Obviously, I am not conservative. I have been struggling with the way a lot of conservatives are responding to the election. I do not understand their willingness to go along with obvious lies by Trump sycophants at all, and their willingness to undermine a presidential election, and by doing so, undermine our very form of government. This thread is from a former conservative journalist, well, he’s still conservative I think, but has left his positions in traditional conservative organizations. It’s a long thread but fascinating.
Understanding The Conservative Mindset (1 Viewer)
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superchuck500
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It's so bad I feel the need to always qualify it. Putting "conservatives" in quotes, or saying Trump-conservatives, or even more appropriately Trump-populists. The demagoguery and authoritarianism is far stronger than American conservative movement ever was. It's really more like European conservatism than anything else (there's quite a bit of evidence for this argument).Isn't that rich? These yahoos running around with Trump flags on their trucks are more like central Europeans than Ronald Reagan?
I'm limiting this to Democrats because that's the immediate topic of discussion, and I assume you already have some ideas of how Republicans are authoritarian.
I apologize in advance for not being able to articulate my thoughts exactly as I want to. I tend to use more words as a consequence and that might muddy things. Just ask if I'm not making sense somewhere.
Well, there's always this crazy woman:
Someone actually replied to her to link the "Trump Accountability Project".
This is hugely disturbing to me. I understand archiving Tweets and news articles - that's fine. That's already being done. Somehow this feel vastly different than the typical.
Excerpt from "See the list" link, from an older version through the web archive
The goal here, as I understand it, is to blacklist or ostracize the people who were involved in any facet of Trump's presidency from the top to the bottom. Is there even a precedent for something with this ambition?
Just because I would not be counted among the people this thing aims to collect a list of even if they were collecting the names of 70 million voters (which they don't seem to be doing), doesn't mean its existence doesn't absolutely horrify me. It should horrify everyone, and yet here we are. It doesn't matter if it ends up being nothing in the end, the point is that this is where their heads are at and they feel perfectly comfortable gathering a list of high and low level Trump Administration employees for some future imagined Nuremberg trials. And there will be individuals who will gleefully contribute to this without a second thought.
But if we're talking about normal politics ... there are 3 ways to control you that I can think of off the top of my head - taxes, bans, and mandates.
Democrats love using the punitive tax to discourage behavior. Soda taxes, mandatory plastic grocery bag fees, cigarette taxes, etc. Sure, it seems minor, but it isn't just a cash grab by attaching these to necessary or addictive items. It's an attempt to modify your behavior. After all, people can't be trusted to make their own decisions, so they're just going to have to make them for you.
Bans though are a much more bipartisan tool. Where Republicans seem to ban things like being gay, Democrats seem to ban things they don't personally need, and think you shouldn't have either. The easy ones here are related to firearms, but anytime they have some kind of crusade, it's all about banning something. Many of these attempts fail or are overturned because they're blatantly unconstitutional, but the idea that we can fix a problem by making certain things like plastic straws, toy guns, disposable water bottles, free happy meal toys, goldfish, barbie dolls verboten signals to me that that person is only interested in controlling people rather than simply ensuring they're informed consumers like we do with food ingredient labels.
There are always unforeseen consequences to any law. Like raising the federal minimum wage - the least valuable employees get their hours cut or fired completely, and the cost of food increases. Actually, that's a pretty obvious consequence.
Ultimately, people need to understand that every law that is passed is enforceable through the threat of state violence. Not usually initially, which is why it's a good idea to simply comply (and they know this) - first it's a fine and maybe a court appearance, but refusing attempts for the state to punish you can lead to your death. For instance, while attempting to sell single cigarettes on the street corner somewhere. Why did that need to be a law again? If people are selling them to minors, it's already a crime.
This is not to say that we should not have laws, of course, it just means that we should not be passing frivolous laws just like we should be judicious with the use of taxpayer earned monies taken by the government and not waste it. Banning things for your own good, then killing you to enforce the law or ruining your life by putting you through the system is not exactly in your best interest.
Apart from the news, I read a digest of some of the things people say on social media. It's pretty scary.
