History shows conservatism reveres wealth and protects the interests of the wealthy. It always has. Democracy, equality, higher education, the arts, voting rights, investigative journalism, and critical thinking itself are loathed by today's American radical Right and have always been seen as major threats to American conservatism.
Conservatism is essentially coddling the rich and privileged while marginalizing and punishing the poor and downtrodden. This explains historical support by conservatives for monarchy, dictators, inequality, and slavery.
Only white male property owners could vote in the US originally. Women and Blacks had to wait their turn for progress, which was always opposed by conservatives. Greed, misogyny, racism and minority rule have long been the dark underbelly of conservatism.
I'm not accusing individuals so much as the cold amoral machinery and economic leverage of political conservatism. Granted too many of those individuals are incurious or oblivious to the harms and adverse effects of political conservatism.
Rich white Southern conservatives waged a bloody civil war to keep slavery as their means to wealth. To this day the plague of American racism has roots in this morally sick Southern white “heritage”.
The essence of conservatism is maintaining the power of an established authoritarian racial/economic hierarchy. The ends justify any means, including stoking fear and hate against people who oppose them. Demonizing, persecuting, and scapegoating those they fear, don't understand, or hate are essential to their conservative "values". Their endless culture wars are an important divide and conquer means to their permanent grip on power.
This is why fear, anger and hate are relentlessly stoked by conservative voices. It is where the con in conservatism finds its purpose and function. It is expressed in white nationalism and masked in Christianity. It has grown into one of the major industries of today’s mass media. We’re watching corporations, law firms, courts, medical and scientific research, news media, and universities being blackmailed, extorted, and coerced into promoting conservative dogma.
Trump’s scorn and hate for journalists is a prime indicator of fascism.
News flash: Journalism is Not “fake news”.
“Journalism is a public service, first and foremost. Journalism is about the truth, first and foremost.
Be truthful, but not neutral. Both-siderism, (on the one hand, on the other hand,) is not always objectivity. It does not get you to the truth. Drawing false moral or factual equivalence is neither objective nor truthful. Objectivity is our golden rule. And it is in weighing all the sides and all the evidence. Hearing everyone, quoting everything, but not rushing to equate them when there is no equating. And look at the damage that has done.”
Ignoring Christiane Amanpour’s words can only lead to the death and burial of truth.
But now CNN keeps a Trumpist on their payroll to spew his lies, deny his criminality, and defend his treachery.
Greenhouse gasses are now being denied as a public health issue. Climate and environmental regulations are being erased, and words like “justice”, “equality”, and “diversity” are purged from from the federal government.
The great con has been a resounding success. The indoctrinated consumer of radial Right propaganda has shown us how conservatives have been conditioned into demanding lies that confirm their bias and elicit reactive negative emotions.
And here we are. We've seen Orwell's Big Brother slogan transformed from "Ignorance is strength" into, "I love the poorly educated". Trump’s Big Lie and thousands of other lies have been transformed into the gospel of an evil prophet they believe was sent by Jesus to save America.
His criminal and authoritarian strangle on our federal government is American conservatism’s endgame. The conservative Supreme Court and one federal judge in Florida obstructed justice by blocking Trump’s criminal indictments on his behalf. The Six corrupt justices on the Supreme Court then went on to bestow upon him an unconstitutional and dictatorial “presidential immunity” to facilitate his latest rise to power.
Trumpism is the fetid fruit of American conservatism.
We were warned, but the public has become indifferent, incurious, or functionally illiterate.
Some
old and new adages come to mind:
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Composer Frank Wilhoit said: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.”
“While Liberals are afraid that somewhere, someone is not getting what they need, conservatives are afraid that somewhere, someone is getting something they don't deserve.” Unknown
“Puritanism:
The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” - HL Mencken
“Conservatism is the dread fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as an equal.” - Dave Vescio
“Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals.” - Mark Twain
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith
“I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.” - Alexis de Tocqueville
“Social conservatism and neoconservatism have revived authoritarian conservatism, and not for the better of conservatism or American democracy.” - John W. Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience
“There are few genuine conservatives within the U.S. political system, and it is a sign of the intellectual corruption of the age that the honorable term 'conservatism' can be appropriated to disguise the advocacy of a powerful, lawless, aggressive and violent state, a welfare state for the rich dedicated to a lunatic form of Keynesian economic intervention that enhances state and private power while mortgaging the country's future.” - Noam Chomsky, The Culture of Terrorism
“The media are desperately afraid of being accused of bias. And that's partly because there's a whole machine out there, an organized attempt to accuse them of bias whenever they say anything that the Right doesn't like. So rather than really try to report things objectively, they settle for being even-handed, which is not the same thing. One of my lines in a column—in which a number of people thought I was insulting them personally—was that if Bush said the Earth was flat, the mainstream media would have stories with the headline: 'Shape of Earth—Views Differ.' Then they'd quote some Democrats saying that it was round.” - Paul Krugman
“Conservatism, however, is too often a welcome excuse for lazy minds, loath to adapt themselves to fast changing conditions.” - Sigmund Freud
“Conservatives are more religious than liberals--although there is no evidence that they're nicer people because of it.” - Andy Rooney
"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.” - David Frum
Corollary:
”If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win by fairness, facts and reason, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject fairness, facts and reason.” - Dave Dubya
Modern American Conservatism is Trumpism. It requires neither conscience nor critical thinking. Introspection and concern for others are not needed to believe everything is just fine. The status quo is the way it's supposed to be, and it provides the best of all possible social and economic systems.- Dave Dubya
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I will conclude with these three primary pillars of con-servatism.
1. Racism and bigotry for the most ignorant white nationalist bottom feeders wallowing in their white fright and resentments.
2. Authoritarianism for the fascists, paranoid militia gun nuts, and religious fanatics who are not fully embedded in, but tolerant, or dismissive, of racism and bigotry. This is all presented in the guise of "liberty and faith". Yes, American fascism comes carrying a Bible and wrapped in the flag.
3. Insatiable greed and lust for power by rigging government, the law, and the economy to favor the economic elites.
And there it is, the unwritten and unspoken platform of the conservative American radical Right.
Bigotry,
authoritarianism, and greed.
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