United States politics

God, guns, and freedom U.S. Politics

Starting arguments over Thanksgiving dinner

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Persons of interest

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United States politics is the rubric under which the American people attempt to control their country. The political system in the US has favored a two party system (currently Democrats and Republicans) that is more or less "Liberal" and "Conservative", though how true those terms would apply changes in any given generation.

Unlike European and UK political systems where any of a rather large collection of parties, representing a true diversity of ideas and ranges of political spectrum, the US system allows for only two viable parties that are fundamentally similar on most political issues when compared to a world political spectrum.

While it is easy to "take sides" in a two party system, it does mean that no real change is likely to happen, since it is next to impossible for a third-party candidate to win any major state or national position. The two-party system has recently devolved into 5-year-olds having playground battles over who is rubber and who is glue.

Outside of its own borders, the United States has a long and storied history of involving itself in just about every situation and believing that picking the worst possible allies is preferable to not getting involved.

History

Prior to the 1960s, conservatism in the US could be thought as being split into at least three factions; the Old Right who supported laissez-faire economics and isolationism, the more centrist progressive conservatives, and the often Southern-based far-right beliefs that were much more socially conservative, religiously based, and conflated white supremacy with conservatism. While they all had a few broad agreements, such as opposition to socialism/communism and (varying levels of) American nationalism, they were otherwise largely at odds with another. Robert Taft could be considered the leader of the pro-business, low tax, Old Right but nonetheless was generally pro-civil rights; however, he was barely willing to compromise on New Deal programs due to his generally intense dislike of high taxes and government growth. In many ways, this could be considered the inverse of the more far-right Southern Conservatives (led at the time by Richard Russell), who were more accepting of government spending that benefited rural (white) people, but were far more intensely socially conservative and utterly unwilling to compromise on the issue of civil rights. Finally, the progressive conservatives, led in the 1950's by Dwight Eisenhower but earlier by Thomas Dewey, were generally pro-civil rights and more tolerant of government intervention in the economy (so long as said intervention was more gradualist than radical) and still wanted to minimize government intrusion when thought realistically possible. In many ways, the progressive conservatives were the closest embodiment of Burkian ideals, whereas the Old Right was more proto-libertarian/classically liberal and the Southern Conservatives were largely reactionary. To further complicate matters, they were in different parties, with both the moderates and Taftian conservatives being at odds with one another in the Republican Party (where the moderates were at the time the more dominant faction) while the white supremacist social conservatives were in the Democratic Party.

The Old Right remained the weakest version of conservatism due to its lack of support among many ordinary Americans. In the 1950's, this began to be noticed by conservative intellectuals such as those at the National Review. In response, they proposed "Fusionism", a combination of the economically libertarian ideals of the Old Right with the social conservatism often found among more rural conservatives, thus creating a coalition thought broad enough to defeat liberals. In the 1960's, this movement was embodied by Barry Goldwater and sought to cast out the moderates from the Republican Party in particular, which they successfully did after Goldwater defeated the moderate/centrist Nelson Rockefeller in the 1964 GOP presidential primary. This event permanently weakened the progressive conservative presence within the party and gradually led to many of them becoming either independents or even Democrats. However, Goldwater's ideas were still too extreme for the country as a whole and he lost the election by a historical landslide. Eventually, Goldwater-styled conservatism would find its successful avatar in Ronald Reagan, at which point it was clearly more reactionary, longing nostalgically for a time that only really 'existed' in those godawful Mickey Rooney movies. The conservatism of Goldwater and Reagan became known as New Right. The New Right is/was far to the right of conservatives in other Western nations. They had little compassion for the underprivileged, overvalued the free market, and were deeply suspicious of anything that seems like government interference. (For example, Republicans in Congress all oppose the Affordable Care Act, which is seen as dangerously socialist, even though it had rather conservative origins.)

