I recently rewatched the famous Cambridge debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley. Buckley with his snake like mannerism does NOT age well. Baldwin was brilliant.
The Modern Conservative Movement has always been about preserving white supremacy. The key tenets can boiled down to two inviolable rules.
1. No free shit to black people. This goes all the way back to the Redeemers revising the history of Reconstruction as an era of giving free shit to black people who just frittered it away on liquor and chasing white women.
2. A young black man will never sit next to a white girl in school. It's worth noting that the birth of the Modern Conservative Movement came out of the Brownv. Board of Education decision. The defunding attacks on public education, school vouchers, etc, are all about who sits next to white girls in school.
Wow - you could take Buckley’s justification for white minority rule and apply it to the delusional masses of Trump voters - “It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority”-
This would justify Biden declaring a state of emergency and cancelling the transfer of power on the grounds that the incoming administration is a) disqualified from taking office by the 14th amendment and b) unfit to take office due to their total lack of “civilized standards” - that is, the standards of respect for the law, respect for the constitution, and respect for fundamental human rights...
Not to distract from the expertly crafted academic synopsis here; but I remain curious about the demonization of 'communism'. We don't ask on citizen applications if one has ever been a member of KKK, Nazi party, PrdByz, etc. Only the 'liberal' (multi-cultural, pluralistic, woke) is scrutinized, demonized and now, promises to be eradicated. The twisting of Party of Lincoln, the Democratic party was the South, "where woke goes to die" now all add to the muddling of any movement to counterbalance this belching, bloated white, 'Christian' nationalism.
You ask (and answer) the $64,000 question: "How “conservative” has Modern Conservatism ever been?" Much, much less than it pretended to be. A very important factor in the rise of this modern American so-called conservatism was the Spanish Civil War. Since Buckley and Bozell were such key founders of this "conservatism," emphasis should be given to the strong influence exerted on them by the movement led by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, as well as the isolationist and populist America First movement and Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft. Barry Goldwater needs to be in there too.
I have always sensed that the American Conservative movement was not really conservative, a sign of which was their partiality to unregulated capitalism, which has always been socially disruptive and as it has developed, increasingly so.
On the other hand, I would also suggest is that working-class and middle-class pro-New Deal Americans WERE to a large extent conservative, in wanting to protect the good life they had with considerable effort achieved in America, against the onslaught of radical or (in the Depression) post-radical, capitalism. I am not suggesting we use the word "conservatives"
for them, it would be too confusing. But I think Democracy depends on this now threatened kind of conservatism, which depends on the ability of "ordinary people" to get as good an education as the wealthy, especially in the traditional humanities (not the "critical" BS that too often goes by that name today) — without which democracy cannot function. Too many voters go to the polls without knowing anything about civics or about the people they are voting for. And if 2024 doesn't prove that, I don't know what does.
"The counter-interpretation holds that Trump’s rise was really no big surprise at all: This is what American conservatism, at its core, had always been – a movement fueled and defined by racial and cultural grievance, held together by anti-liberal sentiment. Everything else was just a front, a veneer of intellectual depth and respectability; there had been no venerable tradition to begin with, rather a fairly straight line from William F. Buckley (or perhaps even much earlier than that) to Ronald Reagan to Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich to Sarah Palin to, finally, Donald Trump."
Some thoughts of mine from December 2016-
'Looking at the birth of fascism in Italy, and seeing who Trump's supporters really are.'
"It would be a mistake, I think, to say that fascism has been re-packaged and ‘rehabilitated’. I don’t think it ever went anywhere. It suffered electoral and tactical defeats following WWII, but I don’t think Trump voters were ‘conned’ into voting for a fascist regime by appealing to their ‘economic concerns’ or through a ‘populist message’. Populist appeals and playing on economic insecurity is modus operandi in how fascism recruits its very willing troops on the ground (ordinary, workaday people in ‘mainstream communities’)...
The economic and social concerns and hardships of a white working class Trump voter are not different than those of a Latina, African-American, or Syrian refugee family. In fact, the WWC Trump voter is likely to be better off financially, have greater opportunities, and don’t face daily discrimination. Yet, as Eco notes, they attribute their concerns and hardships to anyone they perceive as different from them and their tribe.
This dynamic— ascribing personal hardship to nefarious efforts to unfairly help ‘unworthy others’— sets the stage for fascism...
What the election has taught us that fascism never went away, it barely went into hiding...
