# Why have conservatives left this message board? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [April 14, 2025, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016 "2025-04-14T01:14:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/201 "2025-04-18T00:26:40Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > I don’t recall any conservative being banned here for bloodthirsty remarks directed against Muslims. Neither do I. In September 2001 there were quite a few bloodthirsty remarks directed against Muslims on these boards, and by no means all of them were voiced by conservative posters. A lot of people were pretty freaked out and violently angry, and not all of them managed to stay out of the hate-speech zone. I think the moderation at that time cut them at least a reasonable amount of slack; I don’t recall a wave of “banned for advocating genocide”. ---
**Author:** ![natureboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/202 "2025-04-18T00:33:20Z")
A better question is why haven’t conservatives left the country? Oh, wait, I forgot…they’re in power. Like totalitarian power (or soon will be). If we ever get to the other side of _that_, what then? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/203 "2025-04-18T00:47:57Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > most self-identified conservatives in the US nowadays have to some extent hitched their ideological or careerist wagons to the cause of ignorance. This might be the most salient point here. As a now non-affiliated Republican, when Trump took power, we in the party had a choice - either go MAGA or (in their eyes) a RINO There is no middle right in the Republican Party anymore so choose your side. And unfortunately most went with Mr. Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/204 "2025-04-18T01:46:06Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > Wow, I remember Maeglin, I can’t believe it has been over a decade. I remember **december** and according to his profile his last post was in August 2003. The hell? He did a _lot_ of posting and I could have sworn he was here for more than 4 or 5 years. I also thought he was banned, but I couldn’t find record of that. **Saint\_Cad** : Yes and believe it or not the GOP once had a _liberal_ wing. Rockefeller Republicans were a group with, “Moderate to liberal views” according to wiki. > **[Rockefeller Republican](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Republican)** > > The Rockefeller Republicans were members of the United States Republican Party (GOP) in the 1930s–1970s who held moderate-to-liberal views on domestic issues, similar to those of Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York (1959–1973) and Vice President of the U.S. (1974–1977). Rockefeller Republicans were most common in the Northeast and the industrial Midwestern states (with their larger moderate-to-liberal constituencies), while they were rare in the South and the West. > The term refers to "\[a... Rockefeller himself thought that health care was a basic human right, but VP Spiro Agnew pointed out, “A lot of people considered Rockefeller very liberal and very dovish on foreign policy, but he was not. He was harder than Nixon, and a lot more hawkish about the mission of America in the world.” ---
**Author:** ![natureboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/205 "2025-04-18T02:58:00Z")
Conservatism has always been based on mythology. It’s a fake ideology best tossed into the rubbish bin of history. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/206 "2025-04-18T03:22:01Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > as opposed to dedicated forums for individual hobbies or issues Those are dying off too. It’s all moving to Reddit, which is a shame. > [@nate](#): > > As much as the ‘Regards, Shodan’ sign-off annoyed me at least it wasn’t an echo chamber back then. Where do you go TODAY that isn’t an echo chamber? This is the most open place I have ever seen. And still is today. I would love to know of this place that is an open, honest, fact based bastion of information. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/207 "2025-04-18T12:20:41Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > **Saint\_Cad** : Yes and believe it or not the GOP once had a _liberal_ wing. Rockefeller Republicans were a group with, “Moderate to liberal views” according to wiki. People forget that Massachusetts was reliably Republican into the 60s. And still liberal. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/208 "2025-04-18T13:02:46Z")
Next you’ll be telling me conservatives want to push universal healthcare and call it something like “romneycare”. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/209 "2025-04-18T13:09:13Z")
I believe that if Romney had run as the same guy he was as governor of MA he might have won. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/210 "2025-04-18T14:12:03Z")
If only. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/211 "2025-04-18T17:54:00Z")
> [@natureboy](#): > > Conservatism has always been based on mythology. It’s a fake ideology best tossed into the rubbish bin of history. People have different temperaments and some temperaments are reformist, others are authoritarian, still others distrust novelty. Managers of economic power will always dislike regulation (while professionals will take a more circumspect engineering approach). So I don’t see conservatism going away, just morphing. Given that, expect conservatives to retain their short memories. Liberals trace their ideas to the 1600s and 1700s: it’s a straight continuous shot though of course opinions evolve over time. Nonacademic conservative histories tends to begin in the 1970s or 1950s at the earliest. Because tracing it to the 1920s is just too embarrassing. > [@OldOlds](#): > > I believe that if Romney had run as the same guy he was as governor of MA he might have won. Maybe in the general. He couldn’t have been nominated in a GOP primary though. I could see him nominated by party big-wigs, but the glory days of the smoke filled room have passed. Instead we have a primary system thankfully not practiced by any other democracy. > [@wguy123](#): > > Next you’ll be telling me conservatives want to push universal healthcare and call it something like “romneycare”. Nixon had a healthcare reform plan. Romneycare/Obamacare was originally sketched by a conservative think-tank. So this could happen if reactionaries and weirdos didn’t run the Republican party. