Robert Reich articulated something that has been bouncing around my head since 2016

  • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    30
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    You are describing an actual Conservative, basically someone who acts like a brake. They can slow down or even temporarily stop progress to buy time while things are thought through. For all practical purposes these people no longer exist in the Republican Party. They’ve been replaced by MAGA.

    However MAGA aren’t “Conservatives” because they don’t function as brakes. To stick with the vehicle theme MAGA is trying to shift the vehicle into reverse. They aren’t just trying to stop progress they are actively trying to go backwards!. IMO these people should be called “Regressives” because that word most accurately describes their political goals. They want to unwind progress and regress to a previous time and state of existence.

    • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      4 months ago

      Yup. The MAGA crowd isn’t conservative. The MAGA crowd is regressivist, trying to install feudalism/theocracy. Meanwhile the MAGA leaders plan to take advantage of the ensuing chaos to rob the country. It’s all just a big fat heist with a lot of deceived fools.

    • finitely_prolonged@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      4 months ago

      No he and you are just describing a liberal. There are not and never have been your mythical “actual conservatives”. Conservatives have always been about enforcing social hierarchies. In America there isn’t hereditary nobility but the Republicans have gone full mask off that they really would like that.

      • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        No he and you are just describing a liberal.

        Well…yes. Of course we are.

        There are not and never have been your mythical “actual conservatives”.

        At one time the Republicans were liberals and even advertised themselves as such. If you crack a history book you can see that what’s happening with MAGA right now isn’t the first time that the RP has been through this.

        Aside from goings on in the 1870s we can look to the 1950s and the Eisenhower Republicans. You should look those up.

        Conservatives have always been about enforcing social hierarchies.

        Nah, my lived experience says differently. Dad was a Republican and he never made any racial or social distinctions on anyone. Neither did my mother. The only people my family had a problem with were Russians…and with damn good reason. So that means he was a Republican without being a Conservative. A liberal Republican if you will…and at one time the US was full of them.

        Your claims are so overly broad that they’ve slipped into revisionism.

        • TheFonz@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          4 months ago

          The user you responded to watched Innuendo Studio on yt and came away with the one talking point (the whole hierarchy thing)

      • Fondots@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        4 months ago

        I’m only expressing my thoughts on what conservatism means to me and what I think it should be. I’m not making any claims that it is what conservatism actually is in this country or any other, or about what it has been at any point in time (even if they sometimes like to pretend that it’s what they’re about.) like I said, I don’t align myself with any of the so-called conservative movements that are out there.