The Atlantic: McKay Coppins- Is Trumpism The New Conservatism?

Source: The Atlantic

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

To answer McKay Coppins question: no, Trumpism is not the new conservatism. And why do I say that? Well, because it's true and if you want more of an explanation than that, I don't blame you.

What is Trumpism? Trumpism by itself is not a political ideology. It's really whatever reality TV addict Donald Trump says and makes it at any given time. The man does have nationalist-authoritarian leanings as President and in that sense is a strong cultural warrior. At least officially and when he's talking to his supporters. But put him back in the real world where little things like facts matter, and arresting and locking up your political opponents, comes off as extreme even from your own fellow Republicans, where Latinos and Muslims, aren't seen as invaders, women aren't seen as property, ( and I'm thinking of Judge Roy Moore ) get Trump away from his political and cultural cult and in touch with real thinking people where again facts and reality matter and the man can actually come off as reasonable and even intelligent.

Return Donald Trump back down to Planet Earth and America where most Americans live, Big Don comes off as more reasonable. He can even come as a an intelligent thinking human being who doesn't have a Breitbart/John Birch Society/Alex Jones worldview that is only shared by people who left Planet Earth for a better life on another planet that hasn't been discovered yet. Talk about space cases, some Trump voters look like poster children for space cases.

On the other hand, Donald Trump's supporters simply see things that aren't there and that no intelligent person could possibly view as being reality. And yet they believe and say those things anyway. Like Barack Obama being an African-Muslim Socialist from Kenya, who is an illegal alien. And unfortunately that is just one example of how Trump voters are so far out of space from reality, it's as if Charlie Manson's Manson Family cult came back to life and they were part of that and managed to get some of the extra LSD that was left behind after the Manson Family soldiers were all arrested. Some Trump voters at least come off ass hardcore cult members, who've mentally left Planet Earth and have invested so much in there dear leader that everything the man says they treat as gold no matter what the man says.

Trumpism itself is not much more than a one-,man reality show who says whatever comes to his mind and at any given second. A lot of what he says is what the last person he spoke to told him to say or what Far-Right media like Breitbart and Fox News, is telling him to say. But nationalism is a political and cultural tribalist philosophy that puts one group of citizens in any given country, against everyone else. And people who disagree with them must be traitors. People who criticize the dear leader is a criminal who should be locked up. The fringe part of Donald Trump's base that are in the South and rural America for the most part, are Nationalist-Tribalist's who view Democrats as Un-American and as traitors. View the Democratic Party as a criminal organization that should be put out of business. Women as second-class citizens, non-European-Americans as Un-American and as traitors. The Alt-Right in America.

What I just laid out is not conservatism. Duh! Where in any part of The Conscience of a Conservative ( written by Mr. Conservative Barry Goldwater ) the unofficial if not official handbook as well as playbook, the definition of what conservatism is and what it means to be a Conservative, do you see any of these cultural war tribalist issues and this McCarthyite tactic of putting one group of Americans against the people they would call the real Americans as if not every American citizen is not a real American, against everyone else in the country. People who simply disagree with the McCarthyite's or today the Trumpian's. Conservatism is about limited government and conserving the U.S. Constitution and our individual rights. Not about putting one group of Americans against everyone else.
The Atlantic: McKay Coppins- Is Trumpism The New Conservatism

The Atlantic: Opinion- David Frum: Conservatives Must Save The Republican Party From Itself

Source: The Atlantic

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

I agree with David Frum's video here but I would put it differently. American politics works best at least in the past and perhaps now we would be better off with 4 party system instead of a two-party system, but back in the day American politics was at it's best when you had two strong political parties.

A Center-Left Democratic Party that believed in both private enterprise and even property rights, with a commonsense regulatory state and a safety net for people who truly needed it. As well as civil liberties, personal autonomy, personal freedom, civil and equal rights.

And a Center-Right Republican Party was a strong fiscally conservative party that believed in fiscal responsibility, as well as a private market that was pretty much unfettered other than some environmental and safety regulations. But that also believed in a level of personal autonomy and even personal freedom.

The Center-Left Democrats would lean on the side of personal freedom and civil liberties. While pushing for the safety net. The Center-Right Republicans would push for economic freedom, as well as a conservative culture, but wouldn't try to force that way of live on every American through government force.

