Why the Hawley hype?

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Hawley is a neo-communist who favors big government regulation and intolerable left wing radicalism. I would vote for Donald Trump JR over him.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Anyway, people are underestimating Cruz. There's a reason his podcast was so very successful, he has kept his conservative Tea Party 2016 base, and he has grown it now to include more Trump 2016 supporters with his support for the President.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Anyway, people are underestimating Cruz. There's a reason his podcast was so very successful, he has kept his conservative Tea Party 2016 base, and he has grown it now to include more Trump 2016 supporters with his support for the President.

Cruz wouldn't even win Texas in a general election.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election_in_Texas#Republican_primary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_Senate_election_in_Texas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_Senate_election_in_Texas

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Hawley is a neo-communist who favors big government regulation and intolerable left wing radicalism. I would vote for Donald Trump JR over him.

Hawley is the exact opposite of a communist or a radical.

In fact Hawley is operating as a Traditionalist Conservative, which is why he favors government action on some points. By doing so, he is hoping to release the societal pressure that absent action will just keep building and building until the other side gets to dictate the results on everything. That is how politics works in reality.

Hawley's premise is that you concede and co-opt the left on one or two points to save the rest of the conservative pie from complete annihilation.

What is radical is the radical adherence to economic libertarianism, which will cause an equal and opposite reaction in favor of socialism. It is worth remembering that Capitalism itself is a liberal concept and as such its creative destruction is naturally contrary to the interests of societal stability, family cohesion and religious faith all of which are tropes ingrained in the concept of Traditional Conservatism. Therefore a trad con would want to reign in capitalism and restrain it to serve the interest of preserving those three priorities: Stability, family and faith.

Just because someone isn't your kind of conservatism, doesn't mean they are socialists. There is more to politics than a simple linear spectrum based entirely on one's views of how big government should be.

No, economic freedom is not a radical ideal. It is traditional Americana, straight from the very start. From Washington and Jefferson to Goldwater and Reagan to Cruz and Walker, freedom has been paramount in American values. And to assert that capitalism, which has created the actual nuclear family and delivered prosperity for so many people worldwide, is harming the family, is ridiculous -- it is only with capitalism have we managed to achieve such standards of living as for the nuclear family to even become possible. Instead of digging ditches from sundown to sunset, the natural productivity of free markets allows for increased prosperity and economic growth. No, perhaps Hawley is not a socialist. I am used to speaking to those who are not very well politically informed, for whom more distant concepts are not best used in explanations. But Hawley is a freedom hating, wealth redistributing, distributist, and his success would come at the expense of all that makes America great.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Hawley is a neo-communist who favors big government regulation and intolerable left wing radicalism. I would vote for Donald Trump JR over him.

What happened during your upbringing to make you think big government = communist?

I read history, understood the trends of power, and realized that expansions of government reduce the freedom of the individual and slowly build up so much concentrated power in the state that statism and communism become harder and harder to prevent. Through punitive taxation, the creation of the nanny state, and the reduction of personal responsibility, bigger and bigger government is a stepping stone to tyranny.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Hawley is a neo-communist who favors big government regulation and intolerable left wing radicalism. I would vote for Donald Trump JR over him.

Hawley is the exact opposite of a communist or a radical.

In fact Hawley is operating as a Traditionalist Conservative, which is why he favors government action on some points. By doing so, he is hoping to release the societal pressure that absent action will just keep building and building until the other side gets to dictate the results on everything. That is how politics works in reality.

Hawley's premise is that you concede and co-opt the left on one or two points to save the rest of the conservative pie from complete annihilation.

What is radical is the radical adherence to economic libertarianism, which will cause an equal and opposite reaction in favor of socialism. It is worth remembering that Capitalism itself is a liberal concept and as such its creative destruction is naturally contrary to the interests of societal stability, family cohesion and religious faith all of which are tropes ingrained in the concept of Traditional Conservatism. Therefore a trad con would want to reign in capitalism and restrain it to serve the interest of preserving those three priorities: Stability, family and faith.

Just because someone isn't your kind of conservatism, doesn't mean they are socialists. There is more to politics than a simple linear spectrum based entirely on one's views of how big government should be.

No, economic freedom is not a radical ideal. It is traditional Americana, straight from the very start. From Washington and Jefferson to Goldwater and Reagan to Cruz and Walker, freedom has been paramount in American values. And to assert that capitalism, which has created the actual nuclear family and delivered prosperity for so many people worldwide, is harming the family, is ridiculous -- it is only with capitalism have we managed to achieve such standards of living as for the nuclear family to even become possible. Instead of digging ditches from sundown to sunset, the natural productivity of free markets allows for increased prosperity and economic growth. No, perhaps Hawley is not a socialist. I am used to speaking to those who are not very well politically informed, for whom more distant concepts are not best used in explanations. But Hawley is a freedom hating, wealth redistributing, distributist, and his success would come at the expense of all that makes America great.

The market seeks its own equilibrium, even if at the expense of ten million middle class jobs. Husbands who go home, fight with their wives in front of the kids, turn to drugs in despair, leading the wife to seek a divorce. Meanwhile the schools have lost their tax base, and the kids start hanging out with the wrong crowd.

What? How are you trying to connect husbands fighting with their wives and using drugs to the market meeting supply and demand and getting rid of wasteful jobs? Should we still be employing all those poor laid off candlemakers from before we discovered electricity, because they're "good middle class jobs?" And "at the expense of ten million middle class jobs?" How do you think those jobs are created in the first place? Do you think they grow on trees?

Hawley is a neo-communist who favors big government regulation and intolerable left wing radicalism. I would vote for Donald Trump JR over him.

Hawley is the exact opposite of a communist or a radical.

In fact Hawley is operating as a Traditionalist Conservative, which is why he favors government action on some points. By doing so, he is hoping to release the societal pressure that absent action will just keep building and building until the other side gets to dictate the results on everything. That is how politics works in reality.

Hawley's premise is that you concede and co-opt the left on one or two points to save the rest of the conservative pie from complete annihilation.

What is radical is the radical adherence to economic libertarianism, which will cause an equal and opposite reaction in favor of socialism. It is worth remembering that Capitalism itself is a liberal concept and as such its creative destruction is naturally contrary to the interests of societal stability, family cohesion and religious faith all of which are tropes ingrained in the concept of Traditional Conservatism. Therefore a trad con would want to reign in capitalism and restrain it to serve the interest of preserving those three priorities: Stability, family and faith.

Just because someone isn't your kind of conservatism, doesn't mean they are socialists. There is more to politics than a simple linear spectrum based entirely on one's views of how big government should be.

