I kinda, sorta agree with (((Noah Rothman))) that conservatism has conserved more things than most of us realize and hasn’t been given enough credit:
“What has conservatism conserved?
This is a question asked with earnest impatience by many of Donald Trump’s enthusiastic supporters. It is raised by both the archaic white nationalist who views racism as transgressive enough to constitute a youthful rebellion, and by burgeoning opinion writers who fancy themselves a respectable sort. It is whispered by patriots who fear for the future of the republic they love and by sycophants for whom the Constitution itself is a barrier to the enlightened despotism they believe would remedy America’s ills.
Trump has made no secret of his antipathy toward conservatism and the politicians who speak in its name. The Republican nominee is now in open warfare with one of the GOP’s most popular figures, House Speaker Paul Ryan, calling him “a man who doesn’t know how to win.” Trump supporters will nod their heads to this assertion. That view is dogma on the anti-establishmentarian right. This pique led to the nomination of an unqualified presidential nominee who will badly lose a winnable race for the White House. Now, out of spite, those same people who sacrificed the presidency are contemplating the sacrifice of the GOP’s majorities. Because they’ve convinced themselves that Republicans like Ryan don’t “know how to win,” they believe they’re not forfeiting much. They’re dead wrong. …”
Let’s go through the list:
1.) Communism – The #TruCons were totally against Soviet communism during the Cold War. It is a stretch though to say they defeated communism. Anyway, I don’t disagree that #TruCons were strongly opposed to communism and that they wanted to conserve American capitalism and classical liberalism.
I’m just saying that defeating communism is something Corporate America wanted and thus there was no reason for #TruCons to take an opposing position. They are water carriers for the neo-liberal globalist oligarchy. Why would they be opposed to fighting communism which kept American corporations out of large swathes of the world?
2.) American welfare programs – Rothman is referring here to the welfare reform bill that passed Congress under Bill Clinton. Again, I agree that the #TruCons were opposed to welfare for poor and working class people. Why would they be opposed to welfare reform? Corporate America has always been against welfare for anyone except itself. Classical liberals (i.e., conservatives) ordinarily glorify the “free-market.”
Wall Street and the Big Banks went on welfare in 2008. That was fine enough though. George W. Bush was told by all of his donors and establishment buddies that he had to set aside his “free-market principles” for a minute and sign off on a $700 billion dollar welfare check to save wealthy investors during the Crash of 2008. To make a very long story short, the #TruCons won a very small battle in the war against the welfare state in the 1990s, which is already rapidly being dismantled, but lost the larger war.
3.) The Triumph of Free Trade – I will concede that one too. Corporate America strongly supports globalization and pushes very hard for new free-trade agreements. That’s why the #TruCons (and Hillary, and Obama) were for it.
4.) Revitalization of First Amendment Freedoms – What are these big victories? Political correctness is stronger than ever before. #TruCons, who are a bunch of weak-kneed cowards, are less willing to stand up to Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) than ever before.
5.) Right-To-Work Laws – Once again, Corporate America is for right-to-work laws, which is why the Bush-Ryan-Kasich wing is for right-to-work laws.
6.) Disempowering Teachers Union – Generally speaking, fighting unions is something conservatives (i.e., classical liberals) have always supported. Corporate America supports it. Thus, there is no reason not to move forward on that agenda item.
7.) Criminal Justice Reform – This is another pet cause of the Paul Ryan wing of the Republican Party. Letting hardened criminals out of prison will signal to the media that they are “one of the good ones.” George W. Bush’s support for AIDs in Africa legislation is another example.
8.) DREAM Act – This is a complicated issue and we need to take a more nuanced view to see what is going on. Granted, there has always been SOME resistance in the GOP to the DREAM Act, but that is because there are rival factions within the party.
