War Trump der unvermeidliche Endpunkt des Konservatismus?
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/was-donald-trump-the-inevitable-endpoint-of-conservatism-conservative-movement
War Trump der unvermeidliche Endpunkt des Konservatismus?
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/was-donald-trump-the-inevitable-endpoint-of-conservatism-conservative-movement
33 Kommentare
I think its an inevitable symptom of capitalism
Looks like a good article. Any way around the paywall?
The end point of conservativism was narcissistic idiocy?
Pretty optimistic to think this is as bad as conservatism can get.
Yes
With all that he has done. From a Christian viewpoint, I actually wonder if he’s the antiChrist.
I mean … it’s where I thought they were going eventually when I worked the 2000 presidential election, thought my personal prediction was a figure like him getting elected around 2028 or 2032.
Maybe not *inevitable*, but after conservatism took up the mantle of white male grievance with the Southern Strategy, they certainly did nothing to prevent their devolving into open fascism.
Here’s a terrifying thought: I don’t think Trump is the endpoint. I can see someone a lot more competent taking control of the MAGA movement and doing significantly more damage after Trump is gone.
much like the endpoint of digestion.
I think that Republicans planned a grand Nazi revivalism and then ended up with an obese pedo moron with a cult by accident.
Now they’re walking the fine line of how to be Nazi and how to deal with pedo.
Some optimist out there thinks it can’t get worse than Trump…
Once conservatism embraced racism, dixicrats and propaganda, it was
no he’s just a useful puppet…and a symptom. complete fascist style control is the end game.
We are in an age of this was inevitable. That’s because it is what happened. Was it the end point of conservatism. Well no because we are not at the end of our country. Even if democracy falls the country will survive. In Spain democracy fell to fascism until the popular leader died and it came back. History is long and always ends up moving forward to a more just society. Even with short term set backs. Germany fell to Hitler and the nazis now it’s the model democracy. I get that the news looks terrible and that there may be very tough times ahead. We may go though our own 1930s Germany or Italy. But we will come out as a society. We will have to fight for it just like the white rose did. The conservative movement is dominated by 30% of their voters. While the liberal movement is dominated by .1% of their voters who donate huge amounts of money. We just need to make center right politicians left leaning. Stop nominating center right politicians and saying they are center left. The country has a lot of work to do over the next 40 months. Be the subway guy. Stand up for what you believe in go out and vote. Get everyone you know to vote. When they say incorrect information or straight up lies call them out. No need to be nice about it. Just say well that isn’t even close to true where did you hear that. You aren’t going to change their mind but you can make them distrust their media source. Show them that they are being lied to by a major media company and the billionaire who is behind it. But even that probably won’t work. Run for office. Even local school boards matter more than you think. We need a bottom up approach like what the conservatives did after 1994 and 2010. In many states sheriff’s and judges are elected. Town council is an elected position. Want to fix the roads well many county engineers are elected run for those positions. The president gets a lot of the press but the real governing happens at the local level.
Really just take a moment to think about what conservative positions are.
Then ask yourself what happens when they decide to act on those positions.
This is what they’ve always been. The only change is how politically active they are. Right now, they think they can get away with it, so that’s what they are trying to do.
But the pendulum will swing back, and when it does, we have to make absolutely sure that we crush it once and for all.
Never Again means Never Again.
Trump is not a conservative and his politics are not conservative. Trump is a charismatic authoritarian dictator. He appealed to the same large group that the Newt Gingrich conservatives pandered to in order to stay in power in the 90s: uneducated white males, especially those who are southern and Christian. That’s where the similarities end.
Trump is the clown that the neocons in the CIA needed to be the face for their push for US global superiority. When the world all goes to shit we can blame one man instead of a committee of geriatric, white megalomaniacs.
yes fascism is the entire point of the GOP and has been for decades before trump or bush
Yes. Conservatism is inherently a narcissistic ideology, since it originated during the French Revolution as a royalist reaction to it.
