Im curious how misattributing a non-loony Reagan quote to Biden or Clinton plays out
Not worth it; if you revealed the truth after the usual torrent of rage, they’d just claim you were lying, you made it all up, etc., etc.
And if you tried that trick here, except you did it with Democrats, you’d grt warned or banned for it. It’s happened before.
Wow, glad to see another one here with a similar CFB experience. The most right-wing site I’ve ever seen is an LSU Tigers football message board.
I’ve seen disagreement on the Ukraine issue - there are still a considerable number of rightists, even Trumpers, who support Ukraine.
There’s disagreement about Team DeSantis vs. Team Trump; two factions going against each other.
I saw disagreement about whether Amy Coney Barrett should be the nominee for the Supreme Court or not. There was no doubt, of course, that a staunch conservative must be the SCOTUS nominee; the only question was who.
There’s a lot of finger-pointing between rightists after an election goes wrong - ie., who is to blame? And also finger-pointing about those who were over-optimistic. I saw one person predict, with a completely straight face, that Trump was going to win 70% of the popular vote and win the state of New York in the 2020 presidential election. Such people got some lumps handed to them in the wake of the election; as it turns out, even some Trumpers get exasperated with the totally-deluded.
This is what keeps me going (maybe not so much on right-wing message boards, but rather on general public Facebook pages - think local/national TV and newspapers that post their stories on Facebook and then commenters go at it).
My approach is “hmmm, do you have a cite to support that assertion? or is it Fake News that you made up?”. When they respond with more unsourced nonsense, I leave them with a “ok then, guess it was Fake News that we can ALL ignore” (hint hint).
I’d like to think I’m getting my point across to someone who’s lurking and reading, even if I couldn’t give a shit what the original idiot I was tangoing with thinks.
There was a thread awhile back (can’t find it) about whether there were rational conservative message boards one could participate in. I don’t recall if there were any consensus picks.
There really is no point in participating in extremist message boards, whether they’re political or about vaccines or other health-related topics. They’re an exercise in self-congratulatory group-think and an opportunity to lash out at perceived foes in as nasty and irrational a manner as possible (Twitter is a particularly vile cesspit in this regard).
Checking out the conversation in such places can be useful in determining what dingbat arguments are making the rounds and seeing how easily one can refute them. Participating with the aim of changing minds (even that of the fabled “lurker”) is futile.
There is such a thing as a “principled & rational conservative.” This person is a minority among conservatives: they believe in conservative principles (small government, free market, low taxes, inalienable rights, etc.), but they also understand & respect science (they’re pro-vaccine, they understand the burning of fossil fuels is the cause of climate change), they don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories, and they never bought in to the MAGA/Trump “Cult of Personality” crap. I am one of them. But we are such a tiny minority that I doubt I could attract a dozen subscribers were I to create a message board for “principled & rational conservatives.”
You’re probably correct. But I have to ask: What the heck happened to the intelligent conservatives out there? Why are you such a tiny minority now?
If that’s the description, I’m pretty sure I qualify.
In the Ideological space, there is a vast anti-Trump coalition stretching from Milton Friedman to Noam Chomsky. Pretty broad. But demographically, 90%+ of conservatives fell away from the once energetically espoused Milton Friedman POV. In Stuart Stevens’ words, “It was all a lie.”
I say: substitute “Limited government” for “Small government”, and eliminate the low taxes plank, and this is basically a discussion among liberals with different preferences for the generosity of the social safety net. Conservative liberals v. liberal liberals, one might say. But all that ignores the sorts of things that animate actual modern conservatives in practice. This creates problems for professional conservative intellectuals and leaders: most decided to join Trump to various extents either explicitly or through their silence. “I wish he’d tweet less”, is a popular position.
In 2017, someone started the neoliberal twitter handle: the idea was to unite the center-left and center-right while peeling off Trumpists and tweaking the noses of leftist non-communistic socialists. The movement had some success, but never gained numerically significant traction among conservative normies, though it retains some association with Niskanen Center types. Anyway, they’ve set aside that original strategy and now call themselves new liberals. It’s just a name: here’s a list of their general policy positions. They have a number of chapters.
Given that 90%+ of people formerly known as principled and rational conservatives turned out to be blowing smoke, I’m skeptical of the category whatever the underlying conceptual gymnastics. Simultaneously, welcome to the greater liberal crew Crafter_Man. Too many of us are virtue signalers, but at least we have the founding fathers on our team.
If you’re on twitter give never-Trumper Tom Nichols a follow. The discussions with certain earnest liberals are a blast.
Agreed. I read that list and think, that’s mostly describing me, but I’m a former conservative.
It is not a coherent set of ideas.
You cannot like “fact based” politics and not see “conservatives” playing “2 Santa’s”.
If you skip the “low taxes” bullshit there is nothing left except hate and cronyism.
The tiny minority is just the folks who refuse to see what the emperor’s clothes are.
Ignorance is not merely a lack of knowledge, it can be a hatred of knowledge.
I don’t think the humility of the Democrats gave us neo-fascism, or the theocracy crusade. That’s more than mere humility is capable of.
Good point. Not wanting to learn when one had been given the opportunity, is different than not having been given the opportunity.
There’s maybe enough of you guys to fill up a Waffle House. It’s too bad, because at least people in your part of conservatism were willing to govern, and willing to have an actual debate.
I used to be a Republican myself, with views similar to you. I left the party during the 2015/2016 primary season, once I realized that the primaries were going to Trump.
These are the two disagreements I’ve seen the most, particularly the 2nd one. On Ukraine, there’s more and more skepticism on the right about whether we should continue helping them. It’s about 50/50 at this point.
They way I see it, it is more related to the old line about:
“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” -John Stuart Mill
(Attributed mistakenly to Edmund Burke and changed to the more popular: “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.“)
There is a national shortage of grown-ups, in Conservatism.
Sadly.