[thegrim33]

>> I've written before how conservatives' yearning for "simpler times" is really just a wish to be a child again

Conservatives, whose core ideals are personal responsibility, individual freedom, and limited government, are the ones who want to "be a child with no cares" again, with their needs taken care of for them? Their entire world outlook and identity is the exact opposite of that. Going to stop reading right there.

[hgoel]

Those are their stated ideals and not at all what they're practicing.

[mrgoldenbrown]

Those are the core sound bites, but recently conservative party actions don't support them.

[amalcon]

Not just recently. It's been that way for decades -- since at least the Reagan era, but arguably going back to the New Deal.

[dasil003]

There is no conservative party in America because Trump has taken control of the Republican Party. He has no values except what is expedient for himself, any principled conservatives who speak up commit political suicide. Such is the world we live in when trust of institutions and expertise as eroded to the point that any acknowledgment of tradeoffs or nuance is met with knee jerk suspicion from the populace.

[ai_critic]

I do not understand why you are being downvoted for what is, essentially, a statement of bald fact and realpolitick.

Trump took advantage of a party already weakened by the Tea Party, and successfully turned it into a cult of personality at a time when the opposition was ideologically unprepared to deal with very real policy issues that their constituents were observing.