We had no plans to comment on Ottawa's upcoming mayoral election until one candidate released a very frustrating campaign video about a "war on cars".Help ke...
I think that’s the case with a huge amount of things that casual conservatives don’t like. They would actually agree with a lot of leftist/socialist ideas, but they just can’t get past the bad associations they have with the names of those ideas.
You could probably get most regular (non rabid) conservatives to agree that big businesses not paying any taxes is bad, and that politicians should not be allowed to take bribesdonations, and that billionaires have too much influence on politics etc. etc. but as soon as you mention the word socialism they immediately run away and continue to vote for politicians who favour tax cuts for the rich.
@bobthened@MentalEdge A great example of this was with free trade and tariff reductions, alongside free markets, which were a shibboleth of the American right for decades.
Through most of the '80s, '90s, 2000s, and 2010s, protectionism, tariffs, and any opposition to free trade agreements were denounced by the right as “socialism”.
Reagan was a free trader, at least in his rhetoric. (Albeit one who in practice provided state subsidies to important rural constituents, such as corn and dairy farmers. He also imposed tariffs on some Japanese electronic goods.)
Bush Snr was a free trader.
George W. Bush was a free trader. (Albeit one who invaded Iraq to prop up the oil sector, and ended up beginning the bank bailouts as the GFC hit.)
His policies included imposing massive tariff barriers, and opposing free trade agreements.
Economic policies the right had just spent decades denouncing as socialism.
But because Trump had dressed those same policies up in nationalistic rhetoric, those same policies were suddenly embraced by the American right.
Because it’s often not about the policies themselves.
It’s about who advocates for them, how they’re communicated, and whether (or not) they’re the politically correct (in the original sense of the term) position for the IS right to support.
I think that’s the case with a huge amount of things that casual conservatives don’t like. They would actually agree with a lot of leftist/socialist ideas, but they just can’t get past the bad associations they have with the names of those ideas.
You could probably get most regular (non rabid) conservatives to agree that big businesses not paying any taxes is bad, and that politicians should not be allowed to take
bribesdonations, and that billionaires have too much influence on politics etc. etc. but as soon as you mention the word socialism they immediately run away and continue to vote for politicians who favour tax cuts for the rich.That’s part of the propaganda. And conservatives have to be told what to do to fit in.
@bobthened @MentalEdge A great example of this was with free trade and tariff reductions, alongside free markets, which were a shibboleth of the American right for decades.
Through most of the '80s, '90s, 2000s, and 2010s, protectionism, tariffs, and any opposition to free trade agreements were denounced by the right as “socialism”.
Reagan was a free trader, at least in his rhetoric. (Albeit one who in practice provided state subsidies to important rural constituents, such as corn and dairy farmers. He also imposed tariffs on some Japanese electronic goods.)
Bush Snr was a free trader.
George W. Bush was a free trader. (Albeit one who invaded Iraq to prop up the oil sector, and ended up beginning the bank bailouts as the GFC hit.)
Meanwhile, the Seattle anti-WTO protests opposed neoliberal free trade: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Seattle_WTO_protests
Then comes Trump.
His policies included imposing massive tariff barriers, and opposing free trade agreements.
Economic policies the right had just spent decades denouncing as socialism.
But because Trump had dressed those same policies up in nationalistic rhetoric, those same policies were suddenly embraced by the American right.
Because it’s often not about the policies themselves.
It’s about who advocates for them, how they’re communicated, and whether (or not) they’re the politically correct (in the original sense of the term) position for the IS right to support.