No, economic freedom is not a radical ideal. It is traditional Americana, straight from the very start. From Washington and Jefferson to Goldwater and Reagan to Cruz and Walker, freedom has been paramount in American values. And to assert that capitalism, which has created the actual nuclear family and delivered prosperity for so many people worldwide, is harming the family, is ridiculous -- it is only with capitalism have we managed to achieve such standards of living as for the nuclear family to even become possible. Instead of digging ditches from sundown to sunset, the natural productivity of free markets allows for increased prosperity and economic growth. No, perhaps Hawley is not a socialist. I am used to speaking to those who are not very well politically informed, for whom more distant concepts are not best used in explanations. But Hawley is a freedom hating, wealth redistributing, distributist, and his success would come at the expense of all that makes America great.

Throw in the fact that said equilibrium is being skewed by the simple fact that we play by free market rules while China lives by neo-mercantilism, and essentially turning free trade into the unilateral disarmament of the previous cold war.

If you mean to say that the Chinese government is putting into place unfair trade rules that tariff American products without our past governments having had the guts to fight back, yes. That's not an argument for strangling the rights of farmers to sell their goods in the EU though, or to deny free markets and implement socialized medicine.

Hawley is a neo-communist who favors big government regulation and intolerable left wing radicalism. I would vote for Donald Trump JR over him.

Hawley is the exact opposite of a communist or a radical.

In fact Hawley is operating as a Traditionalist Conservative, which is why he favors government action on some points. By doing so, he is hoping to release the societal pressure that absent action will just keep building and building until the other side gets to dictate the results on everything. That is how politics works in reality.

Hawley's premise is that you concede and co-opt the left on one or two points to save the rest of the conservative pie from complete annihilation.

What is radical is the radical adherence to economic libertarianism, which will cause an equal and opposite reaction in favor of socialism. It is worth remembering that Capitalism itself is a liberal concept and as such its creative destruction is naturally contrary to the interests of societal stability, family cohesion and religious faith all of which are tropes ingrained in the concept of Traditional Conservatism. Therefore a trad con would want to reign in capitalism and restrain it to serve the interest of preserving those three priorities: Stability, family and faith.

Just because someone isn't your kind of conservatism, doesn't mean they are socialists. There is more to politics than a simple linear spectrum based entirely on one's views of how big government should be.

No, economic freedom is not a radical ideal. It is traditional Americana, straight from the very start. From Washington and Jefferson to Goldwater and Reagan to Cruz and Walker, freedom has been paramount in American values. And to assert that capitalism, which has created the actual nuclear family and delivered prosperity for so many people worldwide, is harming the family, is ridiculous -- it is only with capitalism have we managed to achieve such standards of living as for the nuclear family to even become possible. Instead of digging ditches from sundown to sunset, the natural productivity of free markets allows for increased prosperity and economic growth. No, perhaps Hawley is not a socialist. I am used to speaking to those who are not very well politically informed, for whom more distant concepts are not best used in explanations. But Hawley is a freedom hating, wealth redistributing, distributist, and his success would come at the expense of all that makes America great.

Anything good can be taken too far and that includes democracy itself. The Constitution was written to reign in "excess of democracy" and that was IIRC, Washington's words in the lead up to the convention. That is why diehard libertarians reject the Constitution as an illegal, reactionary counter coup by authoritarian elites to repress the freedoms won in the revolution, a view I don't share but it is out there.

If democracy and freedom can be taken too far (be it yelling fire in a crowded theater or voting to enslave people because they look different - Stephen Douglas and Lewis Cass ftr), then surely capitalism, markets and free trade can be taken too far and need to be reigned in at times.

I completely agree on the danger of democracy and the tyranny of the majority; it is why I find the label of Republican to be so apt. Yet still, this is a complete and total non sequitur -- your argument is simply that unrestricted democracy can be taken too far, so thus capitalism and free markets are being taken too far today. It does not hold up under even the most base of analysis.

Hawley is a neo-communist who favors big government regulation and intolerable left wing radicalism. I would vote for Donald Trump JR over him.

Hawley is the exact opposite of a communist or a radical.

In fact Hawley is operating as a Traditionalist Conservative, which is why he favors government action on some points. By doing so, he is hoping to release the societal pressure that absent action will just keep building and building until the other side gets to dictate the results on everything. That is how politics works in reality.

Hawley's premise is that you concede and co-opt the left on one or two points to save the rest of the conservative pie from complete annihilation.

What is radical is the radical adherence to economic libertarianism, which will cause an equal and opposite reaction in favor of socialism. It is worth remembering that Capitalism itself is a liberal concept and as such its creative destruction is naturally contrary to the interests of societal stability, family cohesion and religious faith all of which are tropes ingrained in the concept of Traditional Conservatism. Therefore a trad con would want to reign in capitalism and restrain it to serve the interest of preserving those three priorities: Stability, family and faith.

Just because someone isn't your kind of conservatism, doesn't mean they are socialists. There is more to politics than a simple linear spectrum based entirely on one's views of how big government should be.

No, economic freedom is not a radical ideal. It is traditional Americana, straight from the very start. From Washington and Jefferson to Goldwater and Reagan to Cruz and Walker, freedom has been paramount in American values. And to assert that capitalism, which has created the actual nuclear family and delivered prosperity for so many people worldwide, is harming the family, is ridiculous -- it is only with capitalism have we managed to achieve such standards of living as for the nuclear family to even become possible. Instead of digging ditches from sundown to sunset, the natural productivity of free markets allows for increased prosperity and economic growth. No, perhaps Hawley is not a socialist. I am used to speaking to those who are not very well politically informed, for whom more distant concepts are not best used in explanations. But Hawley is a freedom hating, wealth redistributing, distributist, and his success would come at the expense of all that makes America great.

There is no other outcome to the situation in healthcare drug prices then some form of gov't dictation. Either the left will do it via single payer, or the right can do it as a stand alone regulation as Hawley wants to do. Either way you slice it, people will only stand for this hostage style distorted market (the only way for demand to drop is for bodies to hit the floor so there is no natural restraint on prices). If you think "America's legacy" as a free country will stave off desperate people from seeking redress, the next decade or two is going to be eye opening.

Are you kidding me? Do you so fail to understand basic economics that you can honestly assert this? Yes; demand for life saving drugs will and is by nature high. But you seem to think that demand operates in a vacuum, as the Keynesians do, which is simply not the case. The issue with the drug market today is in the field of supply, where well connected corporatists block supply from rising to meet demand with artificially placed government regulations that block new drugs and suppliers from meeting the market. And not only would your "solution" fail to address the actual root cause of the problem, but it would actually make it worse -- just as in rent control or other similar examples, price ceilings simply act to distort the natural seeking of market equilibrium by eliminating the further incentives for new research and production, leaving us with the kind of stagnating drug market we see in so many European countries today. Just as rent control is the easiest way to destroy a city, so is price capping the easiest way to destroy the drug market.

Hawley is a neo-communist who favors big government regulation and intolerable left wing radicalism. I would vote for Donald Trump JR over him.

Hawley is the exact opposite of a communist or a radical.

