# Let me be real clear: this message board does NOT need conservatives **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 28, 2021, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474 "2021-07-28T02:12:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 73
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1446 "2021-08-10T02:05:30Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > The conceit here to deny any connection with trump but claiming to be a Reagan or a Gingrich, or a Bush Republican, or a Ron Paul Libertarian can’t be taken seriously. Trump was not a new thing. He was a part of the conservative project that got off the leash. Trump and the Trumpists are a hell of a long way from GHWBush. They are not conservatives just because they’re calling themselves that. Some of them are radical nationalist populists. Trump is a con man who thinks he can ride that wave, feed off it, and not be eaten by it. He’s a pretty good con man; if given the chance he might pull it off long enough to live out what remains of his life. Do the conservatives as a party, and as the Republican party, deserve blame for this? Yes, especially the ones high enough in the party to be designing party structure; because they thought they could tease such people into voting for them, without ever giving them enough actual power to make them dangerous – dangerous, at any rate, to anybody the Republicans expected to be hanging out with. They misjudged that badly, and they should have known better. But they assumed that they’d stay in control of the party. When they lost that control, some of them decided that keeping Republicans-in-name in power was the only thing that mattered, and joined what they’d been opposing when they were actually conservatives. And the ones who did that certainly deserve blame for it. But some were never part of that decision-making strata of the party. And some both of those and of those who were spoke out against it and changed their votes; or at least changed their votes. To point out to such people, especially if they were among the decision-makers, that this is where encouraging the votes of ignorance and xenophobia got them is one thing; but to insist that every actual conservative defend themselves as if they were Trumpists is not reasonable, and not helpful. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1447 "2021-08-10T02:21:42Z")
Isn’t an expansion of the range of ideological disagreement within the Democratic coalition exactly what should happen if the campaigns to peel off independent and moderate Republican voters succeeded, which it looks like they did? There were four years of messaging about how sane and reasonable people who might have voted for McCain or Romney should prefer Biden to Trump. They listened. Now they’re part of the group and you need to deal with them on non-Trump issues. Same goes for actually listening to minorities about what they want. Great when you assume this means they will endorse the furthest left positions that the Democrats have to offer. Not so great when you find out that most black people want more policing, not less, or that Asians and Jews are sick and tired of being told their safety and equality doesn’t matter. It’s like the people in the Dems’ power elite were so used to losing that they don’t know what to do now that they’ve won. Part of it is the balancing act you need to do to keep a large coalition together. Ideological purity is a luxury of losers. Especially when the ideology was never that great to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1448 "2021-08-10T07:36:02Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > the left’s political incentives to demonize historically distant events such as statues of Teddy Roosevelt while downplaying contemporary slavery I cannot determine a sufficient titration of ethanol that makes this comprehensible. Can anyone explain it to me, or is it just **octopus** being **octopus**? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1449 "2021-08-10T08:18:04Z")
[Barney] ‘That’s drunk talk! Sweet, beautiful, drunk talk.’ [/Barney] ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1450 "2021-08-10T08:30:25Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > I cannot determine a sufficient titration of ethanol that makes this comprehensible. Can anyone explain it to me, or is it just **octopus** being **octopus**? Forget it, Jake - it’s Cephalopodtown. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1451 "2021-08-10T08:52:17Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > I cannot determine a sufficient titration of ethanol that makes this comprehensible. Can anyone explain it to me, or is it just **octopus** being **octopus**? I think he’s saying that someone who really cared about justice would be more concerned with slavery taking place today (of people trafficked into rich countries, and those working in sweatshops to make the cheap products we just won’t stop buying) than taking down statues of people more - or less - connected with past slavery. Yet the latter generates vastly more interest and action. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1452 "2021-08-10T08:58:50Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Yet the latter generates vastly more interest and action. Well, that’s the utter crap part of it, isn’t it? He has no idea how much effort and other resources activists spend on those issues. The only thing it generates more of is media coverage. Because my personal donations to Amnesty and MSF aren’t exactly showing up on OANN… ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1453 "2021-08-10T09:08:10Z")
