I am not usually so... specific. I rarely zoom in... without ambiguity. And as a general rule... I am not a side-taker per se.
But.
I do not know how to say this important thing... without being unambiguous, without granular specificity, and without standing on a side.
So...
The Poisonous Fruit of the Politics of Conservatism
Generally, an 'argument' like this is presented with an 'opening' that defends an opposing position. You'll often hear someone say "to be fair" and what'll follow will be a kind of "strawman" or "steelman" reasoning that casts broad superficial nets that vaguely resemble an opposing position... the way an orange and an asteroid belt are the same and interchangeable.
I won't be doing that here.
Not because there are no 'fair' points of conservatism, but because the politics of conservatism are wobbly, plagued with "rhetorical fallacies" and frequent 'pivots' to irrationalism, and incoherent.
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Which is to say, I won't be defending what is insupportable.
That... is the opposing position: a fixed state of friction, frothing at the mouth, anchored and fueled by sanctimonious and wrongheaded snobbery, to proclaim my position as the enemy, so objectionable as to possess zero 'fair' points
Such that the first fruit of the politics of conservatism is the unmistakable consequences to public discourse, from local town halls to global town squares, when earnest swells of public engagement are met with hostile rabid refusal to allow disagreement as a normal and reasonable feature of pursuing common ground.
Because the first fruit of the politics of conservatism is to venomously deny the legitimacy of common ground; to not only double down on its outright unacceptability, if not its moral reprehensibility as undoubtedly evil, but to fanatically villainize any collaborative path to walk or collective aspiration by which to be guided or shared win to achieve... that appears to exemplify, horror of horrors, mutual reciprocity.
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This fruit is more than poisonous... it is perniciously corrosive to a plural democracy. For common ground is where cooperative solutions are... to real problems faced by real people living in the real world.
To categorically spurn common ground... regardless of why... absurdly dismisses from 'the table' every multilateral solution that is inclusive in favor of every solution that is not.
As if inclusivity itself, is offensive and loathsome and impermissible.
Such that any reason for such fruit... cannot be believed to be sublimely rooted in sincere or abundant comity or sacrosanctity... except within fantastical imaginations that make-believe oranges and asteroid belts are plainly identical in every way.
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Needless to say, this first fruit sets in motion a dismal cascade of... 100-year-heat-storms and 100-year-floods, which is to say... realities.
It refuses mutual coalitions... then blames the exhaustive litany of dysfunctions that occur as a predictable and unsurprising result, on my position as the enemy. Because everyday people believe blamers who proclaim themselves "victims", when everyday people believe falsehoods that declare themselves "truths".
Mutual coalitions are a 'safeguard' of representative government; a 'safeguard' against 'majorities' that steamroll 'minority' interests. But when they're necessary "to keep the lights on", they're not a guarantee that 'minority' interests will not subvert the utility of mutual coalitions to protect the public good... to hold a representative government hostage to 'minority' interests... including diverting resources from public institutions to pseudo-religious nationalist and supremacist causes; starving public health care in favor of private, profit-driven, "group health care" that employers may elect to sponsor as a "benefit" or deny as a "costs-savings-measure" or "conscience refusal"; juicing the shareholder value of lucrative and exploitative industries by asymmetrically favoring donors that 'grease hands' and 'line pockets' and dispense flattery in the tried-and-true language of luxurious extravagant 'largesse'; etc.
It espouses maniacal screeds and apocalyptic jeremiads that insist... 'only they see' what's really happening here; 'only they listen' to real people; 'only they keep their promises' to real 'nations' under real 'gods'; while my position as the opposition is a fraud to beguile the trusting, a pretense to bewitch the unwary, a house of candy to lead astray the innocent.
As if it is not a betrayal of the public trust... to refuse to tell the truth... about how conservatism stands behind, with, and for the mighty and "the meritorious" at the expense of everyday people and the public good and global amity; how conservatism stands behind, with, and for unconscionable apologetics of unrepentant abuse, from trust to power to people; how conservatism stands behind, with, and for a passionate disavowal of consensual reality and consensual facts, because "vibes"; etc.
