Quote (bogie160 @ Jun 15 2021 10:57am)
Whether you think Reaganism was positive or negative, it had a clear objective and direction for the country. A strong military, a robust economy unencumbered by regulation, and a government in support of traditional, decentralized social power structures. That has been the conservative party within American politics for a generation.
Identity politics has entered center stage because the American left has abandoned the principles of bipartisan American liberalism. They are at war with the foundations of American and European civilization. I don't find comparisons, drawn by Chinese immigrants, to the Cultural Revolution all that dramatic anymore. The American right is only now waking up to the threat. It's unfortunate that there is no political talent at present to shape that burgeoning awareness in a productive direction.
As I said in a different thread, these institutional biases have existed for decades, but they've become significantly more overt in the past ten years, and kicked into overdrive with Trump's election. We are entering uncharted territory where universities are establishing committees to police academic research and journalists proudly proclaim themselves ideological advocates rather than arbiters of fact. Personally, I think it goes along with the decline of religion. We are trying to substitute one Truth for another. The last time we tried this was in the 1910s with Communism and the 1930s with Fascism, and I'm sure we all remember how that turned out.
and today we have a right wing that wants a strong military to stand by for potential wars they dont want to happen, a robust economy where corporations rake profits and trickle down economics become less and less valid year after year, and supporting a traditional family in line with judeo christain values only in select cases where they feel threatened, increasingly calling for the executive branch to end around legislation with EOs while their guy is in office and outsourcing all blame for polarization on the left, etc.
all while claiming gender neutral bathrooms and liberal arts majors rhetoric are an existential threat to america.
its idiots cheering on the creep of the federal power structure to tackle foes they've been bamboozled into thinking pose them a serious threat and a drastically lowered bar for what constitutes success while in power. they chopped the big toe off of obamacare and called it dead, completed 10% of the border wall that would never have worked and called it complete, cut taxes on corporations and 50k/year earners bought jetskis with stimulus checks while crying about welfare. they abandoned personal responsibility and regressed their definition of fiscal responsibility while only focusing on dem budgets and purple haired wierdos to feel superior.
plain and simple, the conservative wing has no answers for the actual problems the world faces in the next 100 years. they downplay or deny climate change, they now cry about infrastructure, they use nerf guns against china, and they cheer on automation's advancements while fighting tooth and nail to prevent america building a parachute.