Do you disagree with my perception of the left? I will say, I think that most people are simply trying to solve problems and "their hearts are in the right place", I just take issue with their use of the sledgehammer of law to solve them - particularly if they're small (or imagined!) problems. It's almost like they feel that they'll lose their elected positions if they don't pass laws constantly.
As far as the right is concerned, telling people what substances they can or can't put into their own bodies or when they can buy things, or who they can marry ... well, that's just the goal of a different kind of crusader. But they're both crusaders nonetheless.
And I'll leave you with this because it's late - someone once asked why there had to be both good and evil. Why can't we just have good?
I told him that we could no more have good without evil, than we could cut the tail off a coin. Sure, we can cut down the engraved image of the tail, but the coin still has two sides. Only now the tail is less defined. We can cut more off the coin and completely remove the image of the tail, but the coin still has two sides. The only thing you've accomplished, is that you've made the line between good and evil thinner.
Eventually, when things that weren't previously considered bad are the worst we have to face, they become the major evil. Because people are always looking for problems to solve.
World poverty rates have declined dramatically. Now simply living in poverty is the new extreme poverty. It's fine, obviously, to continue working on the problem - but we should take a moment every now and then to recall where we were and how far we've come to put our present into the proper context.
insidejob
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A) If you wanted to be left alone, you wouldn't be participating in this thread or on this board whatsoever.
B) If liberals are calling you a conservative and vice versa, I really think you'd have more than ten posts on this site explaining why you're neither.
Just seems like you've got some pretty thin skin, IMO.
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MT15
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I did hesitate using the word conservative, but ended up using it because the author identifies himself that way and I don’t have another term for these people. Zealots, maybe, but that’s not very specific.
insidejob
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Do I disagree with your depiction of the "left." Abso*******lutely. It's not like we just elected Sanders or Warren. And this sledgehammer you're talking about comes out after years and years of things like mass shootings at schools, gay people being beaten and sodomized simply because they're gay, people quite literally serving life in Angola for their third P/W/I/D charge for forking marijuana, and the schedule of narcotics in general carrying way too much weight. (Dime bad of heroin for personal use - 4 to 10 hard time, tough luck.)
And, you know as well as anyone in this country who lives in reality that absolutely no one is coming to confiscate your guns. Your 2nd amendment rights aren't going anywhere. Does that mean that maybe we should take into consideration that when it was written the second amendment was basically talking about muskets, not semi-automatic rifles that people strap on and rush state houses with? Or that are used to take out as many people as possible at a concert in Vegas? Seriously. Maybe there should be some common sense legislation about what kinds of guns are actually necessary for normal citizens, hunters, etc., and if you're using them illegally, then fork you, tough shirt. Have fun spending a few days in jail. God knows I've spent more than a few years combined in jail for doing some things that never hurt anyone but myself.
Do you, bruh. Just don't expect the rest of the country to be on board with your positions.
Taurus
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So long as it's used for what they say it will be, I'm fine with the Trump Accountability Project.
This Administration flings so much, so very much feces around that it's impossible to follow in the moment. An archive of who was doing what and when will come in handy at Nuremburg. Or, y'know, at CNN or possibly even Fox when some functionary tries to claim "I wasn't there." or perpetrate some other kind of gaslighting.
For that matter, it'll be useful when these yahoos start running for office on their own.
"Weren't you part of the disastrous Trump Administration?"
"Not really, I was an adjunct contractor working out of..."
"Says here you were the undersecretary of lentils. Didn't three railway workers die in a tragic incident where they opened a boxcar full of what they thought were soybeans, only to find deadly Brazilian spiders? Because of a mixup in your office, signed off on by you, yourself? Is that not your signature there beside "Bz Wandering Spiders: 20 tons"
This Administration flings so much, so very much feces around that it's impossible to follow in the moment. An archive of who was doing what and when will come in handy at Nuremburg. Or, y'know, at CNN or possibly even Fox when some functionary tries to claim "I wasn't there." or perpetrate some other kind of gaslighting.
For that matter, it'll be useful when these yahoos start running for office on their own.
"Weren't you part of the disastrous Trump Administration?"
