Sorry for the headline. I don’t know why they don’t just say it’s Vivek Ramaswamy.
To that end, I will accept Russian control of the occupied territories and pledge to block Ukraine’s candidacy for NATO in exchange for Russia exiting its military alliance with China. I will end sanctions and bring Russia back into the world market. In this way, I will elevate Russia as a strategic check on China’s designs in East Asia.
This has never been true. This is plain nonsense.
Like declaring Mitch McConnell and Wolfe Tone must share values because they’re both “Republicans.” Words mean what they are used to mean. What conservatism means, in modern English, is monarchists denied a monarchy.
You can deny it if you want, but that’s what you’ll find in dictionaries and encyclopedias, which is what most people consider as the standard definition of a word.
Dictionaries reflect use.
What people mean is always enforcing hierarchy.
That is the only consistent thread, within and between conservative movements worldwide. They want one guy in charge of everything and half the population fighting for scraps. On some level they do not believe society can function any other way.
The people who attempted to overthrow American democracy aren’t preserving a damn thing.
Trying to overthrow institutions is typically not conservatism. It seems you confuse extreme right (fascism, authoritarism) and conservatism, maybe because in your country, what used to be a conservatist party became extreme right.
Fascism is conservatism.
Fascism is conservatism, but louder.
In every country, conservatism has that undercurrent, because they’re the same idea at different intensity.
Do you think aliens beamed down and took over America’s conservative party? No: they voted for fascism. This is what they wanted. They felt The Hierarchy™ was being threatened, because of gays and blacks and them darn transgenders, and they are ready to enact dictatorship to reassert the privilege of the white-nationalist ingroup.
It’s always been there - from slavery to Jim Crow to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. It’s usually happy to use the language of civil discourse, because it’s usually in control already. But the moment society shifts toward greater equality, in spite of their political efforts to stratify and separate people, the conservative base will abandon all disguises and demand violence.
People who are right-wing without being conservative are your Mitt Romneys, your Arnolds Schwarzenegger. Y’know. “RINOs.” People deeply confused by how the party that used to love them suddenly calls them traitors, because they chose stated principles over kneejerk loyalty. It’s almost… it’s almost like… it’s almost like the principles… didn’t matter? Like it’s all just excuses for kneejerk loyalty?