By the mid-60's, right-wing, populist styled white supremacy based largely (though not exclusively) in the South was in crisis. The Democratic Party leadership had been far more liberal than they predicted. Under Lyndon Baines Johnson, the civil rights movement was gaining momentum, which culminated in the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, which began to knock down explicit Jim Crow styled laws. George Wallace became the new leader of this particular group of conservatives and ran a couple independent presidential campaigns on an explicitly segregationist campaign, but it was becoming increasingly clear they were in retreat, despite their hold on several states in the Deep South and attempted terrorism from their de facto paramilitary wing. While white supremacists had voted Democratic for over one hundred years, they were already breaking off due to increasingly liberal influence from the party leadership, with many voting for Goldwater in 1964 and Wallace in 1968 and 1972. On the local level they had begun to "fill up" the empty local and state Republican parties, but were not comfortably brought into the national fold until at least the 1980's. Richard Nixon usually gets "credit" for bringing them into the GOP but in truth he was probably riding a wave that would probably have happened regardless, due to the perceived betrayal on the part of the National Democratic Party supporting civil rights and the fact that the US can only really support two parties at one time.

The explicitly religious side of the modern American conservatism likewise grew out of this late 1970's to early 1980's period, and is largely an evolution of this earlier form of social conservatism. By the mid-1970's, explicit white supremacy was increasingly politically toxic. However, one of the few significant institutions that held out from desegregating were Christian churches that were protected by the separation of church and state, and the fact that pastors did not have to answer to the nation as a whole but merely their own congregation, and as a defender of "traditional" Southern values the Southern Baptist Convention had long been a hotbed for white supremacy. In a move to prevent integration Southern Baptist private schools began to emerge which encouraged de facto segregation and counted on the separation of church and state to protect them. In the late 70's the Carter administration moved on these schools, requiring them to show they were not racist if they wanted to maintain their tax exempt status. This mobilized a mass backlash in the form of the "Moral Majority" and its leader, Jerry Falwell, made common cause with conservative Catholics in the North (despite the two hating each other not ago) by adopting their positions on issues such as abortion in return for support on the national level. This coalition would be vital to voting in the "Fusianist" conservative Ronald Reagan. With this religious fundamentalists who had formerly been mocked (even by conservatives) managed to make themselves the vehicle of rural social conservatism which could not survive explicit appeals to white supremacy on the national scale and effectively used fundamentalism as a cover for this culture war.

Bringing the religious right into the Republican fold was a political success in the 1980's, but also further turned off some moderate conservatives. However, party leaders still largely adhered to either latter-day versions of "Fusianism", neoconservatism, or business conservatism and figured these more intensely socially conservative voters could be pandered to and then mostly ignored. As these voters became an increasingly active and large force within the Republican Party the GOP began to shift further and further right, and went through a series of radicalization. The first and second major catalysts for this were the aforementioned victory of Goldwater in the 1964 Republican Primary and Ronald Reagan's electoral landslide in 1980, but despite these events shifting the party in a more right-wing direction it maintained a center-right wing and was competitive at the national level. The next event that shook the party was when it seriously began to lose control of the social conservatives during the 1994 Gingrich Revolution, when the GOP took over the House of Representatives due to corruption within the Democratic Party. Whereas other prominent Republicans merely pandered to the Religious Right and culture warriors, Newt Gingrich and company were (or at least came across as) true believers and were more than willing to openly wage a culture war. The fact they had gained so much power from within both the party and the government in so little time made them impossible for the "Old-Guard" to control, leading to them making increasingly disastrous political decisions such as threatening (and partly "succeeding") at shutting down the government and a failed attempt to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying under oath. It didn't help the establishment Republicans that new conservative media was also making their politics increasingly sensationalist and extreme, and likewise was largely pandering/activating this grouping of social conservatives. During this period "conservatism" in the US was becoming associated with increasingly intense right-wing positions who were quickly displacing the Establishment Republicans (who themselves had displaced the earlier Rockefeller Republicans).

