Trump: Not a "Conservative" but an "Anti-Progressive"

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Anti-progressive?  Do we really need a new word to replace "reactionary"?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Anti-progressive?  Do we really need a new word to replace "reactionary"?

Are the only two options here "progressive" and "reactionary"? I mean, there are a zillion ideologies: liberal, libertarian, nationalist, mercantilist, interventionist, etc. that are neither inherently progressive nor inherently reactionary. It makes perfect sense to say Trump is neither progressive nor reactionary, though he is clearly actively anti-progressive while he couldn't care less about reactionaries.

Whether Trump himself is really reactionary is beside the point. His whole campaign was waged on classic reactionary themes such as Make America Great Again that invoke a past that never was.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Anyway, Trump's theme was more restorational than reactionary: restoring America to its "rightful place" in the world.

That is literally the definition of what it means to be reactionary.

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I suppose one could argue that Trump is reactionary only in certain regards, but you'd hard pressed to find anyone who truly is a perfect reactionary, so quibbling in that way would be an attempt to render the term "reactionary" meaningless.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Anyway, Trump's theme was more restorational than reactionary: restoring America to its "rightful place" in the world.

That is literally the definition of what it means to be reactionary.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I suppose one could argue that Trump is reactionary only in certain regards, but you'd hard pressed to find anyone who truly is a perfect reactionary, so quibbling in that way would be an attempt to render the term "reactionary" meaningless.

But if you take that definition as written, then virtually everyone is a reactionary in some way. For example, if the Wisconsin Democrats want to repeal Act 10 (the collective bargaining act) does that make them reactionary? They want to restore the status quo ante.

Being reactionary isn't exclusively a right-wing phenomenon, tho it most often is found on the right.

(Incidentally, Wisconsin Act10 was horrible legislation if you are conservative.  Even if you think that some public employees shouldn't be able to engage in collective bargaining, the ones that Act 10 exempted from the ban, public safety officers, are the ones that traditionally it was considered most necessary to not allow to engage in labor actions.  Act 10 was raw political sausage at its wurst.)