People are saying they have always been like this but that simply is not true. It has been falling with each president since nixon except for bush sr. who is the closest experience anyone in modern times has with conservatism but even he was corrupted by his nixon experience. pre and post nixon they were very different and reagan threw out a bunch of economic principles and bush jr. dropped any civic ideals they had and trump has just brought down any last vestiges of even lip service and their no do things like raising taxes. Now its just rant of the day.
this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
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The only thing that has changed with conservatism under Trump is that he has ripped the mask off. They've always been against government in service of the people, accountability and transparency, and have a long history of sucking up to dictators. And since at least Reagan, they've been fiscally profligate.
They’ve always had to at least have the face of righteousness, the face of law and order. Now blatant lies and corruption are perfectly fine, even in the face of reality
The Republican Party is already dead. That was just the larval stage before it finally morphed into its final stage - MAGA.
The Republican Party should only be referred to in a historical or scholarly context.
They are all MAGA now. And ALL MAGAs are Traitors and Pedophiles.
I assume that by conservatism, the author means classical liberalism. I mean, he's not wrong. Although, conservatives have historically sided with fascism because shared interests in one form or another.
He's talking about US conservatism, which has given lip service to classical liberalism, but is anything but
Trump didn't "kill" conservatism, he simply carried it through to its natural conclusions. It was always just a kind of fascism too timid to show its face.
The ugliest passions within the GOP is the very core of conservatism.
Are we pretending that conservatism and all that ugly shit are somehow separate? People don't get all excited to go out an vote for tax policies to send more money to the wealthy and deregulate businesses. Not really. They want to make liberals cry and make POC second class citizens and punch down on women and gays. Just look at the shit they get supposedly "cancelled" over from various platforms. They get ostracized for hate speech, not because they want to dismantle the EPA or whatever.
Allegedly they cared about Jesus
at some point
before I was born
their retconned Jesus, anyway
These people are not conservative. They are regressive. They seek to go back to some imagined golden past that never existed.
Reagan's political speech strawman of the black woman "welfare queen" was so memorable, it became a caricature of black women and black single mothers. Most people who recognize that stereotype have never listened to a word of Reagan's speeches. For his campaign and the ones before and after, the Republican Party launched ads showing a black man's mugshot and telling a tale of how this black man was let out due to Democrat rehabilitative prison policy, then went on to kill/rape white people.
The entire War on Drugs was a way to harass and suppress Civil Rights protestors (accused of storing heroin) and the anti-Vietnam War movement (for marijuana).
The Bush dynasty's core policy was ripping aid from USAmericans in need and using it to terrorize the Middle East; and to strip privacy away from folks in the USA... oh and terrorizing people of color.
And let's not forget the original Conservative insurrection in the USA - the Confederacy, who broke ranks over fears they might one day not be able to enslave black people. Did Trump Kill Conservatism? No more than a house is killed when its moldy ceiling crashes in on its rotten floor.
One thing you have to give Republicans, no-one dog whistles and fear mongers like them. They have being assholes down to a science.
I disagree. What Trump did was simply expose the truth of conservatism. If there's anything to thank Trump for, through his evil actions, it was to show that the right are fucked in the head and cannot hide it anymore.
Yeah... Unfortunately, even with exposing how bigoted the party is, it will probably continue to live and thrive. 😬
Hate is more powerful than love it seems.
History seems to progress and regress in waves, contextually its pretty shit when you're in a regression wave. Hate can't last forever, as it eats itself.
This is not true. It is simply louder, but does not endure.
Republicans aren't conservative. I am WAY more conservative than any of them, and Im liberal.
They aren't religious, they are disgusting scum and exceed my tolerance for morality (for obvious reasons). They are corrupt, seeking only to benefit themselves. They overspend. They start wars for profit or to hide certain scandals. The only "conservative" belief they adhere to imo is the want for smaller government ... because they do in fact want a dictatorship.
The only "conservative" belief they adhere to imo is the want for smaller government ... because they do in fact want a dictatorship.
Don’t believe it for a second. Conservative “smaller government” is always about getting rid of some long-term bureaucrats who know what they’re doing and government programmes conservatives don’t like, and then growing Government by massively increasing internal security apparatus (police, border control, military, prisons, etc.).