In the 2000 GOP primary, the contest came down between the more traditionally conservative John McCain and George W. Bush, the latter of which was further right and had far closer ties to the religious right. McCain's defeat and Bush's subsequent election might be considered the last breath of relative moderation in the GOP dying, and the party cemented its support as mainly coming from more hard line conservatives. During this era neoconservatism was also influential on the Bush administration as its political presence grew. Mushily conservative on domestic policy, most neocons focused their support on pursuing a hawkish foreign policy thanks to a hyper-nationalitic view of America, and the belief that with the proper force the United States could spread democratic values and also reinforce its place as a superpower all in one go. Neoconservatism remained a somewhat fringe ideology only popular among a handful of conservative intellectuals and politicians while largely being unpopular or just unknown by the public at large. However, when the 9/11 attacks occurred Bush began to take foreign policy advice from this grouping of conservatives on how to respond, which resulted in the Iraq War and massive military spending. Meanwhile Bush's domestic policy was much more influenced by his own origins as a religious conservative, which resulted in policies that were often either disastrous (i.e. such as defunding stem-cell research) or simply bizarre (i.e. advocating intelligent design). Despite winning re-election in 2004, he left office in 2008 with the lowest approval rating of any president leaving office since Nixon, which massively damaged support for the mainstream conservative movement.

Establishment Republicans did manage to nominate John McCain as 2008 candidate, though he had to shift further right in order to obtain it. He chose as his running mate Sarah Palin who, unbeknownst to him, was a radical right-winger with astonishing ignorance of US politics, history, and legislation. Her less "respectable" approach to politics energized much of the GOP's increasingly frustrated base, which would later encourage the formation of the Tea Party that increasingly considered the Bush presidency a betrayal of their values. Advocating ultra-libertarian economics, even more hard line social conservatism (often in the form of opposition to immigration), refusal to compromise on legislation, and conspiracy theories this movement managed to return Republican control to the House of Representatives in 2010 but turned the party into an explicitly radical right-wing/populist party that was far more extreme than even the "fusionist" conservatives preceding them were. Increasingly explicit appeals to white populism/nationalism which had formerly been hidden behind dog-whistles and religious fundamentalism became increasingly acceptable during this far-right rebellion against Establishment Republicans, leading to the emergence of the Alt-Right in both the Republican Party and "conservatism" in general. Basically, the white populist reactionaries whom the GOP leadership pandered to before ignoring realized they now easily outnumbered the Establishment Republicans within the GOP, especially after the Bush presidency and their inability to unseat Barack Obama left the latter discredited in the eyes of the former. This culminated in the 2016 nomination of Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, the progressive conservative philosophy was somewhat able to find a home in the Democratic Party during the 1992 Presidential Election when Bill Clinton and other New Democrats shifted the party towards the politics center. Endorsing compromise, balanced budgets, social liberalism, and free trade this wing of the Democratic Party would win virtually every Democratic presidential primary from 1992 onward. While Barack Obama ran as a more liberal candidate he has governed in this vein.

Current

“”This whole argument is a complete misconstruction of the idea of freedom. You should not be "free" to duck a measles shot just because you’re a fucking moron. That’s not what American democracy was designed for... And now here come Paul and Christie, ready to fucking undo it. They don’t even really believe it, and yet people will follow them, turning this into yet another backwater wedge issue that keeps 21st century progress from moving forward at all. I can’t even get America out to the car because it won’t put its shoes on.

—Drew Magary

It is part of the Republican philosophy that everything should be viewed in terms of monetary value. The world is literally dollars, and the entire moral system is based in that. If it makes you money, it is the absolute right thing to do, regardless of any externalities involved. What little scientific research survives is done largely in secret, for fear of handing the next big thing to a rival. The private sector is only interested in research that has a direct application toward turning a profit.. This same mercantilism is being applied to the social institutions in America. Why should poor people get something for nothing? Social welfare seems like a "bad deal" because minorities, immigrants, and the underprivileged are getting food, clothing, and housing for nothing in exchange. This is a cardinal sin. Foreign policy is an extension of this brand of mercantilism. If another country gets something from us, they have to pay for it. But since America's perception of reality is always though the lens of monetary value, they often fail to see the other historical, political, and social realities involved. Speaking of which, conservatives also advocate for increased McMilitary and police spending to moralize the world, whatever that may mean.)