"Not really, I was an adjunct contractor working out of..."
"Says here you were the undersecretary of lentils. Didn't three railway workers die in a tragic incident where they opened a boxcar full of what they thought were soybeans, only to find deadly Brazilian spiders? Because of a mixup in your office, signed off on by you, yourself? Is that not your signature there beside "Bz Wandering Spiders: 20 tons"
DaveXA
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I just call them Trumpers. They're absolutely not conservatives.
superchuck500
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I'm limiting this to Democrats because that's the immediate topic of discussion, and I assume you already have some ideas of how Republicans are authoritarian.
I apologize in advance for not being able to articulate my thoughts exactly as I want to. I tend to use more words as a consequence and that might muddy things. Just ask if I'm not making sense somewhere.
Well, there's always this crazy woman:
Someone actually replied to her to link the "Trump Accountability Project".
This is hugely disturbing to me. I understand archiving Tweets and news articles - that's fine. That's already being done. Somehow this feel vastly different than the typical.
Excerpt from "See the list" link, from an older version through the web archive
The goal here, as I understand it, is to blacklist or ostracize the people who were involved in any facet of Trump's presidency from the top to the bottom. Is there even a precedent for something with this ambition?
Just because I would not be counted among the people this thing aims to collect a list of even if they were collecting the names of 70 million voters (which they don't seem to be doing), doesn't mean its existence doesn't absolutely horrify me. It should horrify everyone, and yet here we are. It doesn't matter if it ends up being nothing in the end, the point is that this is where their heads are at and they feel perfectly comfortable gathering a list of high and low level Trump Administration employees for some future imagined Nuremberg trials. And there will be individuals who will gleefully contribute to this without a second thought.
But if we're talking about normal politics ... there are 3 ways to control you that I can think of off the top of my head - taxes, bans, and mandates.
Democrats love using the punitive tax to discourage behavior. Soda taxes, mandatory plastic grocery bag fees, cigarette taxes, etc. Sure, it seems minor, but it isn't just a cash grab by attaching these to necessary or addictive items. It's an attempt to modify your behavior. After all, people can't be trusted to make their own decisions, so they're just going to have to make them for you.
Bans though are a much more bipartisan tool. Where Republicans seem to ban things like being gay, Democrats seem to ban things they don't personally need, and think you shouldn't have either. The easy ones here are related to firearms, but anytime they have some kind of crusade, it's all about banning something. Many of these attempts fail or are overturned because they're blatantly unconstitutional, but the idea that we can fix a problem by making certain things like plastic straws, toy guns, disposable water bottles, free happy meal toys, goldfish, barbie dolls verboten signals to me that that person is only interested in controlling people rather than simply ensuring they're informed consumers like we do with food ingredient labels.
There are always unforeseen consequences to any law. Like raising the federal minimum wage - the least valuable employees get their hours cut or fired completely, and the cost of food increases. Actually, that's a pretty obvious consequence.
Ultimately, people need to understand that every law that is passed is enforceable through the threat of state violence. Not usually initially, which is why it's a good idea to simply comply (and they know this) - first it's a fine and maybe a court appearance, but refusing attempts for the state to punish you can lead to your death. For instance, while attempting to sell single cigarettes on the street corner somewhere. Why did that need to be a law again? If people are selling them to minors, it's already a crime.
This is not to say that we should not have laws, of course, it just means that we should not be passing frivolous laws just like we should be judicious with the use of taxpayer earned monies taken by the government and not waste it. Banning things for your own good, then killing you to enforce the law or ruining your life by putting you through the system is not exactly in your best interest.
Apart from the news, I read a digest of some of the things people say on social media. It's pretty scary.
Do you disagree with my perception of the left? I will say, I think that most people are simply trying to solve problems and "their hearts are in the right place", I just take issue with their use of the sledgehammer of law to solve them - particularly if they're small (or imagined!) problems. It's almost like they feel that they'll lose their elected positions if they don't pass laws constantly.
As far as the right is concerned, telling people what substances they can or can't put into their own bodies or when they can buy things, or who they can marry ... well, that's just the goal of a different kind of crusader. But they're both crusaders nonetheless.