Unquestionably. The GOP has had to use ignorance, fear, hate, anger, and prejudice for decades to keep so many voting against basic human decency and their own interests.
Wish this wasn’t behind a paywall because I’d love to hear what the Bulwark folks have to say about this.
It’s impossible to say Trump/MAGA was an inevitable outcome of conservatism, but as time went on and on over the last 5 decades and conservatives ignored every warning sign and off-ramp in the raw pursuit of power, it became more and more an inevitable outcome of Republican politics.
From Nixon to Roger Stone, to the Kochs, to Reagan embracing the religious zealots and Birch Society communist/racist paranoia and inviting Roy Cohn, Rupert Murdoch, Tim Weyrich and others into DC, to embracing the vulgarity and hate of Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, and the cynical, soulless nihilism of Mitch McConnell… yeah, conservatives had a ton of opportunities to stop this, and none of them ever did.
Somehow it’s still extremely rare to ever hear any of them admit that maybe they should have listened to their consciences instead of continuing to demonize their opponents as enemies of “real America,” in the pursuit of raw power.
The fact that this article is written in the form of a question instead of an introspective statement (based on the bit that’s actually visible at least) doesn’t inspire confidence.
Endpoint? We wish.
But, yes, conservatism has pretty much always been headed this way.
Naw it could have terminated at neoliberalism but America is super racist and it metastasized to full blown fascism
I don’t see Trump as conservatism at all. I see Trump as crooked fascism. He’s a crook.
I mean, not necessarily. The Conservative wing took a hard authoritarian turn shortly after the passage of the civil rights act (gee, I wonder why). And then, for decades they slowly worked to erode our democratic guardrails. Odd alliances formed between corporate power and the religious right (Regan era) then the Neo-cons used the cover of 9/11 and the war on terror to further erode civil liberties.
Then after 2 elections of the first black president (by wide margins) and the rise of liberalism, the conservative think tanks had enough. In Trump, they found the ultimate weapon. A creature with no morals, one that can be manipulated easily, but also channel the rage and xenophobia of a nation. One that wouldn’t mind burning down the US institutions if it meant he’d be king of the ashes.
Point is, it wasn’t necessarily always going to be Trump (and I still think Vance is the final piece of the authoritarian puzzle) but man oh man, did the GOP hit the jackpot in finding their Frankenstein’s monster.
„Conservatism“ is the polite term we give to authoritarianism while it remains bound by a broader civilized society. Once free of checks and balances though it reliably turns into fascism.
Conservatives are motivated by fear, they see the world as dangerous, change as a threat, and prefer stability to be enforced through simple expressions of power. They want that power applied to people not in their group and for a system to be put in place which ensures (through violence if necessary) they sit at the top of the social hierarchy.
So in any society you care to study you’ll see the extremists gravitate into the local right-wing/conservative parties. Parties which are, more often than not, also the religious and nationalistic parties in that culture as these are natural fits.
Conservatives aren’t necessarily bad but fear, we know, can override ethics and empathy so even good people may end up supporting abhorrent policies and people when primed for fear (which is what right-wing propaganda does by design).
Normal people with a normal fear response see the world as complex, change as having the potential for good or bad, and stability and safety something which comes more from cooperation than violence.
One of these two groups has consistently created better societies throughout history.
It’s kind of optimistic to think we are at the tail end of *waves hand* all this.
I hope so… it just keeps getting uglier
No. See the theocratic regimes in the middle east? Get ready for Y’allqueda to run the government.
lol. Endpoint? This shit ain’t even 10% complete. Prepare for fucking hell.
Yes and no. Trump’s not the endpoint. It can get a whole lot worse than this.
Short answer….yes, someone like him is always inevitable in conservatism.
Long answer….yes, someone like him is always inevitable in conservatism.
Trump is an inevitable stepping point on the way to the end point.
It will get worse.