Quote:
|
"Republicans" are comfortable being on the right, but also comfortable being the establishment. "Conservatives" are in a state of (increasingly populist) reaction, and see Republicans as part of the problem when they are firmly in power.
|
I think this describes where I lose some of your argument. "Conservatives" have been replaced with populists. We have a few populist parties running right now. Bernie, Warren, and Trump are all attracting different varieties of populists. I don't think conservatives are in a state of reaction right now. They might have been in the past. Now I think they're in a state of near extinction.
Quote:
|
When conservatives are in power, they struggle because they can't complain about the people in power; also, exercising power forces pragmatic compromise with reality, which makes it harder to sustain grievance.
|
When conservatives gained power in the past they struggled because they realized that they weren't really conservatives. They wanted to spend money just like liberals, only in different ways. They realized they weren't really conservative at all.
Quote:
|
(Trump, for example, has the most powerful job in the country, and keeps complaining about his poor treatment at the hands of the media, bureaucrats who work for him, etc. It's absurd, but it works for him because it's so authentic.)
|
He's a populist.
Quote:
|
Republicans care about power, and are willing to be hypocritical to get it (like many Democrats, and many other people).
|
Correct.
Quote:
|
Conservatives are motivated by grievance, and are not so much hypocritical as willing to argue in bad faith because they feel that mainstream discourse is structured to disadvantage them.
|
Populists masquerading as conservatives are animated by grievance. Conservatives are, as I said, near extinct.
