There's a Simple Name for It...

@CedricH So what? He’s not wrong.

@RedBaron Exactly. I‘m a neoconservative just like good ol‘ Bill.
It‘s neocons like us who‘ve vigorously disavowed the Trumpian GOP.

@CedricH I dislike this term neo conservative then. Because Trump is no conservative.

Neo, meaning new, should apply to Trump!

If you are a conservative at all then be one! Fight for the right to be one! You are caving in by giving yourself a new name.

Conservatives are not fatatics , yet they don't cave in either! They CONSERVE!

Trump is a fanatic!

He conserves NOTHING! He saves NOTHING for others! In other words he doesn't CONSERVE.

@DeWayfarer But neocons as well as the term neoconservative were around long before Trump ran for office, and they have nothing to do with him.

Many neocons were originally socialists, Democrats, and liberals who broke with the New Left in the 1960s.

Norman Podhoretz's magazine Commentary, originally a journal of liberalism, became a major publication for neoconservatives during the 1970s. Commentary published an article by Jeane Kirkpatrick, an early and prototypical neoconservative.

Ronald Reagan was a Democrat who became a neocon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism

@RedBaron That only emphasizes my point. Conservative is one who conserves. To not change. To save. Not use. When you change the meaning you are not conserving.

I dislike the term simply because it's a change of definition. It's not being conservative.

@DeWayfarer You‘re not wrong. Trump‘s no conservative and certainly no neoconservative.
He‘s an authoritarian, anti-liberal, nationalist populist.

@DeWayfarer Actually, you’re oversimplifying the term.

Neocons actually changed a lot over time, moving from socialism and liberalism and supporting the likes of FDR, Adlai Stevenson, and JFK to the right in opposition to LBJ’s great society programs and the counterculture of the 1960s.

In political terms, conservative does not simply mean unchanging and not using.

Conservatives seek to promote and preserve institutions such as the nuclear family, organized religion, the military, the nation-state, property rights, and the rule of law, and practices that enhance social order and historical continuity.

They very much believe in employing and using resources to accomplish those goals.

@RedBaron You can't pick and choose what you conserve in order to be a conservative.

You either conservative everything or you are not a conservative. It actually is a whole life philosophy.

BTW this came from a whole lifetime conservative. My father-in-law was one.

This man conserved even his own cigarettes. Three per day.

I didn't agree with him, yet I greatly respected the man for being able to do so in everything.

@RedBaron Movement neoconservatives like Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol (Bill‘s father) were very much focused on conserving certain cultural traditions in the wake of the counter-culture in the late 60s and 70s.

But that‘s history. Neoconservatives are best understood as liberal primacists, though, liberal in the classical, enlightenment sense of the word, not Rooseveltian left-liberalism.
Free markets, a free world and a social and political life free from inordinate government interference, intrusion or meddling.

@RedBaron My biggest gripe with him was "life is change".

I don't have absolute values.

@DeWayfarer Your gripe with whom?

@RedBaron With my own father-in-law!

@RedBaron I‘d wager that a center-right party or candidate - culturally moderate, fiscally conservative and in favor of preserving Pax Americana around the globe would be more popular than either party at the moment. Alas, no one‘s offering, yet. 🤷🏻

@CedricH Breaking News...

This probably isn't exactly what you want, yet it's interesting to note that Elon Musk has started his own political party.

Ironic that you mentioned a different party because it was announced just this morning. 🙃

@DeWayfarer I read about it in The Hill yesterday. But you’re right, it’s not at all what I want. He‘s an insane techno-authoritarian-libertarian with no center or principles who‘s singularly driven by his daily mood swings, his obvious desire to be edgy and by his personal financial interests e.g preserving corporate welfare in the form of green pork barefoot subsidies or contracts for SpaceX or Tesla. (His party could still, potentially, weaken Trump so go for it Elon)

I‘m waiting for a party/movement led and organized by Liz Cheney (R-WY), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Bill Kristol, Mitt Romney (R-UT), Rob Portman (R-OH) Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Mike Pence (R-IN), Nikki Haley (R-SC), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), John Fetterman (D-PA), Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), Michael Bloomberg, Rahm Emanuel et al

@CedricH Anything by me is better than Trumpism! I could even accept Burney Sanders. Yet that is no more likely than whatever Musk's party is.

Any party additions will only help Democrats.

@DeWayfarer I understand why you might feel like everyone or everything’s better than Trump but that can’t be our position because such a sentiment empowers Sanders. America needs to tread a third way between MAGA on the one hand and a failed Democratic establishment and progressives on the other.

Accepting or elevating individuals like Mamdani, Sanders, Tlaib, Omar or AOC is not the answer to Trump and it‘s not simply justified because Trump may or may not be worse.

@CedricH Do you understand why Sanders himself switched from libertarian to the Democrat party?

He got no where!

Change absolutely MUST come within the parties.

@DeWayfarer He was never a Libertarian and he‘s no Democrat either, he‘s an independent who frequently caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate
(*sponsored by Ben and Jerry’s.)

@CedricH His platform in the 60s and 70s was on no corporate money! That's Libertarian.

He was the father of Grassroots campaigning.

@DeWayfarer Ehm, well, that doesn’t make him a libertarian. Indeed, he’s anything but. That makes him a quasi anti-establishment populist who seeks to polish his bona fides by rejecting corporate funding. Easy for him to do since he never actually has to defeat a competitive Republican opponent in dark blue ultra-progressive Vermont.

@CedricH That is why he switched to being a Democrat. He couldn't fund his own campaign! Not on Grassroots campaigning.

@CedricH My point is only anything is better than a dictator! And that is exactly what Trump is! Authoritarian doesn't do justice with Trump.

Trump is worse! Trump has no empathy!

If it suits him Trump would even attempt to destroy Elon Musk.