Published 2025-03-04
Warning: Spicy Take to follow
I've only been alive after Reagan took office and systematically began dismantling the Federal government, so my lived-experiences are already fairly biased before I can even start talking about how "things used to be." Others have explained this (archive link) at length, so I'll defer to them on the background.
What I think is missing from today's understanding is that modern conservatives aren't "conservative" anymore. The republicans -- the group that is currently in power -- are deeply weird, unserious people, who couldn't be bothered to "perform their own research" if their lives depended on it. (And yes, actually, their lives do depend on it.)
What they've done instead is adopt the stance of your stereotypical 15-year-old American boy:
This isn't conservative or liberal. This isn't democrat or republican. This is willingly-ignorant, stupid even versus... every one and everything else.
How did we get here? Again, see the background link above, but I would like to take it one step further:
Every illiberal, non-progressive government and political entity is the cause of economic, bodily, and social harm.
You can't be a conservative and "do good" because the conservative ethos goes against the definition of "doing good things for people." To borrow a quote from someone else, the response to the Daily Wire and all these provocateur mouthpieces should have been:
"What is a woman?" Don't know and don't really care -- let's act in the way that causes the least suffering.
If that's not your stance, you aren't worth the skin you're in.