Posted on 07/14/2020 5:26:19 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot
The old term for ‘progressive conservative’ was ‘fiscal conservative.’ Those were the Republicans who supported lower taxes and less government spending, but liberals on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage.
Not to pat myself on the back (but I am, sort of), I started asking similar question in Jan/Feb 2017 because I just couldn't see WHO would and could emerge on the right to take up what Trump started.
Of course, I didn't foresee the bitter NeverTrumpers still colluding with the domestic TWANLOCs into 2020 election year.
What comes after Trump is quite obvious: nothing. There is no opposition party to the progressive-corportist alliance. Until that changes nothing else matters.
Sounds too much like “Compassionate Conservatism”, which is neither Compassionate, nor Conservative.
They’ve had “progressive conservatives “ here in Canada for decades.
They’re so conservative that a party to the right, the Reform Party, had to be formed to defeat them.
They’re just liberal light. Hell, even the Conservative Party that Reform morphed I to and governed as, didn’t act like conser.
Buckley identifies three Trump issues as being progressive: These are, 1) The defense of the American Dream, the idea of a country in which whoever you are, wherever you live, you can get ahead and your children will have it better than you did; 2) The attack on public corruption; and 3) American nationalism.
I suppose there is personal/family "progress" in the American Dream. But the American Dream is mostly in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps that is it's appeal. Put it right next to "Hope and Change" in allowing people to claim their own meaning. By the way, the term American Dream was born out of the heart of the depression. It was first coined by James Truslow Adams in the book, "The Epic of America", in 1931.
As for attacking corruption, I see nothing progressive about it. Writing that Republicans gave the issue to the Democrats and Pocahontas is ludicrous. First, the vast majority of politicians, RINO or Rat, are corrupt. Second, Pocahontas is a sped airhead that never had a conviction of her own. (Sorry to offend those that ride the short bus.) What's appealing about draining the swamp is an American sense of justice. I have always had a disdain for those that do not create or build, but rather manipulate and take. That's the root of corruption and there is nothing progressive about wanting to eliminate it.
Lastly, American Nationalism as Buckley writes, "What makes Americans Americans are the liberal values to be found in the Declaration and the Bill of Rights. American nationalism is liberal nationalism." I have no problem with the term liberal nationalism if Buckley means classically liberal. However, I don't view that as progressive. Perhaps this all boils down to the definition of the word "progressive".
I do not think Trump thinks linearly or on a political spectrum. He thinks in multiple dimensions. He is not schooled in political thought. He does have core convictions that happen to align with most Americans' values - whether they want to admit it or not.
Personally, my political model is not linear; right vs. left. It is based on tyranny and freedom. Both the far-right and far-left require tyranny to impose their ideas because the natural state of man is freedom. Man is reluctant to be forced to do things against his free will. Tyranny blows up a linear model. Freedom is also all over the place. It can be radical anarchism with no government, no police, etc. It can be libertarianism. I'll side with freedom that has very small and localized government, far fewer and simpler taxes, very few regulations and law and order with far fewer laws that are actually enforced equally. Less is best. I am willing to be tyrannical to get it. </sarc>
All progressive (immoral, anti-family) roads lead towards communism. Susan B. Anthony and her friends were followers of Charles Fourier. Fourier’s design for society was a design of a commune with economic communism and social anarchy.
President Trump is not a progressive. His family’s high standards prove that.
Teddy Roosevelt was in a different world and different society with a different situation from what we see around us now.
No to so-called progressive politics. Call it that to get votes from the filthy, if you like, but don’t put it into policy. Just say no to drugs and crime. Let the Democrats bear that standard. There’s no room to be moving further to the left.
I seriously think it’s a good idea. The liberals are slowly changing the meaning of words. They stole the word “progressive”. We should steal it back.
What brought President Trump’s victory about was an attitude and an agenda of AMERICA FIRST. The country was sick and tired of their jobs, their tax dollars, and their resources being used to help everyone else around the world EXCEPT Americans. President Trump came along and acknowledged a truth each of us knew: that it was wrong and needed to stop.
Once he did that, a lot of lifelong Democrats in “safe” Democrat states began to realize how badly they’d been had. America first won him election in 2016 and America first will keep him there in 2020.
Conservatives are, by definition, progressive in the sense that we always want progress, but we want to travel at the speed limit and with a defined destination at the end of the trip/issue!
When people speak mob-thought at any kind of nasty thing agaInst Trump I take it as against me, my ideals, and, being a patriot, against my country, constitution, the flag.
Every time.
Trump is not a politician with a brand intent on gaining power and mass approval as the leftists believe he is. He is not like them. That he refused to be riles them further. Nor am I interested in power and approval. I am interested, as always, in ‘where are we headed?’ Trump is leading us where we want to go. Where we once hoped we were going.
He is not a Bush nor a Clinton. He is a patriot with leadership skills. That’s all we want or need. We won’t stop needing that when he is out of office.
This isn’t about Trump. It’s about the country. Trump knows the details of that better than most of us. Most women I know will vote for him reluctantly. They never had to take an oath of office. They’ve all pledged allegiance to the flag so that could be where the support comes from They pretend they need for him to be better behaved. But they don’t. They need him to protect and defend the constitution
That will always be there. The enemy knows it.
I do get where the author is coming from.
One of the people who shaped my political beliefs was a guy named Richard Viguerie. He was one of the gurus of the New Right back in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
He wrote extensively back then not of progressive conservatism but of a populist conservatism. His most influential book (IMHO) was “The Establishment vs the People: Is a new Populist revolt on the way?” in 1983.
You could probably find it in our local library or get it dirt cheap on Amazon. Though the book was written in the early 80’s what he talks about resonates today!
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