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by freddybobs
1669 days ago
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In many ways the current democratic party could be cast as 'conservative' in the classic sense of 'to conserve'. They are trying to conserve the status quo - institutions, democratic processes, norms, how government works/what it is, globalism etc. This also means they are tightly enmeshed with corporations and corporate interests. It means that the progressive part of the democratic party are generally disappointed, because the party at large isn't trying to make things change. If the democrats are 'conservative' what are the republicans and the people that are voting for them? They are reactionary. They do want change - but as a reaction. That the things desired are not compatible or even necessarily well defined: `religious values based government`, `returning culturally to a previous era`, `small government/government is the problem`, `reversing globalization`, `blowing it all up to rebuild`. It is also reactionary in terms of being against whatever the democrats are for. So much so that they will reverse their previous position, if the democrats agree with it. An obvious example of this would be Merrick Garland. Or the ACA. There are other more mundane 'conservative' values that remain - like low taxes, corporate interests, maintaining the social/financial hierarchy, traditional family values perhaps. They remain, but arguably aren't as significant as they were in the past. Assuming this is correct it means: republicans want big changes. That it's largely undefined what these big changes would actually be in practice. Moreover it is logically impossible for them to deliver in practice. They can appear to temporarily deliver on being 'not democrats'. |
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And, in becoming "conservative", the Democrats have abandoned the working class. This has been a huge change in the last 10 or so years.