Jon Chait attended this year's National Conservatism Conference in Miami and reports that the American right has gone gaga over Hungary's Viktor Orbán and his brand of semi-fascism:
Almost every speaker repeated a version of the following: The “woke” revolution has captured the commanding heights of American education, culture, and even large businesses, from which positions it is spreading and enforcing a noxious left-wing ideology. This poses an existential threat to conservatism, culturally and politically. Conservatives must therefore fight back by using state power to crush their enemies on the left.
This has been the heart of hardcore conservatism since at least World War II: not authoritarianism for its own sake, but because conservatives are terrified that the left-wing locomotive is barrelling implacably along and will destroy them if they keep playing by playground rules that liberals laugh at. This is why they act the way they do: they're scared of us and believe we're the ones who are destroying America. The only way to stop this is to take off the gloves and do unto liberals as they are doing unto us.
The quote that best captures this combination of charming naiveté and witless belligerence comes from Hillsdale professor David Azerrad:
“Imagine if we had a core of Republicans who were committed to defund and humiliate the institutional-power sectors of the left.”
Azerrad is apparently unaware that we don't have to imagine Republicans doing this. They've been dedicated to an institutionally aggressive version of it for decades. They've aimed their guns at trial lawyers. Labor unions. Teachers. Minority districts ("Project Ratfuck"). Universities. ACORN. Black voters (via stringent voter ID laws). The arts. Mainstream media. Silicon Valley. And more.
But Azerrad and his fellow conservative are blind to this. Some of them have never known about this stuff. The name Karl Rove means nothing to them. Or Grover Norquist. Or Thor Hearne. Or Benjamin Ginsberg. Or Lee Atwater. Or Paul Weyrich (cofounder of ALEC).
Others once knew this history but have since conveniently forgotten it. Yet others see that liberals still aren't crippled and assume that Republicans have playing patty cake all along, not ruthlessly fighting the folks who are destroying America.
I've seen liberals act the same way: ultrasensitive to the tactics of conservatives but with no notion that liberals were sometimes the ones who did it first. It's basically motivated ignorance.
There's no real answer to this except to keep fighting. Forever. That's just the way the world is.
"This has been the heart of hardcore conservatism since at least World War II: not authoritarianism for its own sake, but because conservatives are terrified that the left-wing locomotive is barreling implacably along and will destroy them . . ."
Hey, that argument worked for Hitler.
I was nodding along as I read this, until the end where you slipped into both-siderism.
The upshot of the wingnut convention was that Americans are inexorably and willingly moving Leftwards. Society as a whole and the most conservative institutions thereof are all in agreement. So they, the self-proclaimed "conservatives" (actually reactionaries) must do dreadful things to overcome the will of the people.
Thus, it's no wonder that the rightwing side opposes elections, laws, and democracy itself. They're in it for themselves, and darn "the people". To heck!!
Yes, Kevin did "slip" into both-siderism at the end.
I would ask Kevin to at least mention examples of where and when liberals acted in a way similar to the current conservative burn-the-house-down tactics.
Failing to do so encourages the reader to believe that liberal behavior is or was as bad as the conservative behavior he justly condemns. Until Kevin starts doing this, I will consider writing like his his penultimate paragraph a cheap shot.
Well, liberals think conservatives are trying to destroy the country too so both sides are to blame.
Also, somebody in my neighborhood wrote "F Trump" on the sidewalk in chalk and the Trump campaign is selling "Let's Go Brandon" merch. How many more examples do you want?
I'm unable to see "woke" as leftist. My understanding is that if you are woke you are sensitive to bigotry in all its forms. Although bigotry has become associated with the right wing in the US, that is by no means inherent. There have been very bigoted communist regimes, and there have been right wing governments genuinely dedicated to equality under the law, without regard to race, sex, religion, ethnicity, etc. In short, it is eminently possible to be a woke right winger.
As I see it, being woke means being sensitive to bigotry. Being anti-woke means being a bigot, and that continues to be true whether you are right, left, or center.