And I'll leave you with this because it's late - someone once asked why there had to be both good and evil. Why can't we just have good?
I told him that we could no more have good without evil, than we could cut the tail off a coin. Sure, we can cut down the engraved image of the tail, but the coin still has two sides. Only now the tail is less defined. We can cut more off the coin and completely remove the image of the tail, but the coin still has two sides. The only thing you've accomplished, is that you've made the line between good and evil thinner.
Eventually, when things that weren't previously considered bad are the worst we have to face, they become the major evil. Because people are always looking for problems to solve.
World poverty rates have declined dramatically. Now simply living in poverty is the new extreme poverty. It's fine, obviously, to continue working on the problem - but we should take a moment every now and then to recall where we were and how far we've come to put our present into the proper context.
I agree with almost everything you said - there is a Left version of authoritarianism in America and while it manifests differently (often, not all the time) it is still authoritarian. I saw some research a few weeks ago, I tried to find it now but can't, that concluded that based on an expansive dive into survey results, about 35% of Americans find moderate to substantial appeal in authoritarian ideas and themes. This means that they value conformity over diversity and have difficulty coexisting with those whose values or ideas contrast with theirs.
We see this on the American Right with issues that are somewhat benign, like the resistance to anyone kneeling for the anthem, to the more problematic, like enthusiastic suppression of non-Christian religion or immigration. We see it on the American Left with suppression of certain political speech on college campuses or in demands of conformity in identity issues.
But whether right or left, Americans with authoritarian tendencies share more than they don't. They are more prone to vilify those who do not conform with their expectations - to view their opponents as criminals who should be incarcerated or, in more extreme cases, killed. They are enthusiastic supporters of political leadership with stated objectives to force their vision of conformity through governmental action. And most worrisome, they are far less interested in preserving democratic systems and institutions in their quest to achieve their vision of conformed behavior.
The piece pointed out that this still means that a majority does not - but 35% is more than 1 in 3 and when those personalities are grouped together (e.g. by geography/demographic, by faith, etc.) their tendencies are amplified by their numbers. Another problem is that the other 2 out of 3 are inherently not as wired to organize opposition to them.
The best way to limit authoritarianism is to defend and bolster the institutions of democracy and the rule of law. The US is in a dangerous time, because the authoritarian themes are more prevalent today than in quite some time. We have seen a president who, through a combination of personality flaws, personal history, and ignorance, challenges the rule of law, destabilizes democratic institutions, and rallies the enthusiasm of the authoritarians on the American Right, including those in one of America's two political parties.
It is dangerous and we must continue to demand respect of law and faith in our well-developed democratic institutions. But this effort cannot include authoritarianism from the Left, as it is a similarly illegitimate device in the tool kit for the preservation and success of America, the idea.
This is not to say that criminal acts should be tolerated or that the perpetrators of destructive conduct cannot be held accountable. But it must be done within our rule of law and democratic institutions.
(All of that said, I don't think that certain consumer behavior laws are inherently problematic. There can be a weighing of public benefit against personal inconvenience that comes out heavily in favor of public benefit with only minor personal inconvenience. I don't have any issue with bans on plastic bags at grocery stores or the use of plastic straws, or public smoking.)
Taurus
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I think we're using that term interchangeably when our definitions differ.
Who's the Authority on the Left? Do Antifa or BLM even have "A" leader?
DaveXA
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Their leader will ultimately be whoever is in office that governs they way they want to be governed. But it's clear that there are authoritarian tendencies on both ends of the spectrum. This is why I'd rather someone who is a centrist. Whether they're right or left matters less than whether they're making decisions with the whole country in mind rather than a smaller subset of people.
insidejob
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BLM has leaders. Antifa is an ideological movement with no structure whatsoever.
Taurus
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Again, I'm reminded of Inigo Montoya.
IMO: "Authoritarian" means an appeal to authority. Someone placed 'high up' who sets the agenda and cannot be wrong. Authoritarianism is by definition a right-leaning term. From Trump to McConnell to local preachers, Trumpers/Conservatives like to look up, they like it when they know their place, when the 'anointed of God' is calling the shots and they can feel comfortable following orders from them.
