Social 'Conservatives' Are Not Real Conservatives

[OSR stands with Israel]

And social conservatives would make the same argument in reverse that policies that break up traditional norms due to pro growth policies  are not conservative either . Anyway this is all semantics as everyone knows that what is defined as a conservative here is a coalition of different types of conservatives and not a single brand of it and all 3 contradict each other in some ways and did even in the “3 legged stool” era of Conservatism .

Economic Conservatives: They are for low taxes , less regulation, less spending , generally pro business policies and also “small government”.

National Security Conservatives: They are for maintaining  American Hegemony which means a strong national defense , tougher stance against adversaries , and intervening to promote our interests and to shape the world in our image

Social conservatives: They are for promoting traditional “family values and norms” , are very religious etc


So yes all have naturally contradictory beliefs .

Economic and National Security: Flies right into the fact of economic conservatives that spending should be cut and visa versa

Economic and Social Conservatives: Can contradict small government belief of economic conservatives and promoting traditional values of social conservatives

National Security and Social : Many times goals of nationals security conservatives can push other nations to become more socially liberal.


The job of a political party is to put all these things together and what the GOP generally has done is by choosing the ones that contradict the least from each and dropping the others. So what each has chosen is:


Economic Conservatives: Low Taxes and Less Regulations

National Security Conservatives: More Military Spending and tougher stance against adversaries(Of course what the main adversary is has also changed with time)

Social Conservatives: Anti Abortion and defending norms that have at least 40% support from the nation.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Also citing Barry Goldwater is lol given the guy was very much in support of Federalism and generally was not a fan of the Federal Government getting involved in social policy even if it was a law he would support.

Like I am sure Goldwater would be pro choice but pro Dobbs at the same time

[OSR stands with Israel]

SNIP

1. Yes keep in mind that in a country like ours it’s impossible to really have one totally coherent ideology as no single wing of either conservatism or liberalism would have majority support so both conservatism and liberalism have to be coalitions here .

- While some might argue why economic conservatives didn’t ally with social liberals and the key is both social liberals  and economic progressives both believe that the government should implement policies to lead to “equality” while both social and economic conservatives fundamentally disagree with that .
 
- while some may try to argue the Rockefeller republicans disprove this point , keep in mind that Rockefeller Republicans were still to the left of Reaganite Republicans on economic issues as well


2. Yah Goldwater was a committed Federalist through and through, which is why I would say he was one of the few people who voted against the CRA based on principle reasons without being a racist .

3. Keep in mind that slogans or catch phrases like “small government” , “pro life” , “pro choice” , “pro worker” are all actually meaningless slogans that have all been marketed tested to advertise their policy Postion as favorably as possible .

This will only get worse as technological advancements also make these types of market testing easier to do