a glance back at some older opinions on the conservative movement

[NAOS]

They're older pieces. The first is Frum's post-mordem after the 2012 election
https://www.newsweek.com/david-frum-how-gop-got-stuck-past-63759

The second and third are 2010 pieces about the self-sufficient, self-contained, and densely self-referential quality of conservative media.
https://www.juliansanchez.com/2010/04/07/epistemic-closure-technology-and-the-end-of-distance/
https://www.juliansanchez.com/2010/04/22/a-coda-on-closure/

In my opinion, a sharp-witted fellow or madame would be able to address the pluses and minuses of these articles from the vantage point of 2016 -- basically be able to update them post-Trump.

Discuss? Or perhaps this requires too much reading and needle-threading for this particular forum?


EDIT: analysis of 2016 polling data: https://www.slate.com/articles/news..._rust_belt_revolt.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_fb_top

[MENTION=40]Siro[/MENTION] [MENTION=2530]♪alt13[/MENTION] @Dr Jones [MENTION=848]dalamon[/MENTION] [MENTION=1988]Stoked[/MENTION] [MENTION=970]babe[/MENTION] [MENTION=499]LogGrad98[/MENTION] [MENTION=578]franklin[/MENTION] [MENTION=639]Joe Bagadonuts[/MENTION] etc.

 

[Siro]

Read the first article. I guess the answer is spot on when it comes to the fact that traditional conservatism, with its pro-business and social traditionalism ideology, no longer holds enough appeal to the average American. However, the party moved in the opposite direction of what the author suggests:

"On the Republican side, the road to renewal begins with this formula: 21st-century conservatism must become economically inclusive, environmentally responsible, culturally modern, and intellectually credible.".

That is NOT what won Trump the presidency.

I don't know what's causing the global shift to the hard right. I'd like to think it's mostly economics. The US is outrageously prosperous, and yet, the majority of the population aren't getting their fair share of the ever-expanding pie.

But deep inside, I don't really believe it. I think it's, at least in part, about ethnocentricity and opposition to non-white immigration. On the one hand, the policies advanced by Trump, like protectionism and border walls, were quite mainstream a couple of decades ago. It is ever amusing to watch progressives squirm over all those small-minded racists, when they themselves saw no issue with those policies a couple of decades ago.

But maybe it is is easier to harbor such isolationist sentiments when you're unsatisfied with your economic situation. Or maybe economics have nothing to do with it.

I honestly don't understand why any of this is happening.

Will read the other two when I get some free time.

 

[Siro]

Here is what two thinkers that I respect think of the election:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auukuYuizq4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB54XxbgI0E

 

[♪alt13]

I do have a few current thoughts on this that I've been mulling over. I will read the articles and get back to you.

 

[NAOS]

I'll push some thoughts out sometime tomorrow.

OP edited to include an analysis of exit polling data for 2016.

 

[Boris]

They're older pieces. The first is Frum's post-mordem after the 2012 election
https://www.newsweek.com/david-frum-how-gop-got-stuck-past-63759

The second and third are 2010 pieces about the self-sufficient, self-contained, and densely self-referential quality of conservative media.
https://www.juliansanchez.com/2010/04/07/epistemic-closure-technology-and-the-end-of-distance/
https://www.juliansanchez.com/2010/04/22/a-coda-on-closure/

In my opinion, a sharp-witted fellow or madame would be able to address the pluses and minuses of these articles from the vantage point of 2016 -- basically be able to update them post-Trump.

Discuss? Or perhaps this requires too much reading and needle-threading for this particular forum?


EDIT: analysis of 2016 polling data: https://www.slate.com/articles/news..._rust_belt_revolt.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_fb_top

[MENTION=40]Siro[/MENTION] [MENTION=2530]♪alt13[/MENTION] @Dr Jones [MENTION=848]dalamon[/MENTION] [MENTION=1988]Stoked[/MENTION] [MENTION=970]babe[/MENTION] [MENTION=499]LogGrad98[/MENTION] [MENTION=578]franklin[/MENTION] [MENTION=639]Joe Bagadonuts[/MENTION] etc.

Exit polls LOL. That sounds like the conservatives claiming Obama only won cause Tea Baggers stayed home cause McCain an Romney. ********.