In fact Hawley is operating as a Traditionalist Conservative, which is why he favors government action on some points. By doing so, he is hoping to release the societal pressure that absent action will just keep building and building until the other side gets to dictate the results on everything. That is how politics works in reality.

Hawley's premise is that you concede and co-opt the left on one or two points to save the rest of the conservative pie from complete annihilation.

What is radical is the radical adherence to economic libertarianism, which will cause an equal and opposite reaction in favor of socialism. It is worth remembering that Capitalism itself is a liberal concept and as such its creative destruction is naturally contrary to the interests of societal stability, family cohesion and religious faith all of which are tropes ingrained in the concept of Traditional Conservatism. Therefore a trad con would want to reign in capitalism and restrain it to serve the interest of preserving those three priorities: Stability, family and faith.

Just because someone isn't your kind of conservatism, doesn't mean they are socialists. There is more to politics than a simple linear spectrum based entirely on one's views of how big government should be.

No, economic freedom is not a radical ideal. It is traditional Americana, straight from the very start. From Washington and Jefferson to Goldwater and Reagan to Cruz and Walker, freedom has been paramount in American values. And to assert that capitalism, which has created the actual nuclear family and delivered prosperity for so many people worldwide, is harming the family, is ridiculous -- it is only with capitalism have we managed to achieve such standards of living as for the nuclear family to even become possible. Instead of digging ditches from sundown to sunset, the natural productivity of free markets allows for increased prosperity and economic growth. No, perhaps Hawley is not a socialist. I am used to speaking to those who are not very well politically informed, for whom more distant concepts are not best used in explanations. But Hawley is a freedom hating, wealth redistributing, distributist, and his success would come at the expense of all that makes America great.

If Conservatives don't adapt to this reality now, they are going to find themselves in the exact same place the New Deal Democrats found themselves in by 1985. Outside looking in, having failed to address the current economic misery.

I think I'm beginning to get it. It is not even that you genuinely think these ideas work or make sense, it is that you are so damn scared of losing. You've lost all your courage to stand for principle. You're already ready to bend the knee and sell out. It is simply pathetic.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Hawley is a neo-communist who favors big government regulation and intolerable left wing radicalism. I would vote for Donald Trump JR over him.

Hawley is the exact opposite of a communist or a radical.

In fact Hawley is operating as a Traditionalist Conservative, which is why he favors government action on some points. By doing so, he is hoping to release the societal pressure that absent action will just keep building and building until the other side gets to dictate the results on everything. That is how politics works in reality.

Hawley's premise is that you concede and co-opt the left on one or two points to save the rest of the conservative pie from complete annihilation.

What is radical is the radical adherence to economic libertarianism, which will cause an equal and opposite reaction in favor of socialism. It is worth remembering that Capitalism itself is a liberal concept and as such its creative destruction is naturally contrary to the interests of societal stability, family cohesion and religious faith all of which are tropes ingrained in the concept of Traditional Conservatism. Therefore a trad con would want to reign in capitalism and restrain it to serve the interest of preserving those three priorities: Stability, family and faith.

Just because someone isn't your kind of conservatism, doesn't mean they are socialists. There is more to politics than a simple linear spectrum based entirely on one's views of how big government should be.

No, economic freedom is not a radical ideal. It is traditional Americana, straight from the very start. From Washington and Jefferson to Goldwater and Reagan to Cruz and Walker, freedom has been paramount in American values. And to assert that capitalism, which has created the actual nuclear family and delivered prosperity for so many people worldwide, is harming the family, is ridiculous -- it is only with capitalism have we managed to achieve such standards of living as for the nuclear family to even become possible. Instead of digging ditches from sundown to sunset, the natural productivity of free markets allows for increased prosperity and economic growth. No, perhaps Hawley is not a socialist. I am used to speaking to those who are not very well politically informed, for whom more distant concepts are not best used in explanations. But Hawley is a freedom hating, wealth redistributing, distributist, and his success would come at the expense of all that makes America great.

The market seeks its own equilibrium, even if at the expense of ten million middle class jobs. Husbands who go home, fight with their wives in front of the kids, turn to drugs in despair, leading the wife to seek a divorce. Meanwhile the schools have lost their tax base, and the kids start hanging out with the wrong crowd.

What? How are you trying to connect husbands fighting with their wives and using drugs to the market meeting supply and demand and getting rid of wasteful jobs? Should we still be employing all those poor laid off candlemakers from before we discovered electricity, because they're "good middle class jobs?" And "at the expense of ten million middle class jobs?" How do you think those jobs are created in the first place? Do you think they grow on trees?

The Second half here, indicates full well you understood the connection. Unemployment is disruptive and detrimental to the cohesion of society, it also leads people to seek answers in the extremes. Fascism, Socialism and Communism. It is how we got Donald Trump.


Its not that you don't eliminate candlemaking it is that you have some kind of an answer other than "Move" or "learn to code", both of which people will just say F you and start to look for extremes that will give them the answers they want to hear, case in point, Trump's nomination.

Hawley is a neo-communist who favors big government regulation and intolerable left wing radicalism. I would vote for Donald Trump JR over him.

Hawley is the exact opposite of a communist or a radical.

In fact Hawley is operating as a Traditionalist Conservative, which is why he favors government action on some points. By doing so, he is hoping to release the societal pressure that absent action will just keep building and building until the other side gets to dictate the results on everything. That is how politics works in reality.

Hawley's premise is that you concede and co-opt the left on one or two points to save the rest of the conservative pie from complete annihilation.

What is radical is the radical adherence to economic libertarianism, which will cause an equal and opposite reaction in favor of socialism. It is worth remembering that Capitalism itself is a liberal concept and as such its creative destruction is naturally contrary to the interests of societal stability, family cohesion and religious faith all of which are tropes ingrained in the concept of Traditional Conservatism. Therefore a trad con would want to reign in capitalism and restrain it to serve the interest of preserving those three priorities: Stability, family and faith.

Just because someone isn't your kind of conservatism, doesn't mean they are socialists. There is more to politics than a simple linear spectrum based entirely on one's views of how big government should be.

No, economic freedom is not a radical ideal. It is traditional Americana, straight from the very start. From Washington and Jefferson to Goldwater and Reagan to Cruz and Walker, freedom has been paramount in American values. And to assert that capitalism, which has created the actual nuclear family and delivered prosperity for so many people worldwide, is harming the family, is ridiculous -- it is only with capitalism have we managed to achieve such standards of living as for the nuclear family to even become possible. Instead of digging ditches from sundown to sunset, the natural productivity of free markets allows for increased prosperity and economic growth. No, perhaps Hawley is not a socialist. I am used to speaking to those who are not very well politically informed, for whom more distant concepts are not best used in explanations. But Hawley is a freedom hating, wealth redistributing, distributist, and his success would come at the expense of all that makes America great.

Throw in the fact that said equilibrium is being skewed by the simple fact that we play by free market rules while China lives by neo-mercantilism, and essentially turning free trade into the unilateral disarmament of the previous cold war.