The populist wing centered on talk radio was strongly against the DREAM ACT. At the same time, the Paul Ryan-John McCain wing was strongly for it – after losing the 2012 election, Paul Ryan was working with Luis Gutierrez on amnesty within the week. The DREAM Act has been batted around since 2001 and for 15 years now it has pitted populists against establishment Republicans.
9.) Gun Control – The biggest victory for the #TruCons here seems to be the end of the Assault Weapons Ban which expired in 2004. It required no action on their part.
10.) Citizens United and McCutcheon Decisions – Both of these decisions unleashed a tsunami of big money into politics and amplified the power of the donor class. Corporate America was for it so naturally the #TruCons were for it, too.
11.) Affirmative Action – The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the legality of affirmative action. What’s the victory?
12.) Obamacare – There has been a lot of grandstanding and failure theater in Congress on this issue. Corporate America hates Obamacare so the #TruCons have a free hand to oppose it and repeal it if they ever get the chance to do so.
13.) EPA – Once again, Corporate America dislikes burdensome regulations, which is why there has been movement on this side of the “conservative agenda.”
14.) Federal Spending – The National Debt still sets a new record every day, right?
Some issues which are not mentioned:
15.) Taxes – The relatively low tax rate on top income earners we have had since Ronald Reagan was president has been conserved, right?
16.) Deregulation – Large swathes of the American economy have been deregulated since the 1970s and 1980s. Neo-liberal globalists in both parties have worked together on these changes like deregulating Wall Street. These favors for Corporate America have been conserved.
17.) Endless Wars To Promote Democracy – Using force (Iraq and Libya) and subterfuge (Ukraine and Georgia) to aggressively spread liberal capitalist democracy all over the world has been successfully conserved.
What are we to make of this?
We should grant to the conservatives that some things (low taxes, fighting communism, free-trade, deregulation, endless wars, etc.) have been successfully conserved. There are even a few things where we might even agree with the conservatives (gun control) that have been conserved. Also, there is room for debate on many of these questions (healthcare, welfare reform, taxes) where reasonable people might agree and disagree.
Yes, but there is a clear pattern here. The pattern is that the things which have been conserved, or where there has been a real attempt to use political power “conserve” this or that item, are something that what calls itself “the governing wing,” or the Paul Ryan-John McCain-John Kasich wing, or the establishment wing, or the Chamber of Commerce wing, or the globalist wing (whatever you want to call it), WANTED!
Conservatives will fight for low taxes, free-trade, deregulation, more foreign wars, etc. They will fight for those things because “the governing wing” wants them to do so. “The governing wing” has a very different attitude though when it comes to other aspects of the “conservative agenda” which are popular with the majority of Republican voters. They will, for example, stick their nose up in the air, wave their hands, and sanctimoniously say, “that’s not who we are” when it comes to suspending Muslim immigration.
Look, “the governing” wing sees the world like this: the overwhelming majority of Republican voters are there to provide them with the votes necessary to pass THEIR GLOBALIST AGENDA. It is THEIR PARTY. It belongs to the 10 percent to 25 percent of Republicans who support Paul Ryan and John Kasich.
The Republican Party is THEIR COUNTRY CLUB. You’re welcome at the country club, but you ARE NOT WELCOME to select its leaders or set the policy agenda. Do you not realize that voting for Trump and defeating “the governing wing” in the primary jeopardized the SOUL of the whole organization? Have you not noticed that they have been blowing the whistle and screaming OUT OF BOUNDS with their #NeverTrump campaign for 6 months now?
You’ve left “the governing wing” with no other choice in this election but to formally endorse Hillary Clinton, push this #NeverTrump campaign, and vote for the Democrats. That’s the only way conservatism can be saved from you!
Note: The old man in the pink shirt in the video below has always reminded me of George Will.
Conservation of Jewish hegemony over the masses? That’s the prime directive.