It sabotages the public good with "ghost-vacancies" of essential work and 'molasses-paced' allocation of appropriated funds... that are experienced by everyday people as infinite loops of gordian hoops and actual harms. But rather than own their gleeful inaction or confess to their dissembling obfuscation... conservatives proclaim 'the real villains': boneheaded flies in their ointment. Even as that which 'obstructs' them from hiring competent and ethical essential workers and that which 'bars' them from rapidly activating vital services and promptly distributing assistance... is no one and nothing, glorious or noble.
When consensual reality is inexhaustibly 'negotiable', when consensual facts are inexhaustibly 'negotiable'... because "my vibes, my truths"... how simple is it, how easy? To witness wrongdoing... and not see wrongdoing? To believe wrongdoers... because "their vibes, their truths" validate and condone unreal "vibes" and untrue "truths"? For they promise a wish-giving representative government, blessed by a wish-giving 'god' and I... I say "a god that's a wish-giver isn't a god; it's a fantastical imagination that makes-believe an elected servant with a god-complex serves not themself first, last, forever"; etc.
Which is to say, this first fruit sets in motion a hereafter... calculated for maximal suffering, because the politics of conservatism 'takes no prisoners'.
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Such that if and when people who profess to be of my position smugly declare that "they are not conservatives"... therefore: they will "cross the aisle"; they will absolutely "work together" with conservatives; because liberals and conservatives "believe in the same people" and "truly live by the same fair and just, laws of the land" and "share deeply, the same values and visions" as voters who voted for wars and nightmares -
such that if and when people who profess to be of my position recommend policies of appeasement that are called "necessary compromises" for the people and the economy and "the good of the nation"; or endorse policies of appeasement that are called "now look, this is how the sausage is made, okay" and woe to chaos-unleashing "reforms, unnecessary and unrealistic"; or vote "yea" for policies of appeasement nakedly and unapologetically rooted in supremacism, despotism, justification -
this, this, THIS, is not how the politics of conservatism is defeated -
no -
this, this, THIS, is how the politics of conservatism become the bars to a cage that nobody, nobody, NOBODY voted for.
Epilogue
I don't know if anybody reading this is wondering... what about liberals? Is there 'a poisonous fruit of the politics of liberalism' like the poisonous fruit of the politics of conservatism?
Uhm... for what it's worth, no... it's neither deeply nor profoundly philosophically nor spiritually, destructive and cruel. On the other hand, conservatism is both.
In other words - it isn't that liberalism is 'the handout party' - any more than conservatism is the 'hand up party' - because please: campaign slogans are at best stupid; at worst they wear ignorance like a suit-of-knowledge that stuffs self-superiority and self-righteousness into vapid quips cos-playing as 'common sense wisdom'.
Rather... conservatism is to "the meritorious" go the spoils, and its politics are no kinder to everyday people than its policies. Such that everyday people who support conservatism... invariably believe themselves among "the meritorious" for whom 'the spoils' are worth the squeeze.
Which is to say - there is a throughline of sadistic justification that excludes the public and 'the many' from the promises and the blessings of a robust plural democracy - that is part and parcel to the 'platform' and 'vision' of conservatism - that liberalism opposes deeply and profoundly, philosophically and spiritually.
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Which is to say:
The "one measuring stick for us that declares our iniquities practically perfect; another measuring stick for you that declares your iniquities practically demonic" and "one set of rules and laws for us that permit our carte blanche to abuse and trespass and exploit others to and for our own ends; another set of rules and laws for you that withhold from you, humanity and fairness and compassion without exception" and "one flotilla of privileges and entitlements for us that protect and advance our platform and vision; another flotilla of infinite loops of gordian hoops and actual harms that inflict maximal suffering at the pleasure of the privileged and the whim of the entitled"... is not a cornerstone of a 'hand-up party'... so much as it is a cornerstone of supremacism, despotism, justification.
