There is no real question what Conservatism espouses; it has not changed since the days of Barry Goldwater.
- Economic freedom.
- Constitutionally-minimalist Federal Government,
- Traditional Judeo-Christian values,
- Fiscal conservatism,
- Strong defense,
- etc.
What happened was that Liberals (or use whatever other term you like) embarked on a decades-long campaign
to buy the votes of American voters with government cash and benefits. The American people were (and are) too ignorant to see that this is not the rightful role of the Federal government. All they saw was that there were all sorts of goodies flowing out from Washington and this one group of people (Democrats/Liberals) was responsible for it.
Further, when Republicans tried to "right the ship" and curtail this spending (welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, housing subsidies, college grants and loans), ALL OF WHICH WAS UNCONSTITUTIONAL, as well as being fiscally irresponsible, the Liberals and the Media, ganged up on the Conservatives, calling them
heartless, mean, stingy, racist, and
cruel. This goes on at an accelerated pace to this very day.
Well, Conservative politicians are politicians first, and they understood that unless they got with the program of reckless taxpayer-funded giveaways, they would be riding their Conservative principles into the sunset and right out of office.
So today's Conservatives have put themselves in the untenable position of having to support outrageous and unconstitutional government spending, merely to have any chance of remaining in office.
Which of course violates one of the core principles of Conservatism: Fiscal Responsibility.
Look at the current brouhaha about the Covid 19 giveaways. Where (the fuck) in the Constitution does Congress get the power to send out trillions of dollars indiscriminately to unemployed people to ease their pain? It is Constitutional and fiscally preposterous and catastrophically stupid. So the Conservatives/Republicans are in the absurd position of arguing to ONLY spend a couple trillion dollars that we don't have rather than more trillions of dollars that we don't have - and have no clue how we will ever pay for.
But one can never forget, this fight about Conservative VALUES must be ENTIRELY INTERNAL amongst those who consider themselves Conservatives. Democrats have no place in the discussion. They have long ago sold their figurative souls to the devil, so it is literally none of their business how Conservatives deal with the political reality of a voting population demanding free, unconstitutional goodies from Government, and promising to vote against anyone who is not on board.
www.theamericanconservative.com