Every conservative government always want to go “tough on crime” or “expel (il)legal immigrants” — and that always winds up with a massive increase in government size and expenditures. You don’t get those things without a significant number of boots on the ground, and once you have those boots on the ground they’ll find every excuse to use them — just like how ICE is terrorizing blue cities in the US, or is being used to supplant airport security.
“Smaller government” is just conservative code for “wielding more control over citizens”. Every time.
That is true ... they also increase military spending, but always for those big industries (Lockheed, etc).
It worked. I FUCKING HATE REPUBLICANS.
Trump is and always has been a symptom, he was in many ways the enevitable conclusion of decades of propaganda, grifting, incompetence and political inbreeding.
And that's not going to go away when he's voted out or dies. His supports are still in the millions, they and the rest of the country are still being fed the culture bullshit and lie after lie and the people pulling the strings are only getting better at it and are getting tech that makes it way easier for them.
The only way back to santiy is a collosal shift in the status quo. And in a passive and uninterested America, that will never happen.
He killed its subtlety maybe, but the hatred has always been there. It’s always been entitlement and greed driven by shortsighted, reactive decisions.
With MAGA, there is no intellectual connection to traditional conservatism. Think Tacitus, Hobbes, Edmund Burke, their ideas of conserving social and economic norms to avoid chaos and social disorder are completely disconnected from MAGA. Instead, MAGA is a radical movement that seeks total cultural revolution and uses chaos and disorder to achieve it. Trump is Maoist in that he uses the tactics of Mao's cultural revolution to retain power and destroy the old social and political order.
With MAGA, there is no intellectual connection to traditional conservatism.
It's not like the typical Republican voter has ever cared about that. I doubt many of the party leadership could even name most of their supposed intellectuals. They are probably more likely to cite Limbaugh.
When gop and dems stop pushing conservative policies or talking points I'll believe that
Conservatives were always like this in one way or another, Trump just amplified the worst parts while silencing the more moderate points of view. For example, my father has been a conservative his entire life yet used to be a really chill dude. When I was a kid I remember him voting for gay marriage for the state we lived in because my uncle is gay and he genuinely wanted it for him. My dad was never really that religious and never really had an issue LGBTQ+ people. Now he goes around saying that sexuality is a choice when he never had this opinion before and openly hates my younger sister because she's transgender.
In Trump's conservativism you are not allowed to have a nuanced opinion on anything anymore. You can't be pro choice and against same sex marriage at the same time anymore. You have to be against them both or you are not welcome. Or even worse, a terrorist. The pressure doesn't come from Trump directly, it comes from your neighbors, coworkers, and family. It's the fear of being hated in your own home that pushes people further into it. At first it's for self preservation to protect yourself or your family. But eventually the only people left in your social circles are those that hated you for disagreeing with you and will ostracize you for not believing in Trump 100%.
Even good people can be evil when they are led to believe that evil deeds are the right thing to do.
Honestly I can't disagree. Trumps behavior is american conservatism going back to Nixon/Reagan probably further. The biggest difference is as society advanced. Conservatives had to water things down, find convoluted excuses to do these things. Trump just goes out and does it all. Doesn't even try to mask it "oh yeah we're attacking because we want the oil".
I am a fiscal conservative. Which means: I want my money to go where it makes sense:
Defense? Yes. War? No - Cooperation is more profitable than destroying countries for their resources. Universal Healthcare? Yes. We spend a lot more in healthcare than any other country, yet we get jack. Environment? Yes. Having clean air and clean water is cheaper than treating diseases, and reversing pollution. Food Stamps, WIC, housing assistance, etc.? Yes, people are not productive on an empty stomach. People are not creative when they worry about the roof over their head.
GOP Conservatives say they are conservatives, but they are actually worshipers of billionaires, and haters of the poor. They are okay letting the money accumulate in a few hands so long as "we are not spending money to give handouts". It is not handouts, it is an investment.
There are no fiscal conservatives in the party... either party really. Everyone is afraid to vote for raising taxes, even if it only impacts the super-wealthy, but they will vote for eliminating or reducing taxes even if it drives up the deficit astronomically.
The fiscally conservative thing to do would be to increase taxes on the wealthy to eliminate the deficit but I can't imagine how we'll ever get there.