For example here he attacks a road construction crew with a white foreman. The explosion from the AT missile looks like it would have filled these navvies (working class Irish, Poles, Germans, Brits building roads) with lethal bits of shrapnel.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua803eGwPko&ebc=ANyPxKpN8XSDLDgrzI976z6b5Bk49-qfREUscVcz7Gmb9cNkOREfStXxaLSoFpJvOfNMwZ_nn9pa
Yup. Douglas is Jude .
The sly thing about that film is that Douglas’s character is the Everyman.
Tommy Lee Jones cop in No Country For Old Men is much more in line with the Psyche of the White Fellow than this cartoon.
He tries his best but resigns himself to ineffectual resistance to the evil of the world.
The grandson of jewish rag-peddlers from the Warsaw Ghetto!
Hollywood movies make it look like Military weapons are routinely in the black market commonly available to criminals. Has there been even one incident of a street gang or survivalist lunatic going postal ever using a bazooka, M-60, missile, C4, land mines, anti-tank weapon etc. over the last 30 years?
But Douglas’ character (William ‘D-Fens’ Foster) did make fun of that gook in the grocery store, didn’t he? Or was it a greasy wog? And he did scare off those spic gang-bangers. That was a pretty cool movie.
He defended the Gook from the Cholos.
I liked that one scene though!
You mean the golf course scene? The one you linked? Having never seen the movie, I watched it. Jewy from top to bottom.
Not if you don’t know Douglas’ identity.
It’s your Angry White Lout who thinks he’s clever… a coincidence no doubt.
Get a mind.
The only “conservative” organization that’s succeeded in “conserving” anything is the NRA, and only because they make it clear that any attempt to confiscate their guns will be the start of a long, bloody civil war that the Left would most likely lose.
http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/short-history-enclosure-britain
As this article, a fairly balanced account of the enclosure movement, illustrates, the only rights any man has are those he is willing to fight for. Your votes will be ignored (Brexit, anyone?) but your bullets might get their attention.
There’s a more fundamental reason. The 2A issue is the one issue where the right acts like the left usually does and the left behaves the way the right usually does. What I mean by that is that the right treats all other issues as purely political while it treats 2A as cultural, whilst the left treats all other issues as cultural while it treats 2A as purely political. Another reason, as Megan McArdle noted a few years ago, is that on 2A, the right is disciplined, mostly non-fractured and sticks to message, and the left is divided 50 ways to Friday in terms of activism and organization and the politics largely serve as fund raising fodder for people like Gabby Giffords and Sarah Brady. It’s another example of the left and right trading places.
And, duh, the outcome is way different.
Great analysis, as always. I disagree on 2 points, however:
Bullet 6: The Teacher’s Union promotes NOTHING but more shekels to teachers. and the sole goal of edumakashun revolves around demonizing & persecuting Whites, and teaching homosexual & other types of depravity. The members of that union need to be rounded up, placed in public stockades, and FLOGGED.
Bullet 17: It’s not capitalism liberal democracy that’s being perpetrated – it’s the Judeo Imperium. War, horror, misery, starvation, and death death. The Jews will have their Blood Feast, as long as a single Human breathes “their” oxygen.
Both of the largest teachers’ unions in the country are run by ultraliberal you-know-whos. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b61320cf7704de14973722d26feae24ec5778d9572b0f1c1670189dbd60af4d2.png
And they forced the union on the teachers.All their dues go for shlomos interests,nothing to do with education.
It’s Rebecca! Rebekah!
Becky!
There’s obvious confusion about what “free trade” is, so I’ll make it simple.
If it takes a treaty, it’s not free trade. Further if it takes a treaty it’s likely to be mercantilism, what some of us now call economic fascism.
Correct me if I’m wrong but the problem with these “free trade” agreements is that they are agreements, NOT treaties. Treaties would require formal ratification by Congress and they sure as hell don’t want to sign their names to anything that might come back to bite them on the ass later on at election time.
The Fuhrer had no use for conservatives and neither do I.
