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lonely bird Wrote:
The gentleman misses the point. It IS a Conservative party. It is a Conservative party that is the result of about 60 years of movement from a party that had some belief in government to a party that hates government and is out to prove a nation can be run as a company while ruining government. From the seeds of the jbs to Buckley to Goldwater to Reagan the movement has been to "take back" the country from those who are not white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants (with occasional conservative Catholics and Jews for "diversity") and present it as a sacrifice on the altar of profit uber alles. Money however is not the issue. It is the means of keeping score but irrelevant to the real issue which is social power. Conservatives have never forgiven the country for destroying slavery and building a middle class which the hoi polloi could actually aspire to. Read, hell just about anything, regarding the use of agitprop to mold poor whites into the fold against blacks and other minorities including the most shat upon, the natives. Zinn covers this most excellently in a people's history of the United States.
This is true. Conservatism...or "Movement Conservatism" has been a part of our political landscape forever. Their brains are wired differently. Defining "conservatism" in the last 60 years has become more difficult as they have blended in religious, social and cultural issues that were not traditionally a part of conservatism, or for that matter, the Republican Party. Barry Goldwater quote:
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.” -- Barry Goldwater as told to John Dean
I suppose the Republican Party is experiencing a kind of "blowback" for their gerrymandering and pandering to the craziest segments of the American society...not only the "preachers" as Goldwater called them, but also the gun nuts, the bigots, and the white supremacists, while creating a culture of "hate of the other". The Republican Party establishment is now reaping what they sowed.
The Republican debates, particularly the rhetoric of Trump, Cruz and Rubio along with big splash of Carson, reflect the genetic make-up of the new Republican Party...call it conservatism or whatever else might fit the tribe.