zlacker

Not much room to cut taxes for the rich without increasing the deficit which they've said must go down, so their great solution is to cut welfare programs to give a tax cut for the rich.

>>Hikiko+(OP)
That is not my confusion. My confusion is that they are labeled conservative.

>>detour+qb
The current usage of the term "conservative" is just a fig leaf to hide the less-palatable aims of a radical fundamentalist agenda aimed at attacking most modern aspects of our society. Go find any definition of conservatism written by traditional conservative intellectuals, and you will find Trumpists are directly opposed to most of it.

Basically, conservatives got increasingly angry (because things inevitably do change), so they decided to give up on conservatism and flip the table instead. One intellectual upstream of Trumpism is the writings of Mencius Moldbug (Curtis Yarvin), who laid out how mere conservatism wasn't enough because "Cthulhu swims left" still, and coined his philosophy "reactionary". This also ties into one of the commonly-described dynamics of fascism - invoking an idea of some imagined idyllic past, as a reason that the current society needs to be attacked and destroyed.

I had never voted for a major party candidate in a national election until Biden 2020 and Harris 2024. I consider those solidly actually-conservative votes, and partially attribute them to my getting older and more actually-conservative.

>>detour+qb
It's the two Santa's since Reagan. Whenever Dems have power it's always about being fiscally responsible and not raising taxes. When they are they just ignore what they say and spend like a drunken Santa while cutting taxes for the rich.

>>mindsl+Cv
Thank you for the history of the shift. The past 3 presidential elections had candidates with real fundamental differences. Obama was the first time I voted for a major candidate.

>>detour+Nb1
At least for my lifetime, the reactionary hatemongering has always existed on talk radio. It was used by the larger Republican party to get people all riled up against the system, and our society as a whole, but then calm them down enough to get them into the voting booth to vote for the "less bad" status quo Republicans.

I grew up [second hand] listening to a lot of this, and as I came of age I could never understood why there was so much cynical condemnation of the system but yet the cognitive dissonance to keep voting for more of the system. But I guess farming this dissonant frustration was just the whole point. Another way of looking at it is that Trumpism is this populist monster escaping, devouring the Party traditionalists, and leaving Republicans with nothing but Trump.

In some sense I think that is large part of what's fueling the fascist energy is the fact that Trump is not a [traditional] Republican, a conservative, a moral person, a competent businessman, etc. So throwing your support behind him is already buying into a Big Lie where up is down, there are no values or morals, just purely allegiance to what Dear Leader has declared is true. That none of Trump's policy positions make sense is a feature for keeping that support in line - independent thinkers who would point out the contradictions are ostracized and othered. Essentially the worst social dynamics of "woke" most everyone was wary of, but we had/have forgotten how much worse they can be when power is wielded autocratically rather than bureaucratically.