Also, it ignores the fact that the material effects of slavery are still very much with us in the present. But some people operate on the view that it’s the people who point out racism that are the real racists. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1454 "2021-08-10T11:34:53Z")
> [@ZosterSandstorm](#): > > Same goes for actually listening to minorities about what they want. Great when you assume this means they will endorse the furthest left positions that the Democrats have to offer. Not so great when you find out that most black people want more policing, not less, or that Asians and Jews are sick and tired of being told their safety and equality doesn’t matter. The reality is that the left is condemned by the right wing for listening to minorities that react to what that policing is doing. Also, for what it was not done by authorities in the very recent past to prevent gross injustices against minorities in the USA. There was no help from police or authorities to prevent the pressure to sell (at less value than whites got and get) real state property from minorities thanks to “legal” moves (that today would be called stealing), red lining and other systemic racist moves that while less egregious now than in the past, they still continue to this day. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/_-0J49_9lwc/maxresdefault.jpg "Housing Discrimination: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-0J49_9lwc) Spoiler alert: What John Oliver points as a solution is the “radical” leftist idea of reparations. Even I thought until recently that the idea was radical, but after seeing the case that researchers made before John Oliver came satirically along, it is actually closer to being a common sense justice idea to the minorities affected. It has to be noticed also that a lot of what Oliver points out was noticed before CRT came along, but since teaching that history is closer to what CRT scholars point at, the teaching of that land discrimination is also banned in several red states now. It is what anti-intelectual conservatives and **dunces** who claim to not be conservative want. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1455 "2021-08-10T13:01:00Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > But the Roman Empire did collapse, as opposed to the Byzantine empire. Byzantine empire is an anachronism. They thought of themselves as Roman for hundreds of years past when historians put a neat little bow on the Byzantine Empire. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1456 "2021-08-10T13:06:35Z")
> [@ZosterSandstorm](#): > > Isn’t an expansion of the range of ideological disagreement within the Democratic coalition exactly what should happen if the campaigns to peel off independent and moderate Republican voters succeeded, which it looks like they did? You finally managed to make a post I (mostly) agree with. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1457 "2021-08-10T13:15:37Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > Only if they are tied to terrorism in some rhetorical way. > > Look making the modern conservative movement into a religious freedom issue is very convenient. That’s what they want. Then there is no objection possible to them. > > I am an american adult who lived through the Millenium. I have heard many many ordinary Muslims speaking and I have heard many radicals too. I don’t think they share any goals that worry me. Politics and religion aren’t the same thing, but there is a big overlap. Most Muslims are also conservative (don’t know if it’s true in the US, but in Europe and on a world scale, certainly). Religion and conservatism seem to go together pretty generally, though maybe that’s a product of current circumstance. Regardless, I don’t think it’s reasonable, and maybe not even possible, to respect religious but not political beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1458 "2021-08-10T13:31:24Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Regardless, I don’t think it’s reasonable, and maybe not even possible, to respect religious but not political beliefs. It seems exceedingly simple to me. If your religious beliefs tell you how to behave, we should respect that - so no laws against religious garb, no laws establishing a state religion, and if you market something with pork as Halal or Kosher you should get in trouble. OTOH if your religious belief is telling other people how to behave, you can fuck right off. So no laws against abortion, gay marriage, etc. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1459 "2021-08-10T13:39:17Z")
Half of conservatives are conscious liars, half are too stupid and stubborn to understand that they’re repeating obvious lies and misinformation. We need conservatives to the extent that it’s useful to have a gallery of wild-caught bullshit and absurdity, alongside a robust debunking of it. But we have 100x more specimens than any museum of bullshit really requires. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1460 "2021-08-10T15:08:00Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Half of conservatives are conscious liars, half are too stupid and stubborn to understand that they’re repeating obvious lies and misinformation. On a tangent, this reminds me of the apocryphal quote attributed to former British MP Dennis Skinner: > [@](#): > > Half of the Tories opposite are crooks. When instructed to retract the insult, he said: > [@](#): > > Alright - half the Tories opposite _aren’t_ crooks. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1461 "2021-08-10T16:54:09Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Trump and the Trumpists are a hell of a long way from GHWBush. How so? I suppose this is an admission of a sort. The R party is tied to trumpism now. The debate is when it started. Some would have it that it just happened recently. It began with Gingrich in my opinion. He’s still around propping up trump and lies. