My public defender brother in law convinced me that the death penalty is total shite, but as a parent, I am willing to make an exception for child molesters.

What Went Wrong with Conservatism?

Two important pieces of the puzzle: mindless anti-leftism and hackish popularizers.

 

Some good quotes:

Conservatism went from the pages of National Review to a governing majority in about two generations. But along the way, conservatism was dumbed down considerably. Perhaps this dumbing down was an inevitable concomitant of conservatism’s growing popularity; surely it was also linked, as Marshall McLuhan and Daniel Boorstin and Neil Postman suggested, to our technology-induced shift away from a culture accustomed to written complexities to a culture that prefers the vapidities of pictures and sound bites. And so America’s hegemonic responsibility became justified purely on the basis of the Soviet, and later Islamist, threat. The importance of free markets and low taxes was once the sort of thing explained in middlebrow TV shows and books by Milton and Rose Friedman; in the hands of their popularizing successors, free-market rhetoric became little more than a reflexive accusation that anyone wanting to raise taxes for any reason was a socialist. As for the arguments for traditionalism, the less said about these never-ending culture fights—the "war on Christmas,” kneeling at football games, yelping about Dr. Seuss—the better.

...

The conservative elites, however, had miscalculated. They were not mindful enough of James Madison’s fear of the passion of the masses.They failed to realize the danger inherent in such dependency on popularizers who were ultimately with "the people” and against the elites.

Pipes stood for America’s role in the world, Hayek for free markets, Kirk for virtue, and Buckley for all three—on their own merits. The popularizers, though, had arrived at these positions merely in opposition to the left. They didn’t know why they liked what they claimed to like—they merely knew whom they hated, and constructed their positions from there.

...

However well versed the popularizers might have been in conservative arguments, they were ultimately not adherents of any specific conservative ideology. They were beholden to the passions of the masses. That was their business model—not just at Fox News and on talk radio, but among various culture-war organizations that knew profit was to be found in heat, not light. The popularizers came to replace the elites. Talk-radio hosts had once sought to debate and popularize the ideas in conservative magazines; they in time became the arbiters of what counted as conservatism. Fox News hosts became more important shapers of conservative opinion than the authors of rigorously argued think tank studies or the politicians who appeared as guests. CPAC, which had once tried to bring together activists and intellectuals, energy and ideas, turned into a sorry circus for dimwitted demagoguery.

Trump finally exposed the division, and in so doing revealed that what’s left of the conservative movement—the conservative movement as dominated by the popularizers and the populists, the conservative movement that gave up on its positive principles and only clung to the negative principle of anti-leftism—has become explicitly pro-state, just so long as it controls the state.

They want the state to have the power to tell businesses what to do.

They want the state to have the power to pick winners and losers.

They want the state to spend tons of money on entitlement programs.

They just want all of those things directed to their constituents. It’s a nationalized vision of machine-era politics.

For me the reason is far simpler than subjective personal beliefs about wedge issues, economics, or social justice. One party became far less intelligent than the other, which under normal circumstances is not necessarily a deal breaker in itself. But during a pandemic, it's pretty much a non-starter.

To put it another way, you can have a boss at your job that's dumb as a box of rocks, but can acknowledge their own limitations to an extent and rely on others to get to the right answer for simple problems. Then you can have a boss that's more intelligent than the first boss, but a complete a-hole who cares about nobody but themselves and seeks to throw everyone under the bus to save their own skin if it came down to it. Then, somehow, along came a boss that was far dumber than the first and far more for an a-hole than the second, and he completely changed the work culture to the point where everyone followed his lead. Then to make matters worse, there's now a massive occupational health threat that boss #3 completely ignored and exacerbated while boss #1 is at least taking seriously. 

So yeah, gimme the dumb guy who at least takes massive threats seriously, rather than trying to ignore them for his own selfish interests.

9 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

For me the reason is far simpler than subjective personal beliefs about wedge issues, economics, or social justice. One party became far less intelligent than the other, which under normal circumstances is not necessarily a deal breaker in itself. But during a pandemic, it's pretty much a non-starter.

To put it another way, you can have a boss at your job that's dumb as a box of rocks, but can acknowledge their own limitations to an extent and rely on others to get to the right answer for simple problems. Then you can have a boss that's more intelligent than the first boss, but a complete a-hole who cares about nobody but themselves and seeks to throw everyone under the bus to save their own skin if it came down to it. Then, somehow, along came a boss that was far dumber than the first and far more for an a-hole than the second, and he completely changed the work culture to the point where everyone followed his lead. Then to make matters worse, there's now a massive occupational health threat that boss #3 completely ignored and exacerbated while boss #1 is at least taking seriously. 

So yeah, gimme the dumb guy who at least takes massive threats seriously, rather than trying to ignore them for his own selfish interests.