Conservatives are mostly lower- and lower middle-class men who, embarrassed about their small town origins, look down on other Whites to reinforce their social status. They wear bow-ties and play at being landed gentry.
(((Noah Rothman))) misses the point of Trump supporters’ question ” What have conservatives conserved for rank and file Republicans?”
Easy. Modern conservatism solved all the big problems it was established to address, and finished that job about 25 years ago. Once that happened, conservatism should have been put out to pasture. Remember, in late 1991, Sam Francis advised Pat Buchanan on the eve of his first Presidential campaign to ditch conservatism both as a label and in substance, and go with populism and nationalism. The main driving force behind the last quarter century of American political schizophrenia has been conservatism hanging around when it was no longer needed or relevant, trying to make itself useful in a climate that had no use for it.
Now, thanks to Trump, and all the fallout, people are realizing in 2016 what Sam did in 1991.
Mitt Romney is sabotaging Trump in Utah. Mormons really believe cuck Evan McMullin will be president by winning Utah and throwing the presidential election to the House of Representatives. (((Neocons))) sabotaged rank and file republicans by fooling evangelicals, in 2016 they are sabotaging rank and file republicans by hoodwinking Mormons.
Gee, I hope the cuckservatives haven’t done anything to conserve the traditon of NOT drafting women into the military and NOT throwing women on the front lines.
The best thing if Hillary and Soros with the help of lots of cukservatives manage to STEAL THE ELECTION is : Hillary has made it very clear she wants to start a WAR AGAINST RUSSIA which means WORLD WAR THREE and Uncle Sam is going to need shitloads and shitloads and never-ending more shitloads of soldiers and a military dependent on volunteers just can’t supply Uncle Sam with as many soldiers Uncle Sammyshitzz needs to fight a World War, and just a few months ago the U.S. Senate laid the LEGAL ground work to draft women into the military and Hillary is planning to start WORLD WAR THREE which means a revival of THE DRAFT and this time women are going to be thrown on the front lines. [ Though Nancy French , of course, will be one woman who will defintely, lol, trip over herself to volunteer to fight on the front lines for Hillary’s WW3. ]
This is what all the empowered American women Hillary supporters will be voting for on November 8th, to get themselves thrown on the front lines of WORLD WAR THREE, LOL, and I think it would be kinda fun to watch our empowered American WOMYN HEAR THEM ROAR IN NUMBERS TOO BIG TO IGNORE!! invade Russia and beat-up and defeat MOTHER RUSSIAN BEAR!!! GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!!! U GO GURLZZZ!!!
Publius Decius Mus responds
Note that nearly all the actual policy “victories” in that list are nothing more than implementations or entrenchments of the Davoisie rapacity agenda. Perhaps the weakness of the case explains why none of the intellectual right’s “big guns” have tried to make a better one, but were content to let a fledgling foreigner charge that hill. And remember, that’s the best case that anyone has so far tried to make. What it shows is that the Republican Party isn’t even effective in opposition.
When Rothman strikes out on his own, the first thing he mentions is that “more than half of the Union is now right-to-work.” Is this meant to flash in neon the out-of-touchery of the Acela intellectual? The Trump rebellion is fueled in very large part by blue collar workers fed up with the economic trajectory of the post-NAFTA era. What does gutting their unions do to conserve their jobs, their communities, their allegiance to the Republican party? It’s great for the donor class—I get that. But how hard is it to see that, at the very least, the results of this policy are not perceived or experienced as great by the people it directly affects, many of whom the Party desperately needs to win elections?
That’s to leave completely aside the justice of such measures. A non-doctrinaire conservative should be able to see that voluntary, private sector unions are useful and just when they protect the legitimate interests of workers against overweening capital, harmful and unjust when they stifle productivity and promote rent-seeking. Circumstances matter. The days of industry-crushing Big Labor are long gone. In hedge-fund, Davos America, the little guy needs help.