If you mean to say that the Chinese government is putting into place unfair trade rules that tariff American products without our past governments having had the guts to fight back, yes. That's not an argument for strangling the rights of farmers to sell their goods in the EU though, or to deny free markets and implement socialized medicine.

I mean to say that I don't buy the neoliberal white washing of our history, as we have already discussed. I started off learning history first with no ideology pushing me one way or the other. It is simple fact that we went from being a backwater to the most powerful economy in the world while having strongly protectionist policies and China has gone from the bottom of the pack to the largest while engaging in similar tactics.

Clearly, something is getting lost here in the narrative that free trade is the best course, at least for a developing economy. Beyond that for the sake of those industries that we want to see grow and prosper, we need to at least shield them from dumping and currency manipulation. How you do that is a matter for debate and discussion but if you cannot even have that conversation because it is being shouted down by the neo-liberal consensus then you are stuck at square one. Blindly adhering to free trade (unilateral disarmament) while China continues to take us to the cleaners with their one sided trade war they were waging for the past 25 years.

Hawley is a neo-communist who favors big government regulation and intolerable left wing radicalism. I would vote for Donald Trump JR over him.

Hawley is the exact opposite of a communist or a radical.

In fact Hawley is operating as a Traditionalist Conservative, which is why he favors government action on some points. By doing so, he is hoping to release the societal pressure that absent action will just keep building and building until the other side gets to dictate the results on everything. That is how politics works in reality.

Hawley's premise is that you concede and co-opt the left on one or two points to save the rest of the conservative pie from complete annihilation.

What is radical is the radical adherence to economic libertarianism, which will cause an equal and opposite reaction in favor of socialism. It is worth remembering that Capitalism itself is a liberal concept and as such its creative destruction is naturally contrary to the interests of societal stability, family cohesion and religious faith all of which are tropes ingrained in the concept of Traditional Conservatism. Therefore a trad con would want to reign in capitalism and restrain it to serve the interest of preserving those three priorities: Stability, family and faith.

Just because someone isn't your kind of conservatism, doesn't mean they are socialists. There is more to politics than a simple linear spectrum based entirely on one's views of how big government should be.

No, economic freedom is not a radical ideal. It is traditional Americana, straight from the very start. From Washington and Jefferson to Goldwater and Reagan to Cruz and Walker, freedom has been paramount in American values. And to assert that capitalism, which has created the actual nuclear family and delivered prosperity for so many people worldwide, is harming the family, is ridiculous -- it is only with capitalism have we managed to achieve such standards of living as for the nuclear family to even become possible. Instead of digging ditches from sundown to sunset, the natural productivity of free markets allows for increased prosperity and economic growth. No, perhaps Hawley is not a socialist. I am used to speaking to those who are not very well politically informed, for whom more distant concepts are not best used in explanations. But Hawley is a freedom hating, wealth redistributing, distributist, and his success would come at the expense of all that makes America great.

Anything good can be taken too far and that includes democracy itself. The Constitution was written to reign in "excess of democracy" and that was IIRC, Washington's words in the lead up to the convention. That is why diehard libertarians reject the Constitution as an illegal, reactionary counter coup by authoritarian elites to repress the freedoms won in the revolution, a view I don't share but it is out there.

If democracy and freedom can be taken too far (be it yelling fire in a crowded theater or voting to enslave people because they look different - Stephen Douglas and Lewis Cass ftr), then surely capitalism, markets and free trade can be taken too far and need to be reigned in at times.

I completely agree on the danger of democracy and the tyranny of the majority; it is why I find the label of Republican to be so apt. Yet still, this is a complete and total non sequitur -- your argument is simply that unrestricted democracy can be taken too far, so thus capitalism and free markets are being taken too far today. It does not hold up under even the most base of analysis.

No, I merely established in that section that both can be taken too far, not are. Notice the word "can" appears above in relation to the economy in my words as written. In other sections though I have given examples where it is being taken too far today.

Hawley is a neo-communist who favors big government regulation and intolerable left wing radicalism. I would vote for Donald Trump JR over him.

Hawley is the exact opposite of a communist or a radical.

In fact Hawley is operating as a Traditionalist Conservative, which is why he favors government action on some points. By doing so, he is hoping to release the societal pressure that absent action will just keep building and building until the other side gets to dictate the results on everything. That is how politics works in reality.

Hawley's premise is that you concede and co-opt the left on one or two points to save the rest of the conservative pie from complete annihilation.

What is radical is the radical adherence to economic libertarianism, which will cause an equal and opposite reaction in favor of socialism. It is worth remembering that Capitalism itself is a liberal concept and as such its creative destruction is naturally contrary to the interests of societal stability, family cohesion and religious faith all of which are tropes ingrained in the concept of Traditional Conservatism. Therefore a trad con would want to reign in capitalism and restrain it to serve the interest of preserving those three priorities: Stability, family and faith.

Just because someone isn't your kind of conservatism, doesn't mean they are socialists. There is more to politics than a simple linear spectrum based entirely on one's views of how big government should be.

No, economic freedom is not a radical ideal. It is traditional Americana, straight from the very start. From Washington and Jefferson to Goldwater and Reagan to Cruz and Walker, freedom has been paramount in American values. And to assert that capitalism, which has created the actual nuclear family and delivered prosperity for so many people worldwide, is harming the family, is ridiculous -- it is only with capitalism have we managed to achieve such standards of living as for the nuclear family to even become possible. Instead of digging ditches from sundown to sunset, the natural productivity of free markets allows for increased prosperity and economic growth. No, perhaps Hawley is not a socialist. I am used to speaking to those who are not very well politically informed, for whom more distant concepts are not best used in explanations. But Hawley is a freedom hating, wealth redistributing, distributist, and his success would come at the expense of all that makes America great.

There is no other outcome to the situation in healthcare drug prices then some form of gov't dictation. Either the left will do it via single payer, or the right can do it as a stand alone regulation as Hawley wants to do. Either way you slice it, people will only stand for this hostage style distorted market (the only way for demand to drop is for bodies to hit the floor so there is no natural restraint on prices). If you think "America's legacy" as a free country will stave off desperate people from seeking redress, the next decade or two is going to be eye opening.

Are you kidding me? Do you so fail to understand basic economics that you can honestly assert this? Yes; demand for life saving drugs will and is by nature high. But you seem to think that demand operates in a vacuum, as the Keynesians do, which is simply not the case. The issue with the drug market today is in the field of supply, where well connected corporatists block supply from rising to meet demand with artificially placed government regulations that block new drugs and suppliers from meeting the market. And not only would your "solution" fail to address the actual root cause of the problem, but it would actually make it worse -- just as in rent control or other similar examples, price ceilings simply act to distort the natural seeking of market equilibrium by eliminating the further incentives for new research and production, leaving us with the kind of stagnating drug market we see in so many European countries today. Just as rent control is the easiest way to destroy a city, so is price capping the easiest way to destroy the drug market.

