What happened to the conservative movement?

 

Oops I accidentally overheard someone say this question, yet it is worth discussing from my point of view. And for the people who are concerned about this, my answer isn’t going to be liked by them.

And to answer this question, I am going to have to back up some. 

When I was young I considered myself a liberal. My first vote for President was Jimmy Carter. We had just finished up the Nixon disaster and being young with all my friends we thought that was the correct vote. But but but by the late 70’s I found myself at odds with much of what the Democrats were doing and saying. I didn’t consider myself a conservative yet, but there was conflict. It hadn’t manifested very strong yet so in 1980 I voted for Carter again.

Soon after 1980 my life changed some and I had a new best friend. He was a demonstrative Reagan conservative. He loved Reagan and I heard about him night and day. This did not change me. Like I mentioned my life had changed and I realized some aspects of conservatism appealed to me, yet others that the Republican Party hung much of their hat on, didn’t.

So my friend and I argued late into many nights what was really conservatism and I made the conscious decision I was an independent conservative and would not vote for either of the two parties. I felt even at that time they were losing touch with the realities on the ground about what this country needed. It wasn’t as obvious to many, yet as the Reagan years went on, I started seeing it more and more. In the 1982 midterms I voted for a few libertarian candidates. If there wasn’t a libertarian on the ballot I didn’t vote for that office. I was mocked to say the least because I had decided to be just as demonstrative about being an independent as my friend was being a Reaganite. We had an extended group of friends, some liberal some conservative, and they all mocked me.

1984 came around and after two years of hearing how my vote was wasted in 1982, I went real rogue and said y’all are wasting your vote and found the most crazy conservative candidate and voted for him. I told all my friends and since we all lived in the same precinct we voted together. And everyone in that line knew who I was voting for. I didn’t care, I was proud to “stick it to the man”.

And 1984 is just about the end of the conservative movement. After this year the one thing that benefits the Republicans and the worst instinct of conservatives began to dominate their thinking. And it is the same thing. Conservatives are conformists by nature. It helps them develop a culture, helps them to rally around their causes, but it also destroys creativity, creates groupthink even for policies that are not good, causes others to look over their shoulders to make sure they still belong.

To me the first sign of Republicans weakening as conservatives was when Grover Norquist had all Republicans in office sign his no new tax pledge and created a lock step environment that began the weakening of the party. They all did for some made up fear that they were not Republican enough if they didn’t. The long slow march to less than mediocrity began.

If you are a real conservative you would know how to manage the government in conservative fashion and would not need to proof it to anyone. This conformity was counter productive and today we see the results of that in the complete acquiesce to Trump. Grover being the little mini dictator of policy wannabe to be relevant hurt the party tremendously in my eyes.  I saw this and vowed never to support the Republican party. I might have made the switch if he hadn’t shown to me such a weakness dominating the party environment.

Two other reasons I do not support the Republicans. First is that Republicans tie supporting big business as a conservative principle. Yes, supporting free markets is a conservative principle, but there is a difference between supporting markets and trade versus giving breaks and developing policy that enhances big business. The Republicans can say they are the party of big business if they want, but they cannot say this is conservatism. True conservatives would support the free market which means it is up to the business to survive not give tax breaks and other benefits to prop them up or prop up their profits especially when they couch this in false facts and lies. Now I do believe in economic hard times the government can help in certain ways, as with helping the average Joe so to speak just as much. The government’s job is to protect the people, all the people, including during economic calamities. 

The second reason is why I thought I was a liberal when I was young and that is I am against pollution in all its forms. And as mentioned it is the government’s responsibility to protect the people so when a business is poisoning us, it is the government’s job to protect us and this is done through the EPA. I do not know if this is best way to do it, but something needs to be done on a regular basis when companies show disregard for our health to make more money. I never understood poisoning your workers or customers was a great business model. Anyway this goes against the Republican (not conservative) grain so I decided in the 80’s not to be a Republican.

And so the conservative movement reached it’s zenith with Reagan and began it’s descent with Reagan. Ever since then it has been hijacked by too much conformity, big business through lobbying (democrats suffer from this also) and absolutely no new ideas. Conservatives became good at pointing fingers and then first with Gingrich and then Fox News, the hate machine developed and started the slow march to Trumpism. Sure the Democrats aren’t better and if you don’t believe me you need to read the book Hate, Inc. by Matt Taibbi. He really takes the deep dive as to why the media became obsessed with picking sides, how far this has devolved, and why both sides are equally to blame. It is a great read for modern history.

So that is a quick hit as to what happened to the conservative movement. Not at all the full exploration that is needed, yet I hope it gives you an idea why I continue to say I am an independent conservative even though my public policy ideas lean slightly center right populism which is hard to explain what that means. Internally I am very conservative, yet I also know for our government to succeed it needs to look at the needs of the whole and as per our Constitution without taking away the rights and needs of the minority (and that could be any minority, but they meant politically when they framed it). That is one tall task which we currently are failing at religiously.

So the Republicans aren’t conservative, they are I do not know what right now, but it ain’t good and the Democrats are clueless on how to help the very people they keep saying they are helping.

So quit wasting your vote and start recruiting people you respect to run as an independent, liberal or conservative, because if you want to conserve our Constitution we need to get to work.

Cheers