Such that if this pear-shaped shitshow should come to pass, as it has before... because blueprints of dead and gone polities aren't in our DNA still for nothing...
then two hereafters shall face us:
the one seeded by the poisonous fruit of the politics of conservatism; and
the one seeded by we the people, witnessing in real time, what is happening, as it is actually happening, and DOING SOMETHING other than nothing that changes the future set in motion by "the meritorious", to the future set in motion by everyday people sick of being 'the spoils'.
M
And so... let us say what is usually left unsaid... behind the velvet ropes and the polite donor-circuit podiums.
ReplyDeleteBecause the rot runs deeper than mere obstruction... and far wider than simple ideological rancor. The modern machinery of politics has ceased... almost entirely... to be an instrument of genuine representation. It has devolved into a perpetual-motion syndicate; an insatiable extraction engine where the sacred responsibility to represent living, breathing, vulnerable people is quietly traded away... every single day... for donor-class largesse, high-dollar data suites, and the craven, narcissistic obsession with winning the next cycle. Just the next cycle. Always and only the next cycle.
Which is to say... representative government has been reduced to an auction block disguised as an election booth.
Parties operate less like stewards of the public trust and more like hedge funds dressed up in campaign bunting... calculating which human rights can be bargained down, which municipal services can be starved, and which vital truths must be silenced to keep the fundraising meters clicking and the super-PAC checks clearing. Everyday people are not viewed as sovereign citizens to be served; they are treated as demographic juice to be squeezed... mined for panic-fueled small-dollar clicks, pacified with focus-grouped slogans, and then abandoned to the fallout the moment the polls close and the corporate lobbyists arrive with open checkbooks.
And this... this is why the politics of conservatism thrives so effortlessly inside the decay, while well-mannered establishment liberals play along with the charade. Because when winning the seat is the sole commodity, and when private capital is the only currency... it is so very simple, so astonishingly easy, to make-believe that the highest moral calling of an elected official is self-preservation. It justifies the cowardice. It validates the foot-dragging. It turns cowardly appeasement into a resume-builder for the next board-seat payoff... while the public commons burns.
So no. We cannot vote-harder our way out of a cage whose bars are forged from billionaire dark money... not so long as we accept their rigged rules of engagement.
If we are to dismantle this grotesque auction... we must stop quietly funding, polite-clapping, and volunteering for a political apparatus that treats our futures like disposable chips at a casino. We must demand... with relentless, unapologetic, collective force... the unconditional excision of private wealth from our public elections: ban corporate PACs outright, strip away the dark-money protections that shelter corrupt oligarchs, end the revolving-door graft of lobbying sinecures, and withhold our labor and our ballots from every timid, appeasing politician who refuses to champion absolute campaign finance overhaul.
Enough of the theatrical sausage-making. Enough of the wish-giving demagogues who serve their donors first, last, and forever. Either we organize a relentless refusal to let the commonwealth be sold off to the highest bidder... or we resign ourselves to being ruled by an aristocracy that measures our lives in shareholder returns. The time to stop playing their game... is now.
I read this piece and my blood pressure shot up to numbers normally reserved for a NASA launch countdown! You hit the nail so squarely on the head that the board shattered into a million pieces. The absolute gall of the political landscape right now is that we are expected to sit down, smile like idiots, and treat every deranged temper tantrum like it’s a valid alternative philosophical thesis! It’s not! One side is trying to pave the highway, and the other side is pouring sugar in the asphalt mixer and screaming that roads are a communist plot to destroy freedom!
ReplyDeleteYou nailed the biggest lie in modern politics: the holy grail of “meeting in the middle.” Meeting in the middle only works if the person standing on the other side of the seesaw isn't trying to saw the damn board in half while threatening to set the playground on fire! When someone looks at you and says, “I think two plus two equals an eggplant,” you don’t say, “Well, in the spirit of bipartisan comity, let’s agree it’s a small zucchini.” You call an ambulance! Because they have lost their minds!