Both party's were actually cold warriors and anti-Communists. Every American President that we had during the Cold War was an anti-Communist. American voters could count on Democrats to protect their civil liberties and personal freedom. American voters could count on Republicans to protect their economic freedom and property rights.

The old American political way of doing things wasn't a marriage made in Heaven or even an effective partnership. But two opposite sides there to protect what Americans truly wanted and needed. The right to be left alone and be able to live their own lives. Without big government trying to steal their wallets or bank accounts. Or breaking into our private homes because they don't like what we're doing there or who consenting adults were sleeping with.

That has all been blown up not just since Donald Trump moved into the White House, but going back to when George W. Bush moved into the White House. Not because of President Bush himself who was actually fairly moderate and Center-Right as President when it came to the Cultural War issues. As well as economic issues like education and immigration. But the parties have changed drastically. They've both become big government parties but in different forms.

In 2016 a Democratic Socialist almost won the Democratic nomination for President. The Democratic Party hasn't had a major Far-Left presidential candidate since Senator George McGovern won the Democratic nomination in 1972. But Senator Bernie Sanders came close. In 2016 the Republican Party not only had a major right-wing Far-Right Nationalist with authoritarian leanings, but Donald Trump is currently President of the United States. By beating a Center-Left pragmatic Progressive Democrat in Hillary Clinton.

What I'm saying here isn't so much what David Frum is arguing about the Republican Party should still matter and be saved by the Christian-Nationalists in the party. But really about how much the two major political parties have changed and that they no longer represent the mainstream so much as their fringes in the party who always threaten to either challenge their leadership and even leave the party, when a Democrat or Republican doesn't give them exactly what they want.  Leaving 40% of the electorate saying that they're not either a Democrat or Republican, because neither party represents what they really want and believe in.

Americans don't like big government, period by in large. Either trying to manage our economic affairs for us and even try to run our businesses. Or in our personal lives trying to manage how we live and what we do in our privacy. Which is why I believe if there is a time when both major parties could become not just weak, but perhaps irrelevant and maybe we do see two new major parties emerge with one being the old Center-Right Republican Party leaving the Republicans with just the Nationalists and Christian-Right. And leaving the Democrats with just the Socialists, both Democratic but thanks to ANTIFA Communist, that time is now. Unless the establishment's and leadership's of both party's reclaim their party's and start to take on their fringes. Even if they risk losing their positions in their party.
The Atlantic: David Frum- Conservatives Must Save The Republican Party

Liberty Pen: 'The Vision of Barry Goldwater'

Source:Liberty Pen- Mr. Conservative Barry Goldwater (Republican, Arizona) U.S. Senator 1953-65 and 1969-87.

Source:The New Democrat

"Barry Goldwater was a champion of the traditional American values of individual liberty and economic freedom. Excerpts from his 1964 Republican Presidential Nomination Speech. Liberty Pen" 

From Liberty Pen

Barry Goldwater's 1964's presidential campaign was monumental for several reasons. He lost 40 states, lost 61% of the popular vote, Congressional Republicans took a beating both in the House and Senate. Down to 140 seats in the House and 32 in the Senate after the 1964 general election. Those are the negative aspects of the Goldwater Campaign. The positive aspects are that Senator Goldwater was perhaps our only Conservative-Libertarian major party presidential nominee ( unless you include Ronald Reagan ) ever in American politics. He also won five Southern states something Republicans just didn't do at all pre-1968 with the exceptions of Goldwater and Dwight Eisenhower.

As bad as a defeat 1964 was for the Republican Party it also served as a roadmap for how the GOP can become a national party again. Which was to go Dixie and out West and win a lot of elections in both regions of the country. I believe 1964, 66, and 68, is why the Republican Party now has a Christian-Conservative theocratic wing and a Conservative-Libertarian wing. And still has a moderate to progressive wing in the North and parts of the Midwest.

The only reason why from 1959-67 the Democratic Party had such huge majorities in Congress especially in the Senate, was because they were a Southern Dixiecrat Confederate Protestant party, with a Northern Progressive and in some cases Socialist base in it. The Democratic Party was all over the map ideologically in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. That is the only reason why they were so huge. Not because America was overwhelmingly liberal, or progressive, and especially not socialist. The Democratic Party was basically 3-4 different parties as part of one huge national party.

