Calling alt-right authoritarian regressives/reactionaries “conservatives” bothers me. It’s like “Damn those democracies and republics, like North Korea”, and “Nazis were nationalists and socialists - it’s in the name”.
Conservatism is being wary of change and sticking to what works. Like not fucking up the climate.
Conservative parties have been idologically opposed to the rights, freedoms, and prosperity of the regular person for centuries. Word meanings are contextual, and in the context of governing blocs, it’s never meant “wary of change and sticking to what works”. It has always meant “fuck you, I’ve got mine”.
When feudalism was the old way, and human rights and freedoms were new, they were literally conserving the old way. The name was technically true.
Anyway, my point: Don’t let enemies commandeer language with their newspeak where nothing means anymore what it apparently means and used to mean. If we agree to call them conservatives now, some literal-minded centrists (or whatever they are) will be fooled into voting them. We should repeat “that name is a lie, their actions are alt-right authoritarian”. It’s a mistake to go along with the lie and write on a map “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” or “Gulf of America”.
Do we have a technical term for “fuck you, I’ve got mine”? Some opposite of socialism? Selfish?
I disagree. It’s about the status quo. So to them it is about protecting regular people but in this sense the regular people are the status quo people. This is why they’re successful. They have higher social intelligence. The left even describes this system without realizing it. The left are more diverse sub groups. Minority groups within the pop culture. So political the right are mostly always trying to maintain the social order while the left looks to disrupt it.
The right are blue jeans and bubble gum America. The left are multiple sub groups of minorities all trying to make their main status quo while the status quo people reject all these groups in order to maintain their status quo.
This is why Republicans do try to conserve. They fight to maintain the blue jeans bubble gum way while the left fight to change it.
This is a child’s level of understanding lol. Which is about where the conservatives are at these days