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > They are not conservatives just because they’re calling themselves that. Some of them are radical nationalist populists. How cons feel about their own philo is not my concern. They all have a base that they cater to. The base is more important than any platform or stated positions. How did the R party succumb to anti democracy is the only question. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Do the conservatives as a party, and as the Republican party, deserve blame for this? Yes, especially the ones high enough in the party to be designing party structure; because they thought they could tease such people into voting for them, without ever giving them enough actual power to make them dangerous – dangerous, at any rate, to anybody the Republicans expected to be hanging out with. They misjudged that badly, and they should have known better. But they assumed that they’d stay in control of the party. BS. Designing party structure huh? No adult will buy this squishy cop out. If they let their party get out of control then they need to control it again or else jump and save democracy. Does it look like they will do it? Why is it up to me to take care of poor alienated republicans who want to be seen as innocent now? It’s too late. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > When they lost that control, some of them decided that keeping Republicans-in-name in power was the only thing that mattered, and joined what they’d been opposing when they were actually conservatives. And the ones who did that certainly deserve blame for it. Rand Paul, McConnell, McCarthy are in control and they are ending democracy as we know it. Trump is gone but they are doing it. So it’s not Trump. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > But some were never part of that decision-making strata of the party. That is not the way politics, public life or real life work. Pols are paid to make stands in these situations. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > To point out to such people, especially if they were among the decision-makers, that this is where encouraging the votes of ignorance and xenophobia got them is one thing; but to insist that every actual conservative defend themselves as if they were Trumpists is not reasonable, and not helpful. Bullshit. I asked for republicans, conservatives and righties to be thoughtful about what their party is doing now. Look at the thread title. If you say you are or were for a party that is that is defending attacking the capitol then you need to explain how you got to be there in that rhetorical place. “I’m not a trumper” means nothing. Trump is not in office and McConnel and mccarthy are carrying out his wishes. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1462 "2021-08-10T17:14:12Z")
Every prediction about the demographic death of the Republican project from the last decade failed to recognize that it would not be a simple drop in numbers leading to Dem victories. There could be an interregnum where Republicans realize they are demographically doomed but that the levers of power haven’t been idiot proofed yet, and that the dem party is too weak to stop them. At that point it’s do or die for them. They will be like Humphey Bogart in High Sierra. They will shred democracy to stop multiracial democracy and lock in permanent white oligarch rule. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1463 "2021-08-10T17:25:15Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > Pols are paid to make stands in these situations. I’m not talking about the politicians who made those decisions. I’m talking about non-politician citizens and about the politicians who fought those decisions. And all through here you’re conflating “Republican” and “conservative” as if they were identical. They’re not. > [@drad\_dog](#): > > There could be an interregnum where Republicans realize they are demographically doomed but that the levers of power haven’t been idiot proofed yet, and that the dem party is too weak to stop them. At that point it’s do or die for them. They will be like Humphey Bogart in High Sierra. They will shred democracy to stop multiracial democracy and lock in permanent white oligarch rule Why are you putting that in the hypothetical? That’s what they’re trying now. Whether the Democrats _combined with actual conservatives_ as well as with non-Democratic Party liberals (those terms aren’t synonymous either) will be too weak to stop them is what we’re going to find out. As I said earlier, it already took the help of some such conservatives to prevent more than one state from overturning its legitimate vote results. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1464 "2021-08-10T17:38:27Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Regardless, I don’t think it’s reasonable, and maybe not even possible, to respect religious but not political beliefs. How is it disrespectful to inquire of a conservative how his political beliefs intersect with the republican party’s? To say “I am the opposite of trump” is not a real answer. When you equate religion with this you make it easy to hide fascism under a religious cloak. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474/1465 "2021-08-10T17:40:54Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I’m talking about non-politician citizens How do you count these people out of the democratic process? They are conservative voters who decide what R gets elected. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474.md?page=72) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-me-be-real-clear-this-message-board-does-not-need-conservatives/947474.md?page=74)