Politicians from both US parties appeal to their core constituencies through fear-mongering of one sort or another; however, the Democrats lack the tie-ins the Republicans have, from the right-wing noise machine Fox News, to fundamentalist churches preaching prosperity gospel and condemning the vile socialists, to think tanks and talk radio, most of which exists solely to ramp up the fear of liberals and foreigners. The GOP has turned fear-mongering into a highly-profitable industry. However, it does have a downside as it's morphed their already-radical platform into a philosophy of no compromise or governance, because how can you negotiate with godless terrorists bent on giving free hugs to poor people destroying your freedoms? No other party in the world does this thought-killing nonsense like the GOP does; there's gold in paranoia and the whole infotainment cabal is in on the scam.

The American conservative movement has incessantly been pushed further and further to the "right." With each success, the bar is moved further to the right; with each failure, it is likewise moved. It now has a tendency to incorporate strong elements of fundamentalist Christianity, most notably in a willful ignorance towards science (i.e. global warming denial), barely-veiled hostility toward women (Modest is Hottest!), and a bellicose nationalism—usually couched in the cliche that America is the "Greatest Country in the World" or "God's Chosen Nation," one with the moral authority to tell other countries how to live and govern. The Bible nowhere mentions America, but the religious right doesn't let that get in way of their spin. Conservatives in the U.S. promote religious indoctrination in schools, such as prayer in public schools or the erection of Christian statues in front of government buildings. It has also limited the field of candidates who can realistically run for office on the GOP ticket. Romney was in much deeper trouble than he realized, not just because of his flip-flops on abortion, but the deeper sin of not being a Southern Baptist.

Surprise: It turns out that cutting government funding for education and science (Big Science is an evil statist charity, especially when it outlaws bad drugs and predicts environmental disasters, because that stuff is unbelievably profitable! -Ben Stein), instead cutting taxes on the already privileged and allowing for tax havens, under the faulty logic that "the market" will allocate enough for R&D, is not a recipe for a healthy and competitive economy. What of the growth of third world industrialization killing off American manufacturing? The only ways to deal with it are tariffs (which are against Republican orthodoxy) or massive education reform (that also involves retraining and vocational technology training), and those are too complex to put into soundbites (and are likely to make voters realize that conservatism is inherently evil and idiotic and should never, ever be voted for. One of the strongest factors contributing to the US' downfall was a rush to embrace free trade (by both Republicans and Democrats) which lost the US a ton of manufacturing jobs to China and Mexico, combined with having very poor educational standards as compared to the rest of the industrialized world. In the shifting global economy, the US is going to suffer quite considerably. Right now the Republican strategy appears to be finding new ways of cutting jobs without shrinking the gargantuan military or their present wealth.

While not all conservatives, obviously, embrace all these views, walking away from more than a few can easily leave a politician "outside" the "big tent." American conservatism has moved so far in some directions (invasion of personal privacy and big government for instance), that many traditional conservatives have been stranded in its wake; many of these adrift voters have been gathered up by the techno-fascist Libertarian Party and anarchic Tea Party, both of whom reliably vote Republican. (Dance with the one who brought you.)

But if you ignore all the negative parts (What's left? Flag-waving and backyard barbecue.), American conservatism is a very positive political philosophy.

Libertarians

“”The secession envisioned here is along the lines of Singapore, not the Old South, but to this writer, they’re the same thing.

—J. Arthur Bloom

“”The words "individual rights", in a civil-society context, are often Libertarian-ese for "business". That's what they derive as the inevitable meaning of rights and freedom....the whopper of "right to have the State back up business". That's a wild definition of freedom.

