Conservatism has been so mangled and perverted by talk radio and distorted by a weird pseudo-libertarianism that it's unrecognizable at this point.
Anti-science, anti-intellectualism, anti-curiosity, binary, willful ignorance: That's what passes as conservatism today.
This. Ever since the rise of Newt Gingrich and his Republican Revolution, it's been a downhill descent for what passes as "conservatism". The ride into the cellar was accelerated by talk radio, and later the proliferation of right wing Internet underground (helped along by our buds at Fox), and finally, the rise of the conspiracy theory mongering cancer known as the alt-right. It isn't about core conservative principles anymore. It's about drawing lines and the herd mentality. Gone are the moderating voices. Add to that, "conservatives" have become the champions of raising the deficit and the debt through ill advised tax cuts and bloated budgets, stacking the courts and passing legislation to ensure intrusion into private lives continues for the next generation, and loudly shouting down and denigrating anyone who doesn't look like them, think like them, or agree with them.
In the movie "Interstellar", there is a part at the beginning where the daughter of the main character is being suspended at school for claiming that men landed on the moon. The gist being that at that point, the USA had descended into a post-truth society. That's
exactly what I envision this county becoming if Republicans and "conservatives" are allowed to maintain and even increase their power.
en.wikipedia.org
