Talk Elections

I've come up with a theory that the basic pillar of modern conservatism is almost one of populism. The reason the democrats had a lot of appeal from the depression up until the late 1960s was that they were seen as the party of the people. But as the 60s turned into the 70s, a lot of democrats began questioning their alleigance. How? Because they felt it was no longer the party of the people but a party of a select few. Part of the reason is that certain voting blocs didn't have much sway in the party at the time but by 1972, they did (think McGovern-Fraser commission).

The basic argument of a lot of right wingers i've known is that the democratic party leaders are basically a pack of sugar daddies who are out to score points for their clients (blacks, feminists, hispanics, gays, jews etc) and are there only to represent them and not "The American Majority". Such a type of mentality had existed for years but when Obama was elected, it pretty much sounded off an alarm and this ideology has much more visibility now.

For the record, I'm not here to say that these people are racist. Many hold negative views of people of their own race. I've argued for years that the divisions in american politics is not race, but rather made up of divisions within the white community that is often obscured by the increase of minorities in this country. Although whites as a whole lean republican nationally, the difference between whites within the country is almost as wide as differences between nonwhites and whites. I always thought that the white backlash to the civil rights movement in the 1960s wasn't really an anti-black attitude as much as it was a backlash against other white people (particularly jewish college students). They felt that they were puppetmasters using the black community as grenades against them.

Agree with everything you just said.

I wouldn't say "Jewish college students" or "puppetmasters"  but otherwise yes.

Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman? Not only was Chaney Black (and local), Goodman wasn't Jewish either.
Oh, and Schwerner and Goodman had only just met and had really nothing in common except being from New York. Chaney and Schwerner had long been working together though... The facts didn't fit the preconceived notion.

Hofstadter, Richard.  "The Paranoid Style in American Politics."  1964.

From what I've seen and understood, American conservatives have always been opposed to secularism, relativism, and egalitarianism, preferring traditional/historical roles for business, commerce, the State (national defense+law and order), as well as traditional social roles for men, women, and children, and of course, religious and moral absolutes. As a generally progressive person in terms of politics, I don't necessarily relate to these values, but that doesn't mean I don't try to understand them.

Republicans are every bit as focused on appealing to certain groups as Democrats.

Well, they do bash "latte liberals" and "Park Avenue liberals" and "limousine liberals" a lot to try to get people to vote for the party of the rich. They know that if people voted on issues like minimum wage, the Citizens United ruling, and realized how much lower taxes are for the rich than the middle class, they'd get wiped off the face of the earth.

My first impression is to say we should simply ask some conservatives rather than guessing about it ourselves.

In lieu of that, I figure that culturally conservative folk have grown fond of well-established principles, traditions, and institutions in politics and often look for gradual, cautious means of improving upon them without having to embrace entirely new strategies or reject what they consider to be tried-and-true theories. They are not really anti-intellectual so much as highly suspicious of folks who assert society ought to undergo fundamental changes, not entirely opposed to equality so much as aware that human beings are unequal in a number of significant ways by their very nature and that hierarchies encourage productivity and order via a system of incentives; and they are not intolerant zealots so much as they like the social norms of their nation and do not want those norms to rapidly change - either for better or (as a worrisome risk) for the worse. The conservative has a less idealistic impression of "human nature" than do many of their opponents, and is hence okay with deterring or coping with certain social problems (e.g., poverty, crime, recidivism, war, greed, politically incorrect attitudes, etc.) instead of pumping vast quantities of resources into what might very well be futile efforts to wholly do away with them. We ought to be strong, respect our leaders, honor our sacred customs, support our own, and make do with what we have got - not stick our heads up in the clouds like naive dreamers. We've a lot to lose from unneeded gambling.

The progressive or radical can easily seem elitist, deviant, rude, reckless, malcontent, and detached from reality.

Don't think this last is right; a Google search reveals the following news story from the time:


http://www.thejc.com/news/on-day/50510/on-day-michael-schwerner-and-andrew-goodman-killed

On the subject of "populism"-"Middle class" populism is of quite a different ideological focus than working-class populism.

i think the paleo critique of the modern western state as 'anarcho tyranny' probably best sums up where many of us are coming from. that is that the state now aggressively (and unnecessarily) attempts to socially engineer society. it harasses and controls ordinary people at virtually all levels.  income tax, environmental regulations, hiring regulations, zoning regulations, monetary laws, car regulations, the tsa, the irs, the the cps, gun regulations, speech codes, i could go on and on. the level of control on the average american is truly staggering.

yet the state obviously fails at its most basic duties. this is part of why i and others feel so enraged by the illegal immigration issue in particular even if we can not necessarily articulate why this is. that is, if the state can not keep intruders out what exactly are we paying them for? if detroit and bridgeport and who knows how many other portions of our cities can not be patrolled reliably by police, can not be walked through by the average person what is the point? but to dispense with the state at this point is to destroy ones self, individually and collectively. so modern 'conservatism' or 'libertarianism' is a toothless and incoherent thing.

liberals look at the last 30-50 years and see progress. i see a growing underclass subsidized by us. it is one that arguably exists almost solely for the benefit of the special interests.. the welfare bureaucrats, the private prisons profiting from human misery, the money changers and parasites at jp morgan (food stamps). i see endemic levels of alienation and depression that were unheard of even a decade ago. i see deeply unhealthy feelings of civilizational angst, of "white guilt." i see the old majority culture being supplanted and altered by foreign peoples, who actually do have some sense of pride (good for them). i see 23% of pregnancies ending in abortion, 41% in our largest city. i see the ruthless deconstruction of the most basic facets of our identity by so-called experts. i see the nauseating spectacle of reality tv and pop whores and the trash culture. i see children with rotting teeth, with plump stomachs and ritalin addled minds. i see young women and elderly degraded at the airports.

i have to be honest and say i look forward to absolutely nothing now. the future can only get and only ever gets worse. if things have deteriorated so visibly by my early 20s i am not sure i want to be around for my early 40s. i am not sure what direction we could take to sweep our culture clean. but it has to be because i don't see how this can possibly continue. it is pure insanity.

obviously.


>jews
>white

i don't think so. thats like calling russians 'european.' it might technically be true, but not really. they are really their own people and tend to think of themselves as such.

His point is still sound in that there are ways of being 'culturally white' that don't have so many weird coded racist associations, and that they should be encouraged rather than the ones that do.

"Culturally white," is a mouthful for me. I doubt I could get it down with one swallow.

Well, I mean, any generic form of explicit cultural whiteness is somewhat suspect considering the history of white dominance over American society and what feeling the need to draw further attention to one's whiteness would imply, no? But there's still this idea that a particular, non-generic form of cultural expression should be available to any group that isn't suspect in that way. Sadly, for the reason that I just went over, most anybody who'd be interested in 'expressing whiteness' in this country wouldn't be interested in that.

People inevitably have cultural expressions, though, whether they perceive them or not, which was what I mainly meant. Encouraging a form of generic whitebread-American cultural 'non-expression-expression' that's not one of the more virulent kinds.

Some Russians think of themselves think as European/Western especially in Moscow & St. Petersburg. 5% maybe 10% at most, but it's there. I'd say Russian as a nation is having an identity crisis right now.