• Billiam@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 year ago

    Ok, we can pick up the bullshit modern American politics definition of conservative again. Thanks for listening to my TED talk.

    You know how there’s a difference between the words “democratic” and “Democratic”, or “republican” and “Republican”? I say it’s past time we differentiate “conservative” from “Conservative”. Republicans are Conservatives, but they’re definitely not conservative.

    • fubo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      26
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      There is a conservative party in the US, but it’s the Democrats, whose position on most issues can be summed up as “preserve and maintain institutions, treaty relations, and infrastructure; support slow and gradual social progress without radical upheavals.” This is textbook Burkean conservatism, only applied in a liberal-democratic country rather than an aristocratic one.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’ve literally made this exact point but Christ on a stick people look at me like ice got a second head.

        The Democrats are a big tent conservative neoliberal party. They are getting better, but that’s because to build a winning coalition they’ve got to be the big tent. Progressives have drug them kicking and screaming to the few good policy positions they have. Otherwise they are 1990s or 2000s Republicans without the southern twang.

        Americans in general are politically illiterate. As in they don’t know what the damn words mean.

        • MelodiousFunk@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          As in they don’t know what the damn words mean.

          Most Americans have only heard the words used in the contexts that are being bitched about. And that’s intentional on behalf of the ruling class. It’s a framing of the conversation on a societal scale. More accurate information is out there, but to find it, one would need to either be intellectually curious (a dangerous trait to exhibit in the “wrong” setting) or stumble across it at random AND have the inclination to hear out something that goes against what they’ve been told their whole lives instead of rejecting it out of hand.

          And now we are neck deep in yet another round of anti-intellectualism to further compound the issue. I’m not trying to make excuses, just provide context that tends to get lost amongst the “Americans are stupid” narrative.

        • fubo@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          In a liberal-democratic society, “conservatism” in the Burkean sense should normally mean maintaining liberal-democracy; and occasionally expanding its scope e.g. women voters, racial equality, etc. Replacing an existing liberal-democracy with anarcho-capitalism or theocratic fascism is not conservative.

          In any society, “conservatism” should maintain public goods; knocking down the schools, libraries, and treaty alliances because a radical libertarian doesn’t know what they’re for is a Chesterton’s Fence violation!

          Liberal conservatism is opposed to both communist revolution and fascist corruption. It allows for social-democratic experiments within the frame of liberal-democracy. It cannot endorse gerrymandering, institutional overthrow, or the abandonment of public goods which is the mainstay of the GOP.

          • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Yeah I don’t have a word for whatever the hell the Republicans have become. Even fascists see the utility of institutions.