Not gonna lie... I'm having a really hard time following this analogy. Going to have to read it another time or two. 

2 minutes ago, mayanh8 said:

Not gonna lie... I'm having a really hard time following this analogy. Going to have to read it another time or two. 

Boss #1 = Blue

Boss #2 = Red

Boss #3 = Orange

Just now, we_gotta_believe said:

Boss #1 = Blue

Boss #2 = Red

Boss #3 = Orange

Got it. 

That story seems very specific

Also, I think that goes more to wisdom than intelligence. 

Our society seems to be missing wisdom at the top more than anything.

Nobody cares to know what they don't know anymore. Dunning-Kruger is the real epidemic.

5 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

That story seems very specific

To a degree, yeah. When I first got hired as a young lad fresh out of college, I had the pleasure of having 5 supervisors in my first 6 months. And they all spanned the spectrum. Got to see really early on what traits made for good leadership and which ones made for poor leadership. In the end, I can tolerate having a leader that's far dumber than me so long as they arrive at the right answer. I can also tolerate having an a-hole for a boss so long as they too arrive at the right answer. But I absolutely can't tolerate having a selfish moron who tries to throw you under the bus after constantly arriving at the wrong answer.

1 minute ago, we_gotta_believe said:

To a degree, yeah. When I first got hired as a young lad fresh out of college, I had the pleasure of having 5 supervisors in my first 6 months. And they all spanned the spectrum. Got to see really early on what traits made for good leadership and which ones made for poor leadership. In the end, I can tolerate having a leader that's far dumber than me so long as they arrive at the right answer. I can also tolerate having an a-hole for a boss so long as they too arrive at the right answer. But I absolutely can't tolerate having a selfish moron who tries to throw you under the bus after constantly arriving at the wrong answer.

Sure. I had a non-technical CIO who knew what he didn't know, and so he led where he could and deferred to my team when it came to technology. It made for a great relationship, even though he was not what you'd call a prototypical CIO because he was wise enough to know where he added value and where he detracted. 

 

"small government"

1 minute ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

 

"small government"

Absolutely wild.

Just 6 years ago a host promoting this on their program would have been fired or suspended from Fox. What an embarrassment. 

35 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

Sure. I had a non-technical CIO who knew what he didn't know, and so he led where he could and deferred to my team when it came to technology. It made for a great relationship, even though he was not what you'd call a prototypical CIO because he was wise enough to know where he added value and where he detracted. 

I think it is misconception that a leader must have superior technical knowledge of the job. On the contrary, the best bosses I have had defer to their employees. The best teams I have worked on have a diverse set of skills. The best leaders know how to organize the team to get the most output. They don't have to be an expert, they need to communicate well and be organized. A lot of experts make poor leaders because they rely on their own knowledge instead of the team.

4 minutes ago, toolg said:

I think it is misconception that a leader must have superior technical knowledge of the job. On the contrary, the best bosses I have had defer to their employees. The best teams I have worked on have a diverse set of skills. The best leaders know how to organize the team to get the most output. They don't have to be an expert, they need to communicate well and be organized. A lot of experts make poor leaders because they rely on their own knowledge instead of the team.

If you work in a technical field, then it definitely helps, even if it's not required per se. That being said, my analogy pointed out that our choices no longer have anyone with superior technical knowledge. Merely one who at times realizes it, and another who never does.

32 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

 

"small government"

National Socialism is socialism 

58 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

 

"small government"

Is Tucker for POTUS still a thing?  Nah, of course its not, they were never really serious about doing anything other than running Trump again 2024.

1 hour ago, dawkins4prez said:

Is Tucker for POTUS still a thing?  Nah, of course its not, they were never really serious about doing anything other than running Trump again 2024.

They need a back up celebrity candidate in case the Big Macs and KFC finally do Trump in before 2024. 

20 minutes ago, Gannan said:

They need a back up celebrity candidate in case the Big Macs and KFC finally do Trump in before 2024. 

Scott Baio has time.

 

All the time in the world...

 

 

The GOP is the party of the tin foil hat Klan Mom.

On 9/28/2021 at 10:27 AM, Toastrel said:

My public defender brother in law convinced me that the death penalty is total shite, but as a parent, I am willing to make an exception for child molesters.

The whole aspect of it free will exists or not. 

8 minutes ago, Toastrel said:

 

The GOP is the party of the tin foil hat Klan Mom.

She is totally unfit to hold office. 

Another Republican Secretary of State Tells MyPillow Guy He’s Full of ****

https://www.thedailybeast.com/idahos-republican-secretary-of-state-tells-mypillow-guy-hes-full-of-sht

Perhaps a few more elected Republicans will come over to the side of sanity.

Then perhaps, there is hope for the GOP.