I think your understanding of "woke" is not the same as that of the right-wingers at the National Conservatism Conference. For them, this is a dirty word along the same lines as "politically correct". Many would agree with your definition, but I think the term is more loaded than that.
I've got no objection to being politically correct either. It's better than being wrong.
Ask the members of the LA City Council this week...
And some more: Tom Delay. REDMAP. Mid-decade redistricting. Ralph Reed. David Bossie. The Brooks Brothers riot. Roger Stone. Donald Segretti.
Hmmm.....
You're right, the "left" has done a bunch of things too....but....
1. The left tries to get everyone eligible to vote--which includes laws and lawsuits. The right tries to stop that with laws and lawsuits. Granted, the Black Panthers did show up at a polling station once, so Republicans should be able to go to all of them to question voters about family members immigration status.
2. The left used the courts to enforce the VRA, so Republicans can use the courts to have the VRA declared unconstitutional.
3. The left used sit-ins, protests and even disrupted meeting to protest wars, discrimination, etc. Act UP made lots of noise to get action. Occupy Wall Street tried. So it's perfectly fine Conservatives shout down school board members, bring guns to meetings and issue anonymous threats. Storming the capitol was nothing different from the college sit-ins from back in the day.
....
fyi: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/03/opinions/alex-jones-sandy-hook-conspiracies-gop-hemmer/index.html
The right has done a much better job of monetizing nuttiness....so matter how many people were or are hurt by it.
Isn't there something in an old book about motes and beams?
Republicans don't do self-reflection, irony, critical thinking or anything else that generally makes you a well-adjusted grownup in the world. Hence the notion that because John Fetterman has suffered a stroke and has some minor visual/audio processing issues as he recovers, he is fundamentally unfit to serve in the Senate, whereas Herschel Walker, who has zero public service experience, is clearly suffering from brain damage and cannot speak in anything but the most bizarre, rambling word salads -- which are also usually also complete lies or fabulations -- is totally qualified.
Bingo! Also, if one is a Democrat, a lefty, a progressive, or just somebody who believes in democracy, why would you NOT prefer a Senator with all those values you share and the competence to fight for them, even if for a limited time assuming he might die in office, as opposed to a fool and tool, who at best would do whatever that former guy tells him to do for the full six years?
Seems like, dare I say it, a "no-brainer" -- and yes, apparently I'm some kind of filthy "ableist."
Yeah, but how many touchdowns has Fetterman scored? That clearly matters to most Republicans far more than intelligence, nay, sanity.
I guarantee you it's more than Muhammad Oz.
Awesomely stated, sir.
Republicans don't do self-reflection, irony, critical thinking or anything else that generally makes you a well-adjusted grownup in the world.
Opting for Oz or Herschel has nothing to do with a lack of such desirable attributes, and everything to do with the realization that the only thing that matters is denying Democrats another vote in the Senate. TBH I'd have a hard time voting to advance GOP/MAGA priorities if the situation were reversed, and Democrats had somehow nominated a person with similar attributes to those of Oz or Herschel (yes, it's very hard to imagine such an occurrence, of course).
I will say, as I age, I am becoming conservative in one key respect: I am beginning to savor my political grudges.
When it comes to certain individuals, I want to seem them crushed and miserable more than I care about who wins. I personally very much look forward to the vacation I'll take to piss on Turtle Mitch's grave.
"You should forgive your enemies, but not before they are hanged".
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that the problem is framing the situation as left versus right, and the solution to the problem is to start framing it as wise versus unwise. Being wise is acting based on the assumption that this is a non-zero sum game. Ask the people of Ukraine how that's working out for them. Being unwise is assuming that it's a zero sum game. Ask Putin how that's working out for him.
Progressives and conservatives are to a democracy what lungs and vocal cords are to a person. Both are necessary, and so is the need to resolve the inevitable conflicts between them. It's not easy but the only thing that makes it impossible is if everyone assumes it's impossible and no one tries.