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/212 "2025-04-18T18:10:07Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > The never answered question: > We are too liberal and restricted? Compared to who?? The Dope has always been heavily moderated, compared with You-tube, far less arbitrary than most message boards that lack an ATMB because the mods at most boards like to get shit done. As for ideology, this message board has spun off over 4 satellite boards over time. While conservatives complain about excessive brickbats here (with some justification I think), the more polite board didn’t attract a huge number of posters. It was the sort of playground that a lot of conservatives _said_ they wanted, but it wasn’t what they _actually_ wanted. No worries, you don’t know these things until you try. The less regulated board ran into the same sort of issues that all internet free speech absolutists ran into and ended up acting pretty arbitrarily IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/213 "2025-04-18T19:39:05Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Maybe in the general. He couldn’t have been nominated in a GOP primary though. I could see him nominated by party big-wigs, but the glory days of the smoke filled room have passed. Instead we have a primary system thankfully not practiced by any other democracy. Any system where a person could win the general election but can’t make it past a primary system, your primary system is screwed up. And it’s the parties themselves that control how it’s done. It’s kind of stupid. But I’m sure each side is worried that if they abandon the primaries, and their opponents don’t, they’ll be accused of taking away choice from the voters and it will hurt them in the election. Not to mention, primaries are done at the state level rather than national level, and different states do it differently, so you’d need 50 different local state parties agreeing. What a mess. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/214 "2025-04-18T20:00:39Z")
Primaries are popular in the US. When I argue against them here, I get a lot of pushback. Smoke filled rooms attract suspicion in the US (but not in any other democracy). The primary system came into being by accident, following the [McGovern-Fraser Commission of 1969](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGovern%E2%80%93Fraser_Commission). Ending winner-take-all/first-past-the-post/plurality voting during the primary would help. Ranked choice / instant runoff voting would be the substitute. A state wanting to attract attention would try this. The problems in the US political system surpass this though. Unicameral legislatures work better than bicameral ones (unless the top one is given much weaker powers). Unified control by one party or one coalition strengthens accountability - the US does not have it. The glue that kept our democratic experiment going up to last week were norms. When the norms vanished, [so did democracy](https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-authoritarian-takeover-attempt). We’ll see what the Supremes do. ---
**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:** [April 18, 2025, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/215 "2025-04-18T20:03:09Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > As for ideology, this message board has spun off over 4 satellite boards over time. While conservatives complain about excessive brickbats here (with some justification I think), the more polite board didn’t attract a huge number of posters. It was the sort of playground that a lot of conservatives _said_ they wanted, but it wasn’t what they _actually_ wanted. It’s kinda funny how the same pattern keeps playing out. Twitter got bought by Musk, who ended a lot of the moderation, and a lot of liberals left. This should’ve been the paradise desired by both the right-wing and left-wing extremists, but they got bored because there were no liberals to tweak, so they started filtering over to Bluesky in order to complain about liberals again. But the blocking mechanism works a lot better on Bluesky, frustrating their efforts to tweak liberals, so the enthusiasm sort of petered out. People really need to step back and examine why they can’t enjoy an online exchange of ideas unless it can be witnessed by the liberals they claim to hate so much. ---
**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:** [April 18, 2025, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/216 "2025-04-18T20:12:29Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > People really need to step back and examine why they can’t enjoy an online exchange of ideas unless it can be witnessed by the liberals they claim to hate so much. [![](https://media.tenor.com/2S9mVM03L00AAAAe/hate.png) ](https://media.tenor.com/2S9mVM03L00AAAAe/hate.png) ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/217 "2025-04-18T20:13:41Z")
I saw something on Reddit once: “Why is this board so left-leaning?” “Because it’s text-based, which requires that you are able to read”. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/218 "2025-04-18T20:57:24Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Primaries are popular in the US. When I argue against them here, I get a lot of pushback. That surprises me, since I also think they are stupid and harmful. In many races the primary is the race, and only attracts a tiny percentage of the electorate. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/219 "2025-04-18T21:12:36Z")
> [@OldOlds](#): > > That surprises me, since I also think they are stupid and harmful. In many races the primary is the race, and only attracts a tiny percentage of the electorate. “It surprises me that people want to give up their power.” “You want to go back to the smoke-filled room?” I’m not complaining about the push-back; I’m just saying that the US has little appetite to eliminate or de-tooth primaries. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016/220 "2025-04-18T23:34:53Z")
I miss most of the conservatives mentioned, they gave the board some zest. I wonder how Sam Stone feels about Trump wanting his county? Would he defend that? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-conservatives-left-this-message-board/1017016.md?page=12)