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Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall
I suppose with that argument, no words have any real meaning.
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No, if you accept that conservatism is about reaction than about some core set of beliefs, then it's easy to see how conservatives can move away from some ideas and towards others. And there are Republicans and libertarians and various interest groups who are happy to get tax cuts with conservatives but who may not really be conservative.
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No it doesn't. If I define myself as liberal, but I turn towards Obama who embraced a very aggressive drone policy, have I changed liberalism to centrism?
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Liberalism is defined by some core beliefs, and a desire to change society in certain ways. (Conservatism is defined at its core by a reaction to liberalism.)
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Like I said, these people will side with anyone if they get what they want. But to argue that conservatism as a whole has fundamentally changed because they are willing to sell out to achieve even a handful of their core goals is silly. As I said, they've always done that. The difference now is that they are willing to sell out more. If you're argument is that at some point all that selling out means they don't really have any principles, then I guess I won't argue too much.
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The core principle is triggering libs, to oversimplify it. More than anything else, what animates conservatism is sticking it to the left. Republican legislators passed tax cuts, but conservatives don't really care. Conservatives don't care about health-care policy, they care about trashing Obamacare. Who are the conservative intellectuals? Jordan Peterson?