—Seth Finkelstein

Back in the 70s and 80s, Libertarianism had a mean anti-immigrant and "God before Country" streak to it. These were the guys lining up behind Branch Davidians and talking about how Bill Clinton was a fascist intent on taking away our precious liberties with UN black helicopters. Ron Paul's newsletters (the ones he says he totally had nothing to do with and what racism are you talking about?) were tailored to this demographic. He and Pat "I never met a racist stereotype I didn't like, but hey! I'm a conservative who isn't pro-war!" Buchanan were bosom buddies. God, Gold, Gays, Guns, and Gringos were what they campaigned on.

Modern day Reddit-Libertarianism isn't as religious, so that's a third of the platform out the window; the Libertarian Party in America is oriented toward fiscal but not social conservatism, which is the opposite of the libertarian ideal. They aren't the dyed-in-the-wool racists that their parents' generation were, either (which isn't to say they aren't racist, but they're more "white people are the REAL victims" types than genuine white supremacists). And gold just can't compete with the allure of Bitcoin.

Libertarians align with the GOP on the economy, but in fact, their monetary policy is even more radical: their taxes are far more regressive, and their attitudes toward labor are more Social Darwinist. Overall they are just closeted Republicans, but the GOP suffices for them come election time. Which is why they must push aside all of the "social liberal" stuff to pursue a radical fiscal agenda−one only a draconian government can implement. The Libertarian Party needs to purge half its membership if they ever want to appeal to moderates or sensible conservatives.

Libertarianism has a popular rhetorical appeal, but it never seems to catch on in practice. (Make a lot of libertarian-sounding grunts and you can be a Nixon or a Reagan or a Bush Jr.; then you implement all the sweeping neocon policy you like.) Most people are too scared, or too entrenched in privilege, to be truly radical, so libertarianism has become a safety valve for bottled-up righteousness. You can still talk the talk of armed revolution, waving around guns, Orwell, etc. and seeming to be up on radical politics, but anyone with a brain knows you're just another cog in the system.

Ouroboros

At the start of the 2016 election cycle, many newspapers foresaw what they called the "libertarian moment". That all changed in the summer of '15. What we're seeing is the Koch-funded candidates are perceived as too liberal by the majority of the base; libertarianism has devolved back into Angry Old Manism.

The lesson here is that introducing libertarianism into conservatism is a slippery slope. At the top of the slope you've got Republicans: These are people who reject the predominant liberal notion that government can improve peoples' lives. Once you start down that slope, someone will say to you "Oh, you're a Republican because you think that in some cases the government does bad things, have you ever considered that government does mostly bad things?" So if you agree, then you find that you are in fact a Tea Partier. And you settle comfortably into that niche for a while.

But then some asshole comes along and says "Oh, you're a Tea Partier because you think government mostly does bad things, have you ever considered that government only does bad things?" And if you find yourself agreeing with that person, then you're a libertarian. And then eventually somebody comes along and says "Oh, you're a libertarian because you think that the government only does bad things, but have ever considered that the government has only ever done bad things in the history of mankind?" And if you find yourself agreeing with that person, then you're an AnCap. Every person that starts down the Libertarian slippery slope ends up at the AnCap bottom eventually. Because once you start to realize that you can blame all of your problems in life on the government, there is very little resistance against slippage and great force initiating slippage.

Post-2008, the legacy of George W. Bush was one of libertarian rebirth. He said he was a small government, anti-interventionist conservative that wanted to get government off people's backs. He started two wars, created the Department of Homeland Security and signed the PATRIOT Act into law. The GOP was also going down in flames, its credibility shot to hell by the financial crisis and the Wall St. bailouts. Obama shit the bed by extending the drone war and NSA spying, and by signing into law the ACA, a half-measure so ill thought-out that conservatives are even considering a single-payer option; this (and the public relations failure of OWS) soured many liberals. And the debt. So much debt.

