The Party of Reagan ...

How did conservatism go from where it was in the 80's with The Party of Reagan to where it is today?

I can't really call myself a true conservative, but I am definitely conservative-friendly. Every online political survey I've ever taken has labeled me somewhere right of center to varying degrees, but I find less and less alignment with our national conservative leaders.

I just read an opinion piece by conservative political commentator, Adam Kinzinger, on Why Republicans are turning against aid to Ukraine. Mr Kinzinger is a USAF veteran of Iraq & Afghanistan and was also a Republican member of Congress from 2011 through January of this year. In his piece he says:

Gone is the party of Reagan, which was steadfast in its stand against tyranny. In its place is rising a GOP that seems immune to the world’s need for American leadership and uninterested in the suffering of a country we should aid until the fight is over.

Obviously, Mr Kinzinger in his essay and I in my post here are talking about Ukraine and Russia. One is led by an authoritarian tyrant who invaded the other, a fledgling democracy trying to shed the systems and institutions put upon it after decades of Soviet rule.

The Party of Reagan would not have taken a nanosecond to decide who to support in this conflict. Sure, they would've approached Ukraine about cleaning up some things (which they are doing), but none of that would have deterred The Party of Reagan from supporting Ukraine to the successful end of this conflict.

So, to my conservative friends ... Help me understand the thinking here? And in your explanations, please avoid the words Trump and/or Biden. Both of them are short-term blips in the history of this great country and in the development of western civilization & democracy.

carpediem · M

One needs to look a bit deeper than your description. I don't support Putin and think he's a thug, but he has an argument that should be heard. Unfortunately US censorship forbids to even discuss the war outside of a "Russia bad" mindset. I'm not going to run the whole thing down here mainly because I don't know what the truth actually is. There are a number of points worth looking at to determine their legitimacy outside of just the US government rhetoric that I no longer trust:

1. The eastward expansion of NATO was not supposed to happen. That is a threat to thug like Putin
2. Biolabs operating in Ukraine. The Russians built them, the US manages them now. What are they doing? Info censored, which is why it needs to be looked at
3. Presidential weakness allowed him to take Crimea. Same is true today which greatly reduces the deterrent
4. Land bridge to Crimea
5. This administration is clearly compromised and deep into the corruption Ukraine is famous for. More to see here as the onion unpeels itself.

Reagan would make an attempt to see the whole picture, not just the headlines.