Richard Nixon who I believe before Watergate at least was one of our greatest politicians as well as strategists when it came to winning elections, understood in 1965-66 that if were to run for President and then at some point be elected President., he was going to have to have a competitive Republican Party that was no longer just based in the Northeast and parts of the Midwest. That they had to break the ideological and political stranglehold that the Democrats had in America and beat Democrats in Democratic territory. That meant campaigning and winning in the South and West. Especially in Congress but at the state level as well and Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign provided the opening for the rebirth of the Republican Party that we see today. The modern GOP that we see today the start of the new party happened in 1966 and 68.

As far as Barry Goldwater politically and his campaign. Had more Goldwater Conservative-Libertarians came into the party and they managed to hold on to the Conservative-Libertarians who bolted for the Libertarian Party in the early 1970s and in some cases are Independents today, the GOP would be a Goldwater-Reagan conservative party today. Instead of the Christian-Conservative Tea Party Nationalist populist party that we see today. That views candidates positions on pornography, homosexuality, and their religious views, as more important to them, than where candidates stand on economic or foreign policy. Taxes, regulations, education, etc. And they would be a party that could compete for non-European Protestant American voters. Instead of being a party that is dominated by one ethnic group, one race, one religion, and one region of the country, that is predominantly male.

The Rubin Report: Dave Rubin Interviewing Steve Davies- The Difference Between Classical Liberals & Libertarians

Source: The Rubin Report-

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat 

I'm cool with being labeled either a Classical Liberal or a Liberal. Just don't call me a Libertarian, if you what's good for you! ( Ha, ha ) I'm a Jack Kennedy/Tom Jefferson Liberal Democrat because I believe in the things that Dave Rubin and Steve Davies point out in this video, but I believe there is a a what I call decentralized limited government role in seeing that people who for whatever reasons especially adults who don't have the skills that allow for them to get a good job and be able to be self-sufficient economically, get an opportunity to get those skills so they can get themselves a good job and not need public assistance at all. As well as short-term financial relief while they're improving themselves economically.

As well as public education as long as it's run by the local government's so everyone is guaranteed at least a shot at getting themselves a good education. And not denied an education simply because private schools don't want to teach them. I believe people should be able to go the the best public that is available for them and if parents want to send their kids to a private school, that is their choice. Just as long as taxpayers don't have to pay for their choices. Instead of forcing kids to go to school simply because of where they live, instead of what's the best school for them.

I believe in national defense to protect the country from foreign invaders. I believe in public law enforcement to protect the public from predators, but not to protect people from themselves. I believe America should be working with our allies to keep our peace, but also to see that the world is as safe as possible for freedom and liberal democracy to survive.

And a regulatory state that is limited to only protecting consumers and workers from predators. Not to try to run private business and make private businesses semi-public utilities that are only privately run in name only.

I'm not anti-government, but anti-big government. I don't want government trying to run our personal and economic lives for us. Which is what the Far-Left and Far-Right have in common. They don't want people to be able to make their own decisions and don't trust and believe in individualism. The Far-Left Socialists and Communists, want big government to manage people's economic affairs for them. And in Communists case, they want big government to manage people's personal lives for them as well as their economic lives. The Christian-Right as well as Nationalists and in some cases as we're seeing in America as well as Europe as well now, Christian-Nationalists who want big government to manage people's personal lives. And don't want people who don't look like them and believe in the same things as they do to even be around and be allowed to live their own lives.

Where I separate from Libertarians is that I'm not an Anarchist. What you get from Libertarians today especially online is this believe that government in any sense is just corrupt, incompetent, unconstitutional, and that it's being existence in any form is enslaving the people. That taxation is theft even though being a citizen of a country is basically like being the member of a club. You pay for the services that you consume as condition of being a member of that club. And for whatever reasons Libertarians today don't seem to understand that.

I'm not anti-government or pro-small government. If I had it my way government would be a lot smaller than what Socialists in any form want and bigger than what so-called Libertarians want. I'm pro-limited government and limiting government to doing only what we need it to do. So in that sense I guess I would a moderate compared with Socialists and Libertarians, but to me that is just about being a Liberal. Taking positions based on the best available evidence at hand. Instead of taking all of my positions based on government either has all of the answers to solving problems or none of the answers to problem solving.
The Rubin Report: Dave Rubin Interviewing Steve Davies-