Conservatism — a revolutionary, misguided coalition for the unpopular
What do Christian nationalism, patriarchy, anti-immigration, tax cuts for the rich and austerity for the poor, and racism really have in common?
For instance if you just wanted immigration reduced your best bet would be making the case for it independent of the other four agenda. But after making your best case what if people still don’t agree that immigration should be reduced? With the birth rate declining the percentage of non-native population increases, so long term demographics don’t favor the anti-immigration cause.
One thing all the above have in common is that they are unpopular and, in many cases, increasingly unpopular. When Trump says, at a Christian rally, I’m not a Christian but vote for me, he makes it clear this isn’t about shared values.
Less than half of Americans belong to a church and even fewer still subscribe to removing separation of church and state. Patriarchy by definition tries to exclude more than half the country but this exclusion is on the decline.
Racism is similarly being squeezed out:
According to the 2020 US Census, 32.5% of people under 18 identified as multiracial, which is the youngest of any racial group in the country. This is a significant increase from 1970, when only 1% of babies with two parents had parents of different races.
Though since race is a social construct, really what is being reduced is only the historic form of it.
So in order to make progress on any point of the agenda above, force is now required. Moreover if your goal is to keep things the way they were, eventually force will always be required.
There are a number of reasons why this is true — the way things were might be based on:
- growth and growth has limits
- a type of technology that has become too inferior
- a level of education that has been passed
- a level of isolation no longer possible
Tax cuts for the rich and austerity for the poor
This unpopular idea is in a special category — it’s been using force and it’s been prevailing. The problem for advocates of inequality is the coalition they put together.
Inequality advocates probably don’t want patriarchy and Roe v Wade repeal but that’s what was necessary for the political coalition they lead. With inequality on the rise, its advocates definitely don’t want to change our economy by reducing immigration.
Which is why Trump mostly did not reduce immigration. Yes with COVID, legal immigration, visas, went down but illegal immigration never did. Nor was it ever really the priority that tax cuts for the rich, which did go through, were.
For Christian nationalists Trump’s marquee ban Muslim entrance to the US policy is obvious window dressing. On racism Trump never offered more than sound bites.
Meanwhile in order to fight fascism the Democratic Party has had to partially break from inequality growth:
- Biden and “Two words — Made in America.” — reducing union busting and outsourcing.
- Harris may offer even more resistance to inequality policies and she arrives as a result of the fascist threat. Without Trump, Biden would have been free to nominate a VP more known for serving big business. Without Trump Biden would have stayed the Democratic nominee for a second term.
Controlling or burning down institutions
Christians want their own exclusively Christian institutions. Patriarchy wants colleges to be male and white. Anti-immigration wants higher education exclusively American. Racists want their race chosen ahead of others. The wealthy want college to be too expensive for the poor.
So like many other American institutions the fascist position on education across their whole coalition is control it or burn it down.
Or as in the case of the American court system control it and burn it down as the institution loses all credibility. If democracy isn’t working for you then end democracy.
If you want austerity or patriarchy and the economy threatens to go against you — destroy the economy. In a deep enough recession workers have trouble organizing and the new jobs that might have gone to women don’t exist.
The road to forcing the unpopular is paved with poison pill politics — accept my country or there will be no country. How though do conservatives square destroying America with saving it? This has always been the conservative dilemma:
The South’s economic development lagged behind the free states. The region under-invested in infrastructure, schools, and transportation, and discouraged immigration. It also contributed to high debts, soil exhaustion, and a lack of technological innovation. Income per capita in the slave states was more than 25% lower than the free states in the decades leading up to the Civil War.
Of course unwillingness to change is self destructive. Maintaining a power structure through savagery likely leads to becoming a savage.
Of the coalition’s five positions above perhaps only anti-immigration can be compromised on without an enormous immediate negative impact and that might be the line Democrats take. The other area of compromise that did have an enormous immediate negative impact was austerity interest rates.
The better way to keep prices reasonable would be regulation as Biden did with his drug price efforts. America is now a country of monopoly power and must be regulated that way.
Fascists are against student debt relief because they want to burn down education. The argument that it’s “not fair” to relieve student debt is preposterous. By that logic the cost of education can never be lowered as that would not be “fair” to the previous generation. By that logic progress in general is not fair and that argument only ever gets applied in one direction as it seems perfectly “fair” for inequality to increase.
The end of conservatism
In the end modern conservatives are not “conserving” anything. They increasingly see themselves as revolutionaries. A Trump win now ironically threatens the very institutions that keep inequality, patriarchy, radical Christianity, and racism going.
Yes all of those are increasingly unpopular but they were surviving in a world hostile to them thanks to the institutions that Trump zealots want destroyed. If their revolution succeeds America will be ruled purely by big business.
Big business has no reason to keep patriarchy, radical Christianity, or racism going and every reason to increase immigration — they were in it for the inequality only. In such a version of fascism the government and big business become very tight partners and very likely the technocrats in charge will all have advanced degrees.
The Trump coalition is one of dupers playing a very cynical game with ignorant dupees. It’s a game of thrones where big business has all the dragons.
Nor would this even end up being an industrial military complex of old that some conservatives could enjoy. The Ukraine war has shown that modern warfare is all about drones and a fascist big business run America would eventually wean itself from boots on the ground human soldiers.
In the end Southern revolutionaries were unsuccessful keeping their rural, racist, extreme Christianity, patriarchal, anti-immigration (or at least the non-slavery kind), increasingly unpopular lifestyle going. Had they not revolted perhaps Juneteenth would have been pushed back another fifty years.
Likely the tech billionaires who backed JD Vance
Mr. Vance’s stint in tech was crucial for forging connections with billionaire executives and investors, including Mr. Thiel, Mr. Sacks and Elon Musk, who owns X. Over and over, those men have funded Mr. Vance’s political ambitions, raised his profile among other wealthy donors and on social media, and lobbied Mr. Trump to choose him as his running mate.
are well aware that they will turn on rural America in the end. It’s true that all three grew up under South African governance but that won’t make them the kind of fascists that rural America wants.
Do you think Mr. Thiel, the guy who funded the Enhanced Games (where “The race for superhumanity is on.”), is going to end up supporting some backwater West Virginia version of humanity? Conservatives are simply making deals with devils.