 

[green]

Why is it that this country has more than anyone as a whole, yet the bottom and middle grows while their wealth shrinks?

Maybe trickle down isn't the answer.

 

[Deleted member 848]

Here is what two thinkers that I respect think of the election:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auukuYuizq4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB54XxbgI0E

I had an email exchange with Chomsky the other day. He rocks.


--

Am a little too swamped to engage with OP (hopefully soon), but I've had quite a few laughs at the expense of well known Dem pundits who've embraced David Frum

 

[babe]

ha ha.

intellectuals just won't understand this at all.

I spent a few hours in a truck stop lounge watching truckers' body language last April, then came in here and gave my diagnosis. A lot of Americans are listening to conservatives like Sean Hannity, Mark Levine, and Andrew Willcow. Their wives are sitting at home listening to the same stuff.

For over twenty years the progressives have been veering off to the left while most people are going right, not on ideological terms, just on pocketbook issues.

It's the regulations, it's the pressure on low-end wages with too much immigration driving wages down.

yah I read Noam Chomsky's books in my lit and philosophy classes, but this is nothing to do with the false dichotomy of left and right, nothing to do with .001% OF Americans who are anything like the college mythological racists, fascists or whatever hobgoblins you morons are conjuring up in your imagination.

It the fact that American people really don't like socialism, communism,or any other big idea of how to run the world. They want better jobs and better pay.

Trump found that chord and played it.

 

[Siro]

ha ha.

intellectuals just won't understand this at all.

I spent a few hours in a truck stop lounge watching truckers' body language last April, then came in here and gave my diagnosis. A lot of Americans are listening to conservatives like Sean Hannity, Mark Levine, and Andrew Willcow. Their wives are sitting at home listening to the same stuff.

For over twenty years the progressives have been veering off to the left while most people are going right, not on ideological terms, just on pocketbook issues.

It's the regulations, it's the pressure on low-end wages with too much immigration driving wages down.

yah I read Noam Chomsky's books in my lit and philosophy classes, but this is nothing to do with the false dichotomy of left and right, nothing to do with .001% OF Americans who are anything like the college mythological racists, fascists or whatever hobgoblins you morons are conjuring up in your imagination.

It the fact that American people really don't like socialism, communism,or any other big idea of how to run the world. They want better jobs and better pay.

Trump found that chord and played it.

Your posts can be stunningly stupid. Anyone who disagrees with you is some fringe element conspiring against you. Those who agree, REAL RED BLOODED MURICANS!

Please stop pretending to be speaking for Americans.

The vote went pretty much 50/50. Your 50% aren't the only real human beings.

 

[LogGrad98]

Your posts can be stunningly stupid. Anyone who disagrees with you is some fringe element conspiring against you. Those who agree, REAL RED BLOODED MURICANS!

Please stop pretending to be speaking for Americans.

The vote went pretty much 50/50. Your 50% aren't the only real human beings.

The funny thing about this response is that is exactly the response the left had to trump supporters. Racist back country rednecks less than human white supremacists. Funny how the hypocritical door swings both ways.

 

[DutchJazzer]

The funny thing about this response is that is exactly the response the left had to trump supporters. Racist back country rednecks less than human white supremacists. Funny how the hypocritical door swings both ways.

don't forget uneducated, misogynist and bigoted



ooh and the newest one sexist!


think i got em all now?

 

[♪alt13]

This is going to be vague, messy, and full of assumptions. I wanted to get back to this so I'm going to go ahead and vomit up some not yet fully digested thoughts.

First a little bit of info on attitudes. Every year Gallup(I couldn't find the original poll but have previously read it and found a Cato piece referencing it) asks Americans a pair of questions and then categorizes each respondent as liberal, conservative, populist, or libertarian based on their responses. I don't think libertarian is a good term so I am going to refer to that group as minimalists. While I'm sure libertarians make up some percentage of this group most are probably a collection of live and let live/independent types, confusing them with registered libertarians or ideological libertarians is probably a stretch.

Here are the questions and results(2015)

Some people think the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses. Others think that government should do more to solve our country’s problems. Which comes closer to your own view?

Some people think the government should promote traditional values in our society. Others think the government should not favor any particular set of values. Which comes closer to your own view?