I don't give a crap about Keynesian versus Supply side, its all bullsh@%t. Its like fighting over which wing of the plane is more important and frankly both economic schools of thought should be taken out to the wood shed and killed with a dull axe.

I am a fiscal conservative in that I support balancing the budget or at least getting it close to balance. I think you should promote long term both supply and demand, supply through business creation and entrepeneurship, and demand through beneficial infrastructure projects that are paid for that will generate long run economic growth. The Erie Canal created the Midwest as an economic powerhouse, the Highways created the suburban sprawl, both of which were paid for. Neither of which was an unfunded mandate, or paying people to dig useless holes like Keynes talked about.

Quit trying to other me and make me out to be a leftist because I am not your kind of conservative. We would do so much better, if we spent more time trying to actually do things like balance the budget instead of constantly arguing with the mirror on the wall over whose is the fairest of them all and seeking to exterminate those that don't pass muster.

This constant purity seeking is Soviet in origin and frankly I have no desire for any kind of conservatism that seeks to emulate Vladimir Lenin's tactics. They have clearly lost the plot at some point.

I'm sorry, I'm having trouble responding just due to formatting. If any of my responses are weird looking, know that that is why.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

The Second half here, indicates full well you understood the connection. Unemployment is disruptive and detrimental to the cohesion of society, it also leads people to seek answers in the extremes. Fascism, Socialism and Communism. It is how we got Donald Trump.

Your implication was that people only get laid off because of capitalism lol, and that "middle class jobs" wouldn't naturally arise or disappear vice versa with more economic regulation.

Its not that you don't eliminate candlemaking it is that you have some kind of an answer other than "Move" or "learn to code", both of which people will just say F you and start to look for extremes that will give them the answers they want to hear, case in point, Trump's nomination.

Again, this is what I'm talking about. Your case is not on the actual merits, it is that "if we don't do these evil things, we will lose elections" which...just isn't an appealing case to me. Principles first.

I mean to say that I don't buy the neoliberal white washing of our history, as we have already discussed. I started off learning history first with no ideology pushing me one way or the other.

As did I -- I was a history junkie first, and a political junkie only second on.

It is simple fact that we went from being a backwater to the most powerful economy in the world while having strongly protectionist policies and China has gone from the bottom of the pack to the largest while engaging in similar tactics.

But your assertion is now that those protectionist policies caused such growth, when study after study has shown that such policies actually do the opposite and hurt even industrial growth (due to the ever more complex nature of our global supply chain). This is simply wrong, and, to use a well-known concept, mixing correlation and causation.

Clearly, something is getting lost here in the narrative that free trade is the best course, at least for a developing economy. Beyond that for the sake of those industries that we want to see grow and prosper, we need to at least shield them from dumping and currency manipulation. How you do that is a matter for debate and discussion but if you cannot even have that conversation because it is being shouted down by the neo-liberal consensus then you are stuck at square one. Blindly adhering to free trade (unilateral disarmament) while China continues to take us to the cleaners with their one sided trade war they were waging for the past 25 years.

I completely agree -- if the Chinese tariff us, and we don't fight back, we are only screwing ourselves. But that doesn't excuse raising tariffs on places and countries that have no such policies, like our European allies.

No, I merely established in that section that both can be taken too far, not are. Notice the word "can" appears above in relation to the economy in my words as written. In other sections though I have given examples where it is being taken too far today.

But you haven't! All you have articulated is that people get laid off in a free market economy (yes -- supply and demand exist, and if you cannot meet the needs of actual consumers you should not expect them to support you) and that China engages in unfair trade practices -- not exactly conclusive proof of the evils of capitalism.

I don't give a crap about Keynesian versus Supply side, its all bullsh@%t. Its like fighting over which wing of the plane is more important and frankly both economic schools of thought should be taken out to the wood shed and killed with a dull axe.

To the extent I agree: the government should not prioritize any group economically, and should instead simply allow the free market to work naturally. At the same time, it is important for supply side economists to explain the simple reality that you cannot have the chicken without the egg.

I am a fiscal conservative in that I support balancing the budget or at least getting it close to balance. I think you should promote long term both supply and demand, supply through business creation and entrepeneurship, and demand through beneficial infrastructure projects that are paid for that will generate long run economic growth.
.

That is not how economics work. You cannot just waste government funds on projects for which there is no actual economic demand for, and which are more inefficient than private projects, and which take money away from and steal from private projects, and expect them to do anything more than serve as money sinks. Supply and demand are natural equilibriums of what some individuals want and what other individuals can produce; the government cannot simply artificially create either lol.

the Highways created the suburban sprawl, both of which were paid for. Neither of which was an unfunded mandate, or paying people to dig useless holes like Keynes talked about.

Are you really trying to assert that suburbs did not exist before highways, or that other forms of transportation (even highways themselves, of a sort) would not have been invested in if there was demand for them?

Quit trying to other me and make me out to be a leftist because I am not your kind of conservative.

Mitt Romney is not my kind of conservative. Jeb Bush is not my kind of conservative. You? You are not a conservative.

We would do so much better, if we spent more time trying to actually do things like balance the budget instead of constantly arguing with the mirror on the wall over whose is the fairest of them all and seeking to exterminate those that don't pass muster.

If to balance the budget we must sell out to people like you and betray all other principles, you'll never have my support.

This constant purity seeking is Soviet in origin and frankly I have no desire for any kind of conservatism that seeks to emulate Vladimir Lenin's tactics. They have clearly lost the plot at some point.

"Voting politicians that you disagree with out of office is Soviet in origin"

Hmmm, not really what I think of when I think Soviet.

What the hell use is a conservatism that basically enables the socialist takeover of the country through its own incompetence and stupidity? My primary ideological underpinning is based on the study of Edmund Burke and how he rationalized opposition to the French Revolution, while supporting the Glorious and American (rhetorically) Revolutions. The main thing that it tells me is that the radicals of all kinds have to be stopped and the best way to stop a movement driven by building societal pressure for change is to release the steam out of the kettle. It doesn't have to be Bismarckian welfare state, but the same idea applies.

Once again, my previous statements apply. You know what you are arguing for is wrong, but you rationalize it as necessary to stop even worse actors. I reject that premise -- principles matter, and I will not sell them out for the sake of a few %s of the margin. If it truly becomes necessary, we have the 2a for a reason.

There are three things that separate us from being able to win on the budgets, on life, even on guns when you think about it, that is healthcare, climate change and gay rights. Frankly, there are some people on the right would gladly see the Democrats dominate for 40 years to get us to a point where America will desire conservatism of that sort again. The problem is 40 years of Supreme Court justices, working majorities and them solving these problems "Their way" will ensure that you have lost out on far more and that the conservatism that does finally get back into power will be completely unrecognizable to what I desire, much less what you would desire.