Next up is that perennial urban right-wing bugaboo, the teachers unions. I admit, I too used to be hard over on this one. Bad unions! And, to be clear, I still oppose public sector unions in principle. But I have come to believe it’s much too pat to ascribe all our schools’ problems on the unions. The collapse of sensible curricula may have been abetted by the unions. But that movement was devised in the universities, evangelized by the ed schools, and enforced by the feds.
Besides, the deeper problem is the students—specifically, the flooding of so many formerly American districts with foreign, non-English-speaking children whom our system is not designed to teach, and whom in any case it was not built to teach and should not exist to teach. It’s supposed to be for us, the citizenry, and our posterity. To blame decent, decently educated middle-aged women for failing to make Central American economic migrants—many with no father—achieve at the level of American kids is perverse. One thing the unions do accomplish is to give middle class Americans—actual citizens, born here—a lifeline to live and earn a living in the communities where they and their forebears have lived for generations. Outrageous!
Rothman then notes that Republicans stopped the DREAM Act. I’m glad they did! But wait. Rothman doesn’t actually say he’s glad. He just notes that they did it. A little cursory Googling reveals Rothman to be an open borders shill in favor of “comprehensive immigration reform.” So there’s one conservative success that the “conservative” Rothman opposed. It’s enough to make one question the integrity of the rest of his list.
Which, to be honest, is just lame. That’s not to say that every “achievement” he cites is worthless. But taken altogether, they don’t even come close to matching—much less overcoming—liberalism’s gains. The trajectory remains left, left, left. If Rothman and his #NeverTrump friends get their wish, that trend will accelerate. Then we can look forward to more such pieces. “The Big Conservative Victory of Limiting Hillary’s 2017 Refugee Plan to 950,000 When She Demanded One Million.”
http://amgreatness.com/2016/10/21/conservatives-were-doing-great-just-ask-us/
Speaking of largely useless gestures, some in the GOP party are talking about booting Ryan. Ok I think having Ryan run a gauntlet would be fun, but since Liberalism still rules the roost the GOP will be the water boy to the Left, as usual.
I’m all for letting blacks finish off liberalism, let them goose step about with their racial grievance religion all over the faces of the “Liberals.”
Conservatives have also turned their backs and allowed two big predatory scams to fleece the citizens of this country who don’t know any better that a government should protect. The For Profit School Industry and Multi Marketing Pyramid Scams.
It seems there is always some fool at your workplace over the last decade in one of these Pyramid MLM scams who thinks they have a business, pushing others to enroll in the scam. Yet in reality these pyramids are really selling the product of “investment opportunities” almost none of these overpriced products you can get similar versions of at Walmart for pennies ever gets retailed to to end users. The foolish “business owners” ARE THE END CUSTOMERS and these fools end up with thousands of dollars of unsellable junk in their garage. Instead of cracking down on these scams and throwing the con-men who run them into jail, true cons call this “free market” and let this corruption go on.
The for profit school industry, the 1-800 number quack schools advertising on daytime TV, relies on the cargo cult myth of “education” as the keys to mythical prosperity that has plagues us since the WW2 generation. These Wall Street investor businesses don’t have academic advisors, but salesmen who greet prospective lower bell curve types who contact them and soon have them signed up for as much money as a bank will loan them. Good dividends for the investor class in these scam schools, but not a real eduction for tens of times more money than the same product you can obtain from a community college. Frontline covered this a few months back and these scam schools had homeless, toothless, Meth-addicts on the hooks for 30K in student loans days after coming down from a frightening binge that had them wanting to go straight. Vulnerable people in no condition to make such a decision and who should have been entering a rehab program instead. Another dumb black who sounded like flipping burgers was all they were capable of was on the hook for a fortune by some salesman who fooled them into thinking he could be an “architectural planner.” Tru Cons think predatory capitalism is A-OK, not something an honorable ruler should protect his people from. This “for profit school” scam is just usury reinvented in another form.