A friend of mine noted that "Trump rose on GOP's 3 pillars" [Trumps 3 Pillars]:
- racism(birtherism),
- xenophobia(build wall)&
- Islamophobia(Muslim ban).
"Anybody who sez otherwise is full of sh!t",
....and I have to agree. But that is only part of what is going on. If you go to one of the Conservative Websites designed to recruit students. They will tell you that the "four pillars of Conservatism" are:
- Bait:
- 1 liberty / freedom
- 2 tradition & order
- 3 rule of law
- 4 belief in God
- Source: https://home.isi.org/pillars-modern-american-conservatism
This sounds nice, except the constitution explicitly prohibits inserting religion into politics, since it is generally divisive and there is no true catholic and orthodox religion unless authorities resort to authoritarianism and impose it; or religious authorities have the wisdom to stay out of areas where their knowledge fails to be helpful.
But nobody can argue with concepts like liberty and freedom. Nothing is wrong with tradition & order, except that imposing it on others means abrogating or infringing on personal liberty and freedom, and tradition is something that has to have some flexibility or it becomes a source for oppression.
So essentially liberty/freedom are in potential conflict with tradition/order -- so these pillars have to balance or they bring down the table they are supporting.
Conserving Things
Us Progressives argue that tradition should not be restraining on improving personal and public welfare. They'd agree on Items one and three, but argue with rigid adherence to authority. Tradition should guide us not bind us.
And of course there are religious progressives and religious conservatives. So on the whole most people are fine with all four traditions and just differ on the degree to which they feel bound by #2. Progressives included!
Progressives believe that "order" should not be an excuse to infringe on people's private behavior. We are the conservatives on matters of personal liberty, mostly.
So in theory conservatives would be environmentalists, conserving the traditions of public access to parks and recreation, our harmony with nature, and man's role as Gardner of the planet tending to God's creation. Conservation of Nature is a conservative value.
In theory conserving the public good would be a conservative principle. The bible enjoins conservatives to look out for "widow's and orphans" to help one's "brother", and to contribute to the public welfare. Under a conservative regime paying tithes would be mandatory and public welfare would be administered through the churches. In our secular society it is too much for Churches, who have no one to enforce their tithes. So those advocating dismantling the welfare state are not conservatives. They look for other excuses to nullify the constitutionality of such programs -- saying the Church should do them. But upholding that tithes should not be mandatory. Thus defenestrating Churches from doing that role.
I point that out because there is nothing conservative about building giant walls, abrogating treaties, or doing away with public welfare, privatizing public services and education, or turning over our resources to rich people. All that is not conservatism.
The Confidence Scheme
So what it is is that modern conservatism is a confidence scheme. Read the offered link and you'd think that conservatism is all about liberty and tradition, upholding the constitution and establishing order over criminals and terrorists seeking to invade and trouble the country.
But the sales of conservatism are aimed at convincing people that a particular religious ideology, a particular tradition and peculiar ideas of who, what, how and why we get and keep order in our society. Modern conservatives complain about Donald Trump, but he's only pushing ideas that the GOP has developed and used over the past 50 years in order to win elections by stoking fear, paranoia and anger. I could go into detail but I won't. I have other things I need to be doing right now.
Besides, I wrote on this 2 years ago, talking about Lee Atwater:
People should read my article and it's references
But of course the 4 pillars are the bait in a confidence scheme!
The Switch
Unfortunately, the reality, the "switch" of the conservative confidence game is that the only thing conservatives are actually conserving is wealth.
Their economic distress is diverted, using scapegoating, to bigotry. Part of the con! Sell them on "conservatism" hook them with hate!
- switch:
- 1 No liberty unless white
- 2/3 order & law = authoritarianism
- 4 belief in God unless Muslim.
So essentially the "4 Pillars of conservatism" translate to nativism and authoritarianism.
Trump is the creation of Lee Atwater, Reince Priebus and the GOP
I have a lot more to say, but I need to work on some other things right now.
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