Lol, you're so out of touch. The only one of those issues where we have an actual majority is the balanced budget, and even then it is only in name only. Once again, you try to rationalize away selling out our principles as "necessary," failing to recognize that this is total warfare, not a skirmish. We cannot simply offer up our principles as sacrifices and expect mercy.

In a way, this actually reminds me of why I respect someone like Grassroots, who is simply an unabashed communist on fiscal issues and conservative on social issues, more than a sell out such as you. At least he argued for what he actually believed as a way to achieve it, not just to surrender like a coward.

Once the left enacts single payer, there is no going back, it will be in place forever. If it means averting the single payer outcome, there is nearly nothing I wouldn't condone, because nothing would be as damaging to the health care sector and to the drug market as the gov't literally setting prices, dictating prices on everything. Compared to a regulation limiting price increases, that is on a whole different planet and if it alleviates the societal pressure for single payer then it will have done a service to conservatism on a range over other issues from life, to the constitution, to balanced budgets and especially on health care.

Bro, pro tip: you don't need to type out so many words each time. You can just copy paste it, like this (here's a helpful draft)

"If we don't do (BLANK, insert morally evil thing that betrays our principles here) then the left will pass (insert even more morally evil thing)."

What you fail to recognize, however, is that they never stop. First it is "just" Medicare, expanding government yet again. Then it is "just" Medicaid, expanding government yet again. Then it is "just" Obamacare, and "just" price ceilings, and "just" a public option, and then it's "just" single-payer, and it never f**king stops.

For years, you have been use to conditioning everything on an us versus them plane, and everyone that disagrees with you is either a liberal, a traitor or a coward.

No. I disagree with many people. But at least someone like AOC or Grassroots has the courage to stand for what they believe in. You -- you -- are just a coward.

I have not violated any of my principles, because I don't define my conservative principles on the basis of martyrdom and suicide on every last point.

Yes, just to the point that they become unpopular in Washington breakfast nooks.

I am not selling out Supply Side economics because I don't believe in supply side economics as being suitable to our current times. Conservatism has existed for hundreds of years, supply side economics has existed for just 40.

Sure, the exact doctrine of "supply side" economics has just existed for 40 years. But the principles it rests on, of free markets and an opposition to government regulation and control, have existed from the very moment of creation.

Are you really going to write off everyone who came before Reagan as a socialist? Calvin Coolidge?

One of my all time favorite Presidents -- certainly the best in the 20th century.

Robert Taft?

Too protectionist, but still a FF. Would be aghast to see you arguing for big government and price regulation.

Even Barry Goldwater?

Barry Goldwater was the freaking man who introduced me to the conservative movement, of course he's a hero of mine. I am not nearly the purist you think I am -- Goldwater was pro choice, and Coolidge and Taft were racist protectionists, but I still support them anyway. But what I really can't support is your brand of socialist cowardice.

Finally, the last thing I want to happen is see conservatism bend the knee for 28 to 40 years, because some people couldn't leave the gays alone and some others just couldn't get bast their ideological blinders for long enough to address the pressing economic despair.

You just keep saying that, as if the cycle won't repeat, or as if free markets are not the only proven and practiced way of genuinely helping people and supporting economic growth.

What the GOP really needs is someone that can meld Hawley and Rand Paul together. Trump kind of achieved the same concept when you consider his FP positions and how he handled bathrooms while running against Cruz in Indiana and of course the real main course on Trump, which was immigration and trade.

You say that, as if we do not make up 95% of the party and the Hawleyites 5%, and as if even your boys like RINO Walter Jones are not regularly being replaced by real conservatives across the board lol.

It had been my hope that John Kasich could pull this off as far back as 2013, a kind of combination of libertarianism on some areas and populism on others, but he fell into the Midwest McCain vibe and nobody really wants that at this point. I was the lone Kasich supporter on this forum for 2 years almost, when he was at like 1%, only to be horribly disappointed by late 2015.

John Kasich expanded Medicaid, advocated for big government, betrayed the cause of traditional marriage, and stands for...well, essentially nothing. He is a pathetic, feeble, loser, who lied to Ohio voters.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Again this is what I am talking about. There is absolutely no concern for the consequences as it relates to the growing tied of socialism, or trying to avert that. It is just about keep shouting the same things as before only louder and maybe this time they will give you a different answer, politics doesn't work that way.

You either give the people what they want or they come after you with pitchforks.

We can't beat socialism by imposing policies that don't work. Giving into the mob, giving away our principles -- we've seen how it works. If we know raising taxes and hurting economic growth reduces opportunity and will just hurt the very people you're trying to convince to stay away from socialism, why are you endorsing that?

I never endorsed putting tariffs on European allies, not sure where you got that from.

Considering every single politician you endorse is advocating for exactly those tariffs, perhaps you ought to rethink that.

I am not out out to prove "the evils of capitalism" because again and perhaps I didn't make myself clear, "I AM TRYING TO SAVE CAPITALISM FROM ITSELF AND THE SOCIALISM IT IS GIVEN RISE TO".

Bullsh**t. You spend half your time talking about how capitalism and free markets causes husbands to beat their wives, then claim to be defending capitalism? High tariffs and taxes and government regulation and control are the opposite of what you're now claiming to support.

And you cannot have an egg without the dinosaur that first laid it.

Yes, and you can't have a dinosaur without the egg. The point is both cycles work together lol.

I literally just condemned the projects to nowhere inherent in the Keynesian model and yet you come back and accuse me of supporting such wasteful projects.

Because the two projects you listed are wasteful too lol.

Varies based on the area, but regardless of whether it was state based roads previous or federal highways system afterwards, it is still gov't infrastructure.

You just totally ignored the question lmao, which was "Varies based on the area, but regardless of whether it was state based roads previous or federal highways system afterwards, it is still gov't infrastructure."

I haven't supported Mitt Romney in 8 years and I never supported Jeb Bush. Really, you need to stop putting words in my mouth.

Are you incapable of reading what I actually said? My point was that while neither Romney nor Bush is my kind of conservative, I still accept them as part of the conservative movement because they are genuine conservatives -- unlike you.

"Mitt Romney is not my kind of conservative. Jeb Bush is not my kind of conservative. You? You are not a conservative."

There is no greater selling out of principle, then handing victory on EVERYTHING to the other side.

But your plans would unintentionally do exactly that, by giving up half the game before we even start and then surrendering once the battle has just barely begun. And hell, even if you succeeded, your corporatist policies would just attack the very people you're trying to help and harm our cause.

Because Riggleman was really actually voted out by the bulk of his voters as opposed to an inside hit job by a exclusive clique of party activists. Sounds rather Soviet to me. The Soviet allusion refers to Grover Norquist who has idolized Lenin's approach to party purity and used it for a model on how to enforce the no tax pledge.

Are we talking about Denver Riggleman? No. We are talking about how I think you and politicians who share your beliefs ought to be voted against up and down the ballot, and that I think Josh Hawley ought to be primaried right back to the AGs office. And PLEASE don't compare yourself to Riggleman, a man who, while I opposed him, had real principles and courage instead of cowardice.