So the GOP asked Americans, "Has it ever occurred to you that government does mostly bad things? Here's a Tea Party for you to join!" And millions of voters collectively started tumbling head-over-heels down the slippery slope. Surprising that it took 7 years for them to start hitting bottom.

Democratic Party

• Party positioning: Centrist-liberal on economic, financial, environmental, and national security issues, although progressive on social issues. Generally, they prefer not to rock the boat too much, toe whatever line drawn by Wall Street, and often take a conciliatory stance towards the Republican Party in the name of bipartisanship.
• Party Leadership: Joe Biden as President of the United States (since 2021); Jaime Harrison as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (since 2021); Chuck Schumer as the Senate Majority Leader (since 2021); and Hakeem Jeffries as House Minority Leader (since 2023)
• Party color: Blue, ever since Al Gore was randomly assigned the color in the 2000 election.
• Party status: They currently hold the two of the three branches of the federal government; They have the presidency and Senate but not the House. They hold 48 seats in the Senate (with three independents that sides with the Democrats to add up to 51.) and 212 House seats. They also hold minorities in Governorships (24 out of 50), State upper chambers (857 seats out of 1,973), and State lower chambers (2,425 seats out of 5,413).

The "liberal" party. In reality, it's one of the most ludicrously big-tent parties in the world, with members that range from democratic socialists (AOC) to moderate conservatives (Joe Manchin). Overall, it's a "social liberal", center-left party. The Democrats are generally to the right of the center-left parties of Canada and Europe (especially on economic issues), but to the left of the center-left parties of South Korea and Japan (especially on social issues). Despite being denounced as commies by the GOP they would be considered fairly conservative by international standards, only being consistently liberal on certain social issues (LGBT rights being the main such issue of today) and immigration. Their current priorities appear to be: being in favor of Republican policies after being against them, hiking the national debt up as high as it can possibly go & general sneering hypocrisy.

Republican Party

• Party positioning: Right-wing on economic, financial, environmental, social, foreign policy, and national security issues. They are noted for their obstructionism in Congress, their disdain for science and government, their opposition to regulation and tax hikes, and their trampling of workers' rights, civil liberties, and overall human rights as they perpetuate income inequality and class warfare. Generally, their Democratic counterparts are significantly more moderate.
• Party leadership: Ronna Romney McDaniel as Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee (since 2017); Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House (since 2023), and Mitch McConnell as Senate Minority Leader (since 2021).
• Party color: Red, ever since George W. Bush was randomly assigned the color in the 2000 election.
• Party status: Currently, they only control the House with 222 seats. They also hold majorities in Governorships (26 out of 50), State upper chambers (1,110 out of 1,973), and State lower chambers (2,948 out of 5,413).

The "conservative" party. As of late, it's more far-right than conservative, with more in common with Western right-wing populist parties (i.e: PVV and AfD) than mainstream conservative parties. Their current platform is just to do whatever Trump wants includes hardcore social conservatism, Nationalism-lite, hawkishness overseas, laissez-faire economics (from deregulation to tax cuts), support for austerity taken to cranky levels, anti-science bullshit, and "fiscal conservatism" (unless they're in power – then they blow everyone's money on certain projects).

Other Parties

There have been some third party candidates who have "affected" national elections, but their effect is generally to split the vote of one of the two parties, letting the other party win almost "by default". Parties outside the two-party system, such as the Libertarian Party, tend to get very few votes by comparison. They are said to be more socially liberal than the Democrats, but as fiscally conservative as the most right wing Republicans, like with their support for abolishing the welfare state. There is also a Green Party, whose platform is typically environmentalist and socially progressive.

According to Keys to the White House, significant third party or independent campaign in a presidential elction is considered to be damaging to the incumbent party as it signals major discontent with the performance of the incumbent party's president.

Current leadership

Simply put, it's the almighty dollar. If you don't have the financial support of the businesses that own Washington, you may as well not bother running; no one will ever know you're there.

External links

• I Hate Your Politics, John Scalzi