The Left doesn't have that, it's a key difference.
It seems y'all are defining 'authoritarian' as 'having a desire to impose your political will on others'. Which isn't the same.
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MT15
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The problem I have with the fairly aggressive “both sides” arguments right now is that they are picking up fringe elements of the Democratic Party, (people who are not in power and not in a position to usurp the will of the people by delegitimizing an actual election) and comparing them to the actual power structure of the current Republican Party. This is absurd. More than that, it is in effect excusing actual abuses of power, by making them equivalent to some theoretical abuses of power that may happen in the future.
Saint by the Bay
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BLM is also decentralized. each chapter does its own thing. There really is no central leadership.
DaveXA
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I'm speaking more towards a theoretical angle. Let's say a progressive President is elected, like an AOC or Warren and the like. What do we think that will look like? What will governance look like? Do we want the federal government to be governed in the same way a Chicago or Seattle is governed? I'm sure some will like that idea. Others not so much.
It's not really a both sides comparison in the sense that they're necessarily equal. They're much different in approach. But...authoritarian tendencies as a general human trait clearly exists on both ends of the spectrum.
GMRfellowtraveller
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Arthur Miller got to the heart of this in The Crucible:
"In an ordinary crime, how does one defend the accused? One calls up witnesses to prove his innocence. But witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature, an invisible crime, is it not? Therefore, who may possibly be witness to it? The witch and the victim. None other. Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims—and they do testify, the children certainly do testify. As for the witches, none will deny that we are most eager for all their confessions. Therefore, what is left for a lawyer to bring out? I think I have made my point. Have I not?"
Currently, it's the invisible crime of liberalism/socialism - when Miller write this the crime was Communism
Roe v Wade initiated a backlash and single issue concern over the "soul"
other authoritarian movements have demonized the 'elite' (jailing/killing all intellectuals, et al)
but it's all 'witchcraft' or 'the devil' et al
if it wasn't such an effective rhetorical tool, it wouldn't be used so much- but if you can steer a discussion to demonizing nebulous beliefs vs tangible actions, you can control the narrative bc you can never be nailed down to what you are actually discussing bc you can keep moving the goalposts as long as you need
there is irony that Malcolm X's most famous quote is 'By Any Means Necessary" (which the implied "to defend yourself) - but the philosophy is something authoritarians consistently use as an offensive strategy
"In an ordinary crime, how does one defend the accused? One calls up witnesses to prove his innocence. But witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature, an invisible crime, is it not? Therefore, who may possibly be witness to it? The witch and the victim. None other. Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims—and they do testify, the children certainly do testify. As for the witches, none will deny that we are most eager for all their confessions. Therefore, what is left for a lawyer to bring out? I think I have made my point. Have I not?"
Currently, it's the invisible crime of liberalism/socialism - when Miller write this the crime was Communism
Roe v Wade initiated a backlash and single issue concern over the "soul"
other authoritarian movements have demonized the 'elite' (jailing/killing all intellectuals, et al)
but it's all 'witchcraft' or 'the devil' et al
if it wasn't such an effective rhetorical tool, it wouldn't be used so much- but if you can steer a discussion to demonizing nebulous beliefs vs tangible actions, you can control the narrative bc you can never be nailed down to what you are actually discussing bc you can keep moving the goalposts as long as you need
there is irony that Malcolm X's most famous quote is 'By Any Means Necessary" (which the implied "to defend yourself) - but the philosophy is something authoritarians consistently use as an offensive strategy
superchuck500
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What term, "authoritarian"?
I'm using it generically. It refers to belief in a system of rule by authority rather than a presumption of individual liberty. A person or group with authoritarian tendencies or support of authoritarian ideas or results doesn't need to have an identifiable leader.
I was also referring to viewpoint or ideological base, not necessarily the practical ability to enforce them.
GMRfellowtraveller
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that's a complicated definition since an authoritarian like trump is anti-authority in that he does not listen to authorities of medicine or science or anything really
which is to say nothing of, 'what authority does/did trump have about anything?'
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