My only overriding principle is societal stability. Everything else is done to serve that purpose or done in a way that won't do harm to that purpose.

I am not interested in 2nd amendment solutions because we have brains to address these problems before it gets to that point and also that is again detrimental to societal cohesion.

Quit defining my ideology based on your set of criteria, I reject your criteria and its legitimacy as I consider large elements to be either LIBERAL in origin or SOCIALIST enabling in their ends.

You are the danger our Founders warned against -- the man who would sacrifice not just his, but all of ours, liberty for a little temporary safety.

Its not a good idea to result to personal insults, especially when talking with a moderator. Lucky for you, I am notoriously restrained and "conservative" in my approach. Others won't be.

Threats for the truth? Abuse of position? Disgusting.

I don't need your permission to type what I want. I have been typing what I want for twelve years on this forum, and I never let the left stop me back then and I am not going to let you stop me now.

"the left"

Put those compass results up there. Please.

I am almost 30 years old, I work for my upkeep, I pay my taxes, and I watched my mother wither away and die from long term chronic illness left untreated for years. I have been following politics since the end of the Clinton years/beginning of Bush's term. I have read Locke, Burke, Smith, Ricardo, Federalist Papers, Anti-Federalist Papers and so on, as well as numerous supreme court cases, briefs and opinions.

I have never backed down from a fight, and I have never, NEVER, condone kowtowing to Washington insiders and I resent you claiming otherwise. Most of them are the same out of touch fools who have gotten us into this mess and they are the reason why I voted for Trump in 2016 both times. What you don't grasp is that the conservative movement itself is now a part of that Washington establishment and is still operating as if it is 1985 with policies geared towards ending stagflation and aimed a voter base in Orange county that now largely resides six feet under.

I am sorry to hear to about your mothers passing.

I strongly disagree however, with your assertion that you do not back down from fights. You may not think of it in those terms, but that is clearly what your ideology about. Its even clear in how you speak about it -- not in terms of right and wrong like Grassroots does, but in terms of how we will lose if we don't side with you.

You have the gall to say I am out of touch. Ridiculous, I am in touch with reality on the ground because I live it everyday. I don't have the luxury of getting paid millions of dollars by corporate special interests to give some worthless speech to a think tank that two people will watch and few alive today will reap any benefits from the ideas suggested.I spent most of 2013 - 2016 looking for a candidate would burn down the think tank/consulting class and I finally settled on Trump because he seemed more likely to do that then the Think Tank poster boy Ted Cruz.

I will never let you get away with trying to claim my priorities are pleasing the Washington insider class.

Yes, you are out of touch. You may not be out of touch in the same way that some Washington insider is, but you and your beliefs are completely out of touch. You speak of economic despair -- but when (pre-Corona) 68% of people say it is "a good time" to find a job, just 19% think the economy is the most important problem we face today, 62% say economic conditions are good or excellent, and 59% still think it's even getting better on top of that, that's just totally out of common with the average American. You have an unrealistic conception of what Americans actually think today.

Principles are timeless, policies have to evolve.

But you aren't just abandoning policies, you're abandoning principles too.

You are the one who wants socialism, you said yourself you would rather the country be socialist then compromise on single point. You can talk all you want, but at the end of the day you are facilitating socialism. I wouldn't even be surprised if you become a socialist yourself, meanwhile, I will still be here trying save some form of capitalism only having to fight you from the other sid

Lmao, what?

I am 100% okay with compromise if it is necessary to save capitalism. I intend to run for office one day, and when I do you will not catch me calling for all the same policies I might personally believe in. But there is a difference between surrendering unwinnable fights and winnable ones, and it is one you seemingly fail to comprehend.

You are right the cycle will repeat because people are too set in their ways and the Democrats will have their multi-decade run of power. And any semblance of a pro-life movement will be dead, along with the second amendment.

The "cycle" I refer to is the cycle of political defeat and surrender you would usher in just as it was in the 1950s and 60s with your forefathers, the men of the dime store new deal, not some vague idea in your head. I am Barry Goldwater; you are Nelson Rockerfeller.

That only lasts as long you control the money. Once you fail to deliver wins and their precious tax cuts, they will abandon you and start throwing money at anyone that can get back into power. They are corrupt and their only principle is the bottom line, but you don't have any qualms about harnessing its power for the sake of control and you know what, it makes your arguments ring hollow.

Are you really calling 95% of the Republican Party corrupt? Are you seriously accusing me of being corrupt? And you have the gall to raise a stink about personal issues elsewhere? I favor the total abolition of corporate welfare. I favor the ending of all tax loopholes. I favor a constitutional ban on (already unconstitutional, but sadly not explict enough) bailouts. I stand for my principles because they are right, not for the very power I want to RID the government of but that you want to expand. Men who live in glass houses should not throw stones at men who live in steel ones.

That is beyond well established by now, but that wasn't the case back then. At the time he was a fiscal hawk with a blue collar background.

That is true -- I once had high hopes for him as well. I wonder what changed.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Hawley terrifies me and I am convinced that he will become President. His record isn't spotless (e.g., being anti-RTW and signing onto ACA lawsuits) but he knows rhetorically how to paint himself as a worker friendly trad-con. He's been in the Senate for a year and a half and he's already become basically the Senate figurehead for the "traditional" social conservative movement. My sense is that there are plenty of people in the intellectual trad con world who already adore him (e.g., the press they've given him after the Bostick case).

I think he has much better odds of capturing the post-Trump GOP mantle than someone like Haley or Cotton. Haley is basically an establishment-foisted stiff who is squishy on Trump and will reek of an unpopular establishment. Cotton is hawkish, disdainful of the WWC outside of culture war red meat, and uncharismatic. If he didn't light himself on fire in 2016 I could actually see the Rubio of 2019/2020 being competitive in a national primary but people's memories aren't that short.

I think Haley has done a good job appealing to both sectors and represents a Nixon to Trump's Goldwater in the form of triangulated policies which may be necessary to win a primary and general. I'm not convinced the GOP is ready to go full Hawley yet since the party clearly hasn't let go of their traditional economics. It'll take a little longer. Hawley could still win but it's a much riskier choice, like Reagan in 1968 over 1980.

The GOP is clinging to economic conservatism now; we'll see how long that lasts. Trump was the first breach in the wall, but he's too lazy and self-serving to see a lot of his 2016 campaign to fruition. This means he basically left it up to the people around him, which is why you have a Ryan/Reince 2017 tax bill. Turns out the GOP base was really only rhetorically interested in the fiscal conservatism now (e.g., moralizing about welfare cheats rather than actually being opposed to welfare itself). But I think once Trump has laid out a blueprint for how a politician can differentiate himself from a despised party establishment, Hawley is already showing signs that he is interested in exploiting it while pulling a "no true Scotsman" against people associated with Trump (like Gorsuch).