15% Populist- More to solve problems/Promote traditional values
23% Liberal- More to solve problems/Don't favor values
26% Conservative- Left to individuals/Promote traditional values
27% Minimalist- Left to individual/Don't favor values

To my knowledge the poll did not ask them about political affiliation, who they voted for in 2012, and it couldn't have asked who they voted for in 2016 but I bet most of us have a hunch. Further it did not ask which of their responses was more important to them.

At this point I would like to change 2 more terms. Let's call the liberals democrats(representing the current base of party support) and the conservatives republicans(likewise). I think this is largely the truth. I think the old base of the Dems was the populists but they have over time lost their party to the liberals, or modern democrats. This brings us to 2016 and Donald Trump. Trump was able to win voters who for years had been voting for dems in order to protect their status while leaving their social positions on the back burner. There is no doubt that Trump ran a populist campaign upsetting big name traditional conservatives but how economically conservative is the average republican? Political parties compete for voters and their ideologies are affected by those people but people are affected by that affiliation as well. I wonder if the average republican isn't just spitting out the party line on the first question. Which question is more important to them, the 1st or the 2nd?

It's true that Trump brought the populists into the republican party but only the white ones. The democrats may think good riddance and be glad to have cleansed their party but they may want to think twice. It has been the democrats control of the populist vote and business' control of the republican party that attenuated the "social regressives" and allowed for the recent progress. They must be reclaimed or replaced. It's not even clear to me that the Democrats, in the long run, will be able to hold on to the racial and ethnic minority vote any better than they were able to hold on to the white populists. Minorities seem to on average hold less liberal views on social issues, excepting a few issues, than whites do.

I'm not very hopeful. I suspect the democrats will attempt to woo back white populists keeping this group in the center of our politics. I think conservatism is probably an illusion. It looks like it is evaporating. The minimalists will continue to be dispossessed voting based on the issue of the day but more often not bothering to show up at all.

 

[Boris]

A glance back at conservatives is let us create a bunch of b.s. Regulations like EPA an social security that are bankrupting are nation an we will later regret an liberals will demonize us for turning against cause they are threatening to ruin are way of life! Let us create wars in the Middle East so Obama can completely **** the pooch an destabilize the entire region.

 

[The Thriller]

Lets keep in mind that Clinton still won by nearly 3 million votes despite the extremely damaging FBI email report released days before the election.

So let's not pretend that this country is split 50/50.

 

[♪alt13]

Lets keep in mind that Clinton still won by nearly 3 million votes despite the extremely damaging FBI email report released days before the election.

So let's not pretend that this country is split 50/50.

nearly 96 million eligible voters abstained

 

[♪alt13]

^ despite 24 hour coverage for an entire year

 

[LogGrad98]

Lets keep in mind that Clinton still won by nearly 3 million votes despite the extremely damaging FBI email report released days before the election.

So let's not pretend that this country is split 50/50.

Let's also keep in mind that the electoral college worked as intended by not allowing one huge state win (California) to overwhelm several smaller state losses, giving those smaller states an equal voice. Even though many of us would like to see them do away with the electoral college (me included), it worked the way the founding fathers intended.

 

[babe]

Let's also keep in mind that the electoral college worked as intended by not allowing one huge state win (California) to overwhelm several smaller state losses, giving those smaller states an equal voice. Even though many of us would like to see them do away with the electoral college (me included), it worked the way the founding fathers intended.

The electoral college is there because of Rhode Island, Delaware, New Jersey, and some other states with low population numbers realizing that they would not have a significant say in their government if they joined the new union, and because of England and maybe even France having the military numbers to seize the vulnerable little federation piecemeal or whole hog. Even Lincoln saw the whole Union as necessary for world stature and the maintenance of Liberty for the whole.

Second point, the Union consists of States that wanted local control of most issues of their affairs at the outset, and so the Constitution left most matters for State politics. What was intended to be Federal was the common defense of the Union, and strong unified trade powers, and interstate roads and mail.

Third point. When people with global or general causes want to change things, they will work for their goals globally, nationally and locally, and will pretend, momentarily, that the one vulnerable point of change is the legit one.

 

[fishonjazz]

Ya, the electoral college gives the really low population states tons of sway in the election process. That's why all I ever heard anyone talk about on election night was who would take Rhode island, connecuit, wyoming, and idaho. No one really cared about ohio, florida, Michigan ect.