Elected and appointed GOP officials, and overtly conservative institutions, are the operational arm of fascism within the state— judges, police departments, the New York FBI office, the Heritage Foundation, ALEC, etc. The presence of conservative proto-fascists within institutions of authority ‘greases the rails’, and provides cover for a fascist grab of a democracy..."
The United States is the greatest country in the world because of its plurality of peoples. It is a great country because slavery was abolished and the North defeated the South in the Civil War. It is a great country because segregation was abolished, and blacks won new rights in the civil rights movement. It is a great country because Roosevelt created a social safety net from the wreckage of the Great Depression. It is a great country because of its institutions of higher learning, and its fostering the growth of scientific knowledge, the inventive spirit, and entrepreneurship. All of this is about to reverse course with Trump, all of this will be destroyed. America has passed its peak and it will probably never fully recover from Trump's two Presidencies. The United States was able to support Germany and the rest of Europe rebuild, but who will be left to help the United States after Trump and the Trumpists finish wrecking it? I mourn the rules-based order.
I fear you are correct. But I do have some faith in the actual progressive liberal sentiments that spurred all the dramatic changes over the past 70 years and that ushered in and secured the New Deal reforms before that. T is a salesman but the movement using him is not in tune with the values most people support (despite the salesmanship and deceitful disavowal of both Project 2025 and abortion bans that T was forced to employ to sell his shoddy product). Americans have been conned to accept a powerful minority as their rightful rulers but still are not enthusiasts for what the new regime will bring. Hence all the Schadenfreude on the left. We’ll see how well the grassroots can mobilize this time.
When I was an undergrad PoliSci major during Reagan's first term, I actually wrote to William F. Buckley with a simple question: if (as he had publicly stated) the strategy was to support the most conservative candidate in every race who could win, what would stop the Republican Party from going further and further to the right, step by step, until it went all the way?
Sadly, I never got a reply. But I think we have our answer now.
How the Federal NDP can make serious electoral gains and possibly form government in the near future in #canada
The New Democratic Party (NDP) has historically faced challenges in securing a federal election victory in Canada. To enhance its prospects, the NDP could consider the following strategies, informed by recent data, political analyses, and insights from political scientists:
1. Ideological Moderation and Modernization:
The NDP’s shift towards a more centrist platform under leaders like Jack Layton contributed to its electoral success in 2011, where it became the Official Opposition. This transition involved adopting pragmatic policies and modernizing campaign strategies to appeal to a broader electorate. 
2. Strengthening Riding Associations:
Robust local organizations are crucial for effective grassroots mobilization. Research indicates that the strength of NDP riding associations has been variable, impacting electoral outcomes. Investing in building and maintaining active local associations can enhance voter outreach and engagement. 
3. Capitalizing on Liberal Vulnerabilities:
Recent polls suggest declining support for the Liberal Party, with the NDP surpassing the Liberals outside of Quebec. The NDP can position itself as a viable alternative by highlighting policy differences and presenting clear solutions to current issues, such as economic concerns and healthcare. 
4. Addressing Economic and Social Issues:
Voters are increasingly concerned about economic stability, healthcare, and affordability. The NDP can craft policies that directly address these issues, emphasizing social programs and economic reforms that resonate with middle and working-class Canadians.
5. Leveraging Polling Data:
Continuous analysis of polling data can help the NDP identify shifting voter sentiments and emerging issues. Resources like 338Canada provide statistical models of electoral projections, offering insights into regional dynamics and potential swing ridings. 
6. Enhancing Digital Campaigning:
Modern political campaigns require a strong digital presence. The NDP can invest in digital marketing strategies, social media engagement, and data analytics to reach a wider audience, particularly younger voters who are active online.
7. Building Coalitions and Strategic Agreements:
While the NDP previously supported the Liberal minority government through a supply-and-confidence agreement, reassessing such alliances can provide opportunities to influence policy and demonstrate leadership. However, the NDP should also be prepared to assert its independence when beneficial. 
8. Learning from Provincial Successes:
Analyzing successful NDP strategies at the provincial level, such as those employed by former Manitoba Premier Gary Doer, can offer valuable lessons. Emphasizing practical, voter-friendly policies and effective communication were key components of these successes. 
By implementing these strategies, the NDP can enhance its appeal to a broader segment of the Canadian electorate, improving its chances in future federal elections and quite possibly winning in the near future!
I recently rewatched the famous Cambridge debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley. Buckley with his snake like mannerism does NOT age well. Baldwin was brilliant.