That's just quite simply a media mischaracterization, and it's part of how Democrats want to portray Trump supporters. Admitting that we are either truly fiscally or socially conservative and have real principles on both fronts makes us too relatable, whereas painting us as MAGA flag flying bumpkins who are part of "the cult of Trump" doesn't. Please, and I mean this honestly -- go out there. Attend a county GOP meeting. See who we are. Talk to actual Republican voters. Stop getting your stereotypes from Atlas/the Media -- come learn on your own terms, and make up your own judgement. If you really want to understand American politics today, its the least you can do.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

I'd  say simply. If Hawley manages to get nomination and his brand of populism takes over GOP, I will probably stop recognizing  myself as Republican. For me it's  economics or bust. I don't  think that surrendering economical issues for social is a viable path to go forward.

Although I am a foreigner, so, my word isn't  that much of say in this debate.

Me too. I have Canadian friends -- they vote third party because the "Conservatives" are pro-choice. I always pledged to myself that I would do the same if Republicans ever started doing that too. Just as I would never vote for a pro-choice candidate, I will never vote for a high tax, big government, regulating petty tyrant like Josh Hawley.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

I'd  say simply. If Hawley manages to get nomination and his brand of populism takes over GOP, I will probably stop recognizing  myself as Republican. For me it's  economics or bust. I don't  think that surrendering economical issues for social is a viable path to go forward.

Although I am a foreigner, so, my word isn't  that much of say in this debate.

I understand your point of view (I was a libertarian from 2012-16 and a classical liberal up till a year ago), but to the point that NC Yankee has been saying this entire thread- The GOP has no path forward if it clings to tea-party supply side doctrine, as so many educated, suburban middle and upper middle class voters have left the GOP*  (most of whom aren't coming back) The GOP has to adopt more pro-worker stances to have a chance of building a coalition that can actually win elections and win over new voters who would otherwise refuse to vote for "the wall-st party" (which is a very silly narrative, but lots of people still believe it).

You don't have to go into hardcore Hawley-Tucker territory.  But the party has to move in that direction (which Trump mostly failed to do) in order to construct a winning coalition.


*Many nevertrumper republicans like to infer that Trump is 100% responsible for this trend and that until 2017 the GOP had rock-solid Suburban support.  Although Trump certainly accelerated this trend and deserves much of the blame, the trend has been happening since at least Obama's first term and can probably be traced back to the last days of the Bush era, in no small part due to social issues, the drug war, and the wars in the middle east.  The GOP didn't get the message after Obama won in 2008, and the 2012 autopsy failed to reign in the neoconservative foreign policy. 

Then, I guess, I am going to surely leave my sympathies to GOP aside. I simply don't want to be a part of party cruicial part of which consists of WWC and Blue Collars. I just can't bear those people for their social and economic stances. Being myself from upper-middle class family by standards of my country and a freshman college student who plans to live in suburb and being middle-class like my parents, I just сan't reach out to them. It's above me. Me and some miner HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO JOINT INTERESTS. And that's not changing.

If I ever end up in USA I will be voting for Libertarian Party. Sadly neoconservativism and Reaganism are dying  and I won't find a place for me in both parties in a decade or even less

Honestly man, that's a really bad attitude. You don't have to be snobbish to be a conservative -- miners and other blue collar workers can advocate for and believe in free market and oppose government regulation (which actually disproportionately affects them by hurting them and killing their jobs) just as much as suburbanites can.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Threads like this are always going to show why the conservative movement will forever be fractured. The Reagan coalition was needed in the 80s, but even that created massive problems both ideologically and practically.

1. I don't see how any fiscal con can really justify the bad things Reagan did and defend them by saying "well he knew it would get worse so he did this bad thing to prevent another bad thing". I'm not accepting that argument. I'm a firm believer Reagan did not have the follow-through to finish what he wanted to start in 76 and only got worse as his presidency continued.

2. I think I've come to accept that most market conservatives are either libertarians that don't care about social issues that much or are pro-business conservatives and not actually pro-markets. This probably explains why so many cons are willing to sacrifice economics to preserve social or cultural fights, and also preserve their seats in Congress.

3. I see no path for the GOP moving forward if we have to target suburban America and the wealthy.  The only way we will ever see the real change we want to see, and by real I mean a balanced budget, cuts in spending, a more united foreign policy, and an era where the right is not deemed inherently racist, is by catering to the most disenfranchised and marginalized groups in society. This, ironically would possibly create a huge demographic flip that most conservatives wouldn't understand.

4. I know most conservatives hate to admit this, but the GOP has to become more libertarian if it wants to be the party of small government and traditional values. Buchanan and Paul (both) did far more to energize the base and preserve conservatism than typical generic Rs such as Romney and Bush. This doesn't mean go LP crazy.

5. It's weird how I agree more with Yankee than I do Haley/Ryan, when Yankee is probably less conservative (PM score wise) than Haley/Ryan



IMO, the strategy should look something like this:
1. Condemn neoconservatism (sorry Sunrise) and liberal internationalism
2. Target AAs who are going to suffer the most from these changing demographics
3. Attack the elite which include the establishment, wealthy white liberals, and academia
4. Stress honest capitalism and attack corporate capitalism
5. Be more tolerant on social issues
6. Do not give in to the left on culture wars

Right-winged populism bringing together a coalition of paleos and marginalized groups is our future

Put like that, I'm totally fine with that -- because it preserves the two things I care about (fiscal/social conservatism) and keeps it alive without giving up on our values. That's completely different from what Yankee whats, which is simply giving into the left and supporting expansions of government and abandoning our principles on healthcare, marriage, taxes, free markets, etc. As for demographics, I don't really care so long as it gets the job, but I do think you're overstating how easy it is to win AA voters -- the sense of entitlement among non-immigrant AA urban voters is very high, and unless Republicans give in on police reform, on reparations, on giveaways ("subsidies" like Democrats do with the Minority Business Development Agency) to black neighborhoods, etc etc, we are not going to be able to win there. Our best bet is to build up non-college white support, try to hold the line with white college educated voters, increase turnout (ie evangelicals), and work on more integrated Hispanics (the kind of person who marks white on the census but hispanic for ethnicity and lives in some suburb like Hialeah etc etc).

2. I think I've come to accept that most market conservatives are either libertarians that don't care about social issues that much or are pro-business conservatives and not actually pro-markets. This probably explains why so many cons are willing to sacrifice economics to preserve social or cultural fights, and also preserve their seats in Congress.

However, I really take issue with this.

I am a market conservative. I believe in abolishing the income tax, entitlement reform, reducing the size of government, and repealing and replacing Obamcare.

But I am also a social conservative. As I have said on other occasions on this forum, I believe in punishing abortion with the death penalty. I believe life begins at conception. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I support school prayer.

Those two things are not contradictory, and I don't only care about one or the other. I care about them both very deeply, and I know that at least some of our Congressmen do as well.