Too busy to read all right now. A brief summary would be nice.
I think all of the old labels are tarnished.
I see myself as a Patriot and a Nationalist.
At this point, I think the only thing that really matters is the war against the Deep State. This is a matter of individual freedom vs tyranny from the shadows.
If you can weaken government and/or take money away from government, then I support that. If you value individuals over groups, then I support that.
AFTER the Deep State is defeated, we can talk about other things. AFTER government unions are made illegal, SES is eliminated, the FBI is abolished, and the DOJ totally made over, THEN we can talk about inflation, unemployment, foreign wars, and other things. But while the Deep State is in place, nothing else matters.
The label of “Conservative” means nothing to me now. I am a member of We The People. I want a lot less government.
BFL
I’m sure he is a nice man, but this is very long and not so relevant. He’s right in his last paragraph when he recommends “common sense conservatism,” but he spends too much time objecting to what he sees as the stridency of Trump-era conservatism and preferring something more mellow. I think he’s deluding himself in thinking that politics can be anything but strident now, as well as in thinking that Buckley-Goldwater conservatism wasn’t seen as strident and militant in its era.
“under siege as never before”
Yah think. We just had #pedohitler threaten half the nation. We watched years of liberal terrorist groups murder people and burn cities.
The author greatly overates resistance other than the personality of Donald Trump. If he were to have a serious health emergency MAGA would evaporate. The left and the statists are incredibly powerful and hydra headed. Strong opposition to the globo=homo establishment is basically a few strong personalities. The death of Rush Limbaugh has, for instance, been a much greater disaster to the right than I ever imagined. The rest of the talk radio community is so weak and unfocused and just not angry enough at the left to make much impression. If the Gopers can manage to be dragged across the finish line , fighting and resisting all the way, in the fall elections, does anyone think they will actually start fighting Biden every single day Congress is in session? The left will have to feel both so powerful and so paranoid that they will engage in actions that hit so close to home for millions of Americans that the timidity, Karen=resistance, inertia of business as usual, and the dead hand of of middle class passivity and being a ‘goood person will finally be breached. The drag queens in schools and the queering kids program has set off a small but really angry resistance movement. An attempt at ‘civilian disarmament’ as part of a ‘National State of Emergency’ could trigger a real revolt in the fly over country that the left greatly under rates.
George Nash is a historian of conservatism from the Cold War world that no longer exits. He and other left overs from Buckleyism are simply irrelevant when normal people are faced with the Globo-Homo agenda and the US government is preparing to make literal war on 70 ro 80 million Americans. Many non liberals simply cannot come to terms with this new reality. Hannity’s silly shit about the core virtuousness of the FBI is a classic example of this pure blind resistance to the literal evil our government is embracing.
blah blah and blah...intellectual masturbation feels good but gets us nowhere
Buckley- Reagan to “ten years ago” . . .??
Kind of overlooked the biggest popularizer of Conservatism in the past 50 years..
El Rushbo would laugh his arse off at this article.