going slow (not always and not dispositive). But that case can be made by European conservatives or American liberals. Or by the conservative wing of the Japanese LDP.
“Little to add”, does not mean, “Nothing to add” of course. Rejecting arguments automatically just because someone is a non-professional conservative is inappropriate, especially in non-political contexts. I’m discussing intellectual movements and not individuals or specific arguments. Still, the most insightful conservatives of the past have trended left since 2016, not coincidentally.
Please note that the post you’re responding to was made in the context of an assertion that conservatism is always and invariably malicious, hateful, and destructive, without exception, and its points should be read primarily as a response to that.
We’re teetering on the brink of arguing about definitions.
You made a good post, and I was agreeing that European conservatism is different. My way of conceptualizing it is that self-identified American conservatives are reactionaries, not so much because they want to turn back the clock - that gives them too much credit - but because their views are formed in reaction to liberalism.
Any time you talk about large groups, you’re discussing what is in essence a coalition, a group with varying psychologies, demographics, etc. Der_Trihs simplifies this and in doing so ignores American conservatives who don’t get a frisson from displays of dominance. Some may be in businesses that feel burdened by regulation or, less-emphasized but possibly more important, liberal brickbats disseminated by the press. Everyone is a hero in their own mind after all, especially those with American comic book sensibilities.
But what Der_Trihs mostly ignores is tribalism and the cowardice of those are only somewhat stimulated by cruelty, have some sense, but still have a generally favorable view of Trump. Trump’s approval rating during his time in office hovered around 39% and I say 10 or 15 points of that are composed of people who really should have known better. Fox New disinfo explains a lot, but conservative cowardice is a necessary component. Der_Trihs goes far too easy on American conservatives: I mean evil cloaked villains are kind of cool, right?
Zero.
100%. That way ‘conservativism’ isn’t a thing anymore.
Yes, this. And that implies less suspension of judgment in pursuit of news entertainment. Conservatives here and at other places used to downplay Republican antics by saying that, “Politics isn’t beanbag”. Never Trumper Tom Nichols explained the thinking:
I once wrote that after Trump’s election I could never be as partisan as I once was. I was sometimes radicalized by some of the positions of the left, adopting the mirror image of their extremism as a way of staking out my own turf. In so doing I probably pushed others to the left, in the stupid synergy of tribalism that is now out of control. There was an unseriousness to this kind of dueling-with-hand-grenades, and I was part of it.
Back then, this kind of partisanship didn’t seem like a problem: In the Before Times, we still argued over politics instead of whether communist Muslims had taken over our Venezuelan voting machines with help from the Italian space program. I felt like it was safe to throw elbows and do some partisan high-sticking; I believed that we were all in a giant bouncy house called the Constitution, a place where we might bump skulls or sprain an ankle now and then but where there were no sharp edges and there were only soft landings.
I don’t believe that anymore.
So yeah, I agree with TriPolar: let’s go for 100%! Just as long people come to their goddamn senses.
Around 100% social democrats, with 0% conservatives and 0% liberals.
If we get rid of distortions of public will such as the electoral college, gerrymandering, and the non-proportional Senate, then we wouldn’t need a magic slider. Elections would accurately reflect the will of the people, which shouldn’t be overridden.
If we further put constraints on the abuse of the corporated-puppeteered broadcast media and network media, this would solve the magic problem of the slider itself. We wouldn’t have CNN sane-washing Trump’s 20-million deportation Final Solution as if it’s just an alternative viewpoint. People would look into the howling void of hate and avarice that is conservatism, and say “no thanks”.
Without media manipulation, conservatism wouldn’t be more than 25% of Americans at most. The slider is not magic, it’s billionaires putting their thumb on the scales via the media organs they own. What we need to do is un-slide that particular slider and things will return to their natural ideal.
I would point out that conservatives are the one who did all this damage in the name of conserving profit. Car dealerships are one of the most reliable planks of “conservative” supporters. The Rail Act of 1970 that effectively killed passenger rail was signed into law by Richard Nixon, all efforts to revive or foster a meaningful passenger rail system are being killed by conservatives. They want to conserve the status quo of 1970 forever, when in fact the 1960 passenger situation was superior.
In reality there’s no form of “good conservative” that merely wants to preserve good things. We have a moneyed and racial elite who want to conserve their own hereditary advantages, while selling it to the little guy as “incandescent light bulbs were perfectly fine, we shouldn’t have gotten rid of them”.
FTR, I consider myself a social democrat and a liberal. That’s easy to do in a conservative country like the US. In most other (all other?) democratic nations, I’d have to make a choice. I’m probably not a socialist, though I could see myself voting for any of the 3 big parties in the UK, depending upon who was running. IOW I’m a European centrist which situates me on the left half of the Democratic party.
In the beginning of this century I placed myself on the far left fringe of the Democratic Party, but Bernie, AOC, the squad, and passage of the Affordable Care Act successfully shifted the Overton window, for which I am grateful.
Out of curiosity, what do you think would be the downsides of a society where 100% of people are social democrats? Or is there no downside at all?