Thoughtful reply, but I see problems with it. Conservatives are in fact necessary, but there is nothing Conservative about today's "conservatives". What the hell are they trying to conserve? Certainly not the environment. Certainly not democracy. How did we ever get to the point where most conservatives fail to condemn, and even celebrate, the Jan 6 insurrection event?
I see the issue as more sanity vs insanity. Trump's superpower is that he has the great ability to induce insanity in those that listen to him. Pretty damn contagious too, maybe even more so than COVID.
I'll put it a different way. Being wise is being open minded is being skeptical. That's because being open minded without being skeptical is merely being naïve, and being skeptical without being open minded is merely being cynical. And what's the difference between being insufficiently skeptical of others and insufficiently skeptical of one's self? Bad is bad.
Yes, Trump supporters are worse, but the bad behavior of people on the left is how the right rationalizes their need to behave badly. And acting wisely does not equate to enabling bad behavior. History is full of evidence that precisely the opposite is true.
Like a GPS that tells you to drive off a cliff, analysis that ignores context is, at best, to be ignored. A "both sides" analysis at this particular point in time is a signal of irrelevance at best.
Whatever this is, I personally have zero time for pedants asserting we need water to survive when we're being flooded out.
One alternative is the intentional adherence to the "do unto others as you would have others do unto you" principle. The default alternative, intentional or otherwise, is the "do as I say and not as I do" principle. That doesn't need context. It creates every context.
What this pedant is saying is that we're being flooded out and no one is talking about shutting off the water.
I fail to see a need for conservatives. The wave of change is overwhelming and irresistible; you can either ride the wave or drown underneath it.
Progressives want to progress. Conservatives want to conserve. Resolving the conflict between those two positions is the way that real and lasting value is created. This is a law of nature that also happens apply to politics in the 21st century, 1st century, and everything in between.
Everyone on Trump's side sees it as us against them. I'm not sure what "ride the wave" means, or if it meets my "being on Trump's side" definition.
What's kinda striking vs the usual stuff going back 100 years is the tension with big business. Business needs customers and customers want fairness. But the GOP needs business to be pro-white, pro-Christian etc etc. An interesting collision course.
I start by assuming that every single speaker at that conservative convention is selling something. How does one get attention, not to mention clicks and bucks? By making an emotional appeal. And the sort of emotional appeal that has worked over time, with this audience is "Liberals are destroying everything and we need to fight!"
This has to be an escalatory cycle, though. You have to come back with "things are even worse than I said last year when you gave me lots of clicks and bucks, so now you need to give me EVEN MORE!"
Also, those other speakers? The ones who are your "allies"? They are your rivals for those clicks and bucks, and they have stepped up their game since your last successful speech, so now you have to escalate. You have to amplify.
Be louder. Be scarier. Go big or go home.
Funny how similar this is to televangelist appeals … Funny the degree of support for MAGA ‘conservatives’ among fundagelicals.
Fighting over the definition of 'woke' is a red herring. That is, even if 'woke' is everything conservatives say it is, and even if 'woke' is the dominant cultural (and education and business) norm, it matters not a whit. Because 'wokeness' prevailed the usual way, that is, democratically. This process is equally available to conservatives; if their ideology and cultural mores have not prevailed, it's because most people prefer the alternative. It's certainly no excuse to resort to decidely antidemocratic methods to force their preferred outcomes.
TL;DR: Trotting out their perceptions as sufficient justification for ex ante and outside the law ... doesn't even rise to the level of excuse.
You are assuming that the democratic process is a meta-value, more important than actual ideologies like conservatism or progressivism. To a progressive this is axiomatically and self-evidently true. To a conservative, it is not. As David Frum so prophetically observed, if conservatives cannot get their way democratically, they will not abandon conservatism, they will abandon democracy.
I assume that the rules were agreed upon before the game started. You don't get to declare a royal fizzbin in the middle of a poker game.
"I've seen liberals act the same way: ultrasensitive to the tactics of conservatives but with no notion that liberals were sometimes the ones who did it first."
Clearly a lie or there'd be evidence, and since it's Drum, likely a chart, to show the comparison.