The Modern Conservative Movement has always been about preserving white supremacy. The key tenets can boiled down to two inviolable rules.
1. No free shit to black people. This goes all the way back to the Redeemers revising the history of Reconstruction as an era of giving free shit to black people who just frittered it away on liquor and chasing white women.
2. A young black man will never sit next to a white girl in school. It's worth noting that the birth of the Modern Conservative Movement came out of the Brownv. Board of Education decision. The defunding attacks on public education, school vouchers, etc, are all about who sits next to white girls in school.
Wow - you could take Buckley’s justification for white minority rule and apply it to the delusional masses of Trump voters - “It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority”-
This would justify Biden declaring a state of emergency and cancelling the transfer of power on the grounds that the incoming administration is a) disqualified from taking office by the 14th amendment and b) unfit to take office due to their total lack of “civilized standards” - that is, the standards of respect for the law, respect for the constitution, and respect for fundamental human rights...
Not to distract from the expertly crafted academic synopsis here; but I remain curious about the demonization of 'communism'. We don't ask on citizen applications if one has ever been a member of KKK, Nazi party, PrdByz, etc. Only the 'liberal' (multi-cultural, pluralistic, woke) is scrutinized, demonized and now, promises to be eradicated. The twisting of Party of Lincoln, the Democratic party was the South, "where woke goes to die" now all add to the muddling of any movement to counterbalance this belching, bloated white, 'Christian' nationalism.
Who is our a-Vought?
You ask (and answer) the $64,000 question: "How “conservative” has Modern Conservatism ever been?" Much, much less than it pretended to be. A very important factor in the rise of this modern American so-called conservatism was the Spanish Civil War. Since Buckley and Bozell were such key founders of this "conservatism," emphasis should be given to the strong influence exerted on them by the movement led by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, as well as the isolationist and populist America First movement and Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft. Barry Goldwater needs to be in there too.
I have always sensed that the American Conservative movement was not really conservative, a sign of which was their partiality to unregulated capitalism, which has always been socially disruptive and as it has developed, increasingly so.
On the other hand, I would also suggest is that working-class and middle-class pro-New Deal Americans WERE to a large extent conservative, in wanting to protect the good life they had with considerable effort achieved in America, against the onslaught of radical or (in the Depression) post-radical, capitalism. I am not suggesting we use the word "conservatives"
for them, it would be too confusing. But I think Democracy depends on this now threatened kind of conservatism, which depends on the ability of "ordinary people" to get as good an education as the wealthy, especially in the traditional humanities (not the "critical" BS that too often goes by that name today) — without which democracy cannot function. Too many voters go to the polls without knowing anything about civics or about the people they are voting for. And if 2024 doesn't prove that, I don't know what does.
I sort of agree. On the other hand, I think it’s a mistake to assign much intellectual depth to either Trump or the average voter.
"The counter-interpretation holds that Trump’s rise was really no big surprise at all: This is what American conservatism, at its core, had always been – a movement fueled and defined by racial and cultural grievance, held together by anti-liberal sentiment. Everything else was just a front, a veneer of intellectual depth and respectability; there had been no venerable tradition to begin with, rather a fairly straight line from William F. Buckley (or perhaps even much earlier than that) to Ronald Reagan to Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich to Sarah Palin to, finally, Donald Trump."
Some thoughts of mine from December 2016-
'Looking at the birth of fascism in Italy, and seeing who Trump's supporters really are.'
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/12/6/1607836/-Looking-at-the-birth-of-fascism-in-Italy-and-seeing-who-Trump-s-supporters-really-are
"It would be a mistake, I think, to say that fascism has been re-packaged and ‘rehabilitated’. I don’t think it ever went anywhere. It suffered electoral and tactical defeats following WWII, but I don’t think Trump voters were ‘conned’ into voting for a fascist regime by appealing to their ‘economic concerns’ or through a ‘populist message’. Populist appeals and playing on economic insecurity is modus operandi in how fascism recruits its very willing troops on the ground (ordinary, workaday people in ‘mainstream communities’)...
The economic and social concerns and hardships of a white working class Trump voter are not different than those of a Latina, African-American, or Syrian refugee family. In fact, the WWC Trump voter is likely to be better off financially, have greater opportunities, and don’t face daily discrimination. Yet, as Eco notes, they attribute their concerns and hardships to anyone they perceive as different from them and their tribe.
This dynamic— ascribing personal hardship to nefarious efforts to unfairly help ‘unworthy others’— sets the stage for fascism...
What the election has taught us that fascism never went away, it barely went into hiding...