And the sabotage! Good lord, the sabotage! The whole conservative governing philosophy has become: break every single clock in the courthouse, steal the gears, sell the pendulum to an oil lobbyist, and then stand in front of the local news cameras shouting, “Look, folks! Government can’t tell time! Fire the janitors!” And the public just nods along! “Gee, Bob, you’re right, the big hand hasn’t moved since Tuesday, better privatize the sunshine!” It is enough to make a rational person want to rip their hair out by the roots!
Then you have the well-meaning, beige-wearing liberals whose only instinct in a knife fight is to offer the attacker a soothing chamomile tea and a committee assignment! “Let’s build a bridge across the aisle!” Across the aisle to what?! To a cliff! You are building a bridge to nowhere, and they are standing on the other side with dynamite! Compromise isn't a virtue when the concession you’re making is basic human dignity and physical reality. Thank you for saying it plain: stop putting velvet pads on the iron bars of the cell they're locking us into!
What you’ve articulated here isn’t merely a political polemic; it’s an indictment of civic abdication. I watch brilliant, well-meaning students fall into the exact trap you described: they assume that consensus is an end in itself, rather than an instrument to secure justice. They mistake the appearance of balance for the presence of principle. But as you rightly point out, when one side has weaponized bad faith and systematically guts the operational machinery of the state, attempting to split the difference isn’t maturity—it’s cowardice wrapped in academic decorum.
ReplyDeleteThe real tragedy is that this deliberate hollowing out of public institutions forces the burden entirely onto the most vulnerable. When you look at foreign policy or domestic social programs, the dynamic is identical: leaders make ideological choices in insulated conference rooms, starve essential agencies of resources, and then expect ordinary young people to pay the butcher’s bill on the ground. We have a political class that wraps cynicism in focus-grouped patriotism while outsourcing the real suffering to everyone else.
I constantly remind young scholars that history is not shaped by those who compromise with structural failure, but by those who have the intellectual courage to name the rot. When a government becomes a mechanism for protecting elite privilege at the expense of common survival, polite institutional silence becomes complicity.
If this democracy is going to survive, we have to demand that people stop being spectators in their own disenfranchisement. Rome didn’t fall overnight; it fell because citizens slowly accepted that the institutions were meant to serve an oligarchic elite rather than the republic. Refusing to validate an ideology built on exclusion isn't being partisan, it’s fulfilling the basic duty of citizenship.
You have discerned the machinery for what it truly is: a vast engine of friction designed not to serve the commonwealth, but to grind human conscience into dust. Men talk loudly of government as a great protector of rights, yet the modern state, under the guise of conservative prudence, has become a syndicate that sells off the wild woods, the clean streams, and the public health of its citizens to the highest bidder. They demand our obedience to a system whose sole virtue is the preservation of property for the few at the expense of life for the many.
ReplyDeleteWhat is called "compromise" among the rulers in Washington is nothing more than a mutual agreement to rob the farmer of his bread and the pauper of his coat, so long as it is done under lawful forms. If the price of civic peace is to grant legitimacy to an order that views kindness as a crime and poverty as a sin, then that peace is merely tyranny sleeping. A man cannot wash his hands of injustice while continuing to vote for its perpetuators and calling it "pragmatism."
I have ever found that trade and commerce corrupt the simple vigor of men, and nowhere is this more evident than in the marketplace of modern politics. The statesman who boasts of his bipartisanship is usually merely bargaining away the freedom of his neighbors for a seat at the banquet table of the powerful. They construct cages of procedural precedent and call them law, binding the limbs of the populace until movement is impossible.
Let the citizen refuse his allegiance to such a compact. When the state breaks its own machinery to prove that freedom means every man for himself, the only honorable ground for an honest person is outside its corrupt favor. We ought to be men first, and subjects afterward.