Elected and appointed GOP officials, and overtly conservative institutions, are the operational arm of fascism within the state— judges, police departments, the New York FBI office, the Heritage Foundation, ALEC, etc. The presence of conservative proto-fascists within institutions of authority ‘greases the rails’, and provides cover for a fascist grab of a democracy..."
The United States is the greatest country in the world because of its plurality of peoples. It is a great country because slavery was abolished and the North defeated the South in the Civil War. It is a great country because segregation was abolished, and blacks won new rights in the civil rights movement. It is a great country because Roosevelt created a social safety net from the wreckage of the Great Depression. It is a great country because of its institutions of higher learning, and its fostering the growth of scientific knowledge, the inventive spirit, and entrepreneurship. All of this is about to reverse course with Trump, all of this will be destroyed. America has passed its peak and it will probably never fully recover from Trump's two Presidencies. The United States was able to support Germany and the rest of Europe rebuild, but who will be left to help the United States after Trump and the Trumpists finish wrecking it? I mourn the rules-based order.
I fear you are correct. But I do have some faith in the actual progressive liberal sentiments that spurred all the dramatic changes over the past 70 years and that ushered in and secured the New Deal reforms before that. T is a salesman but the movement using him is not in tune with the values most people support (despite the salesmanship and deceitful disavowal of both Project 2025 and abortion bans that T was forced to employ to sell his shoddy product). Americans have been conned to accept a powerful minority as their rightful rulers but still are not enthusiasts for what the new regime will bring. Hence all the Schadenfreude on the left. We’ll see how well the grassroots can mobilize this time.
They say, aren't we so superior.
When I was an undergrad PoliSci major during Reagan's first term, I actually wrote to William F. Buckley with a simple question: if (as he had publicly stated) the strategy was to support the most conservative candidate in every race who could win, what would stop the Republican Party from going further and further to the right, step by step, until it went all the way?
Sadly, I never got a reply. But I think we have our answer now.
How the Federal NDP can make serious electoral gains and possibly form government in the near future in #canada
The New Democratic Party (NDP) has historically faced challenges in securing a federal election victory in Canada. To enhance its prospects, the NDP could consider the following strategies, informed by recent data, political analyses, and insights from political scientists:
1. Ideological Moderation and Modernization:
The NDP’s shift towards a more centrist platform under leaders like Jack Layton contributed to its electoral success in 2011, where it became the Official Opposition. This transition involved adopting pragmatic policies and modernizing campaign strategies to appeal to a broader electorate. 
2. Strengthening Riding Associations:
Robust local organizations are crucial for effective grassroots mobilization. Research indicates that the strength of NDP riding associations has been variable, impacting electoral outcomes. Investing in building and maintaining active local associations can enhance voter outreach and engagement. 
3. Capitalizing on Liberal Vulnerabilities:
Recent polls suggest declining support for the Liberal Party, with the NDP surpassing the Liberals outside of Quebec. The NDP can position itself as a viable alternative by highlighting policy differences and presenting clear solutions to current issues, such as economic concerns and healthcare. 
4. Addressing Economic and Social Issues:
Voters are increasingly concerned about economic stability, healthcare, and affordability. The NDP can craft policies that directly address these issues, emphasizing social programs and economic reforms that resonate with middle and working-class Canadians.
5. Leveraging Polling Data:
Continuous analysis of polling data can help the NDP identify shifting voter sentiments and emerging issues. Resources like 338Canada provide statistical models of electoral projections, offering insights into regional dynamics and potential swing ridings. 
6. Enhancing Digital Campaigning:
Modern political campaigns require a strong digital presence. The NDP can invest in digital marketing strategies, social media engagement, and data analytics to reach a wider audience, particularly younger voters who are active online.
7. Building Coalitions and Strategic Agreements:
While the NDP previously supported the Liberal minority government through a supply-and-confidence agreement, reassessing such alliances can provide opportunities to influence policy and demonstrate leadership. However, the NDP should also be prepared to assert its independence when beneficial. 
8. Learning from Provincial Successes:
Analyzing successful NDP strategies at the provincial level, such as those employed by former Manitoba Premier Gary Doer, can offer valuable lessons. Emphasizing practical, voter-friendly policies and effective communication were key components of these successes. 
By implementing these strategies, the NDP can enhance its appeal to a broader segment of the Canadian electorate, improving its chances in future federal elections and quite possibly winning in the near future!
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Trumpists aren't the majority, but are they a minority majority?