Franky, I think conservatism is easy. The idea is to keep things as much the same as possible by championing the values of the past and preventing as much change as is natural to a society into the future.
Social Progress is a dividend of shared prosperity. As more people acquire security and power in a society, the more progress is made down the line because you now how have more people included in the creative decisions. More people are recognized, respected, and heard and their contributions become part of the national or cultural conversation.
Conservatives like to focus on “the good old days” when things made more sense and felt more natural, when the values of their parents and neighbors were not shunned and they were not made to feel bad about the people and ideas they excluded – often militantly – that also served as evidence of their superior position in society.
America is a tribe of tribes. Each of us needs to know to which tribe we belong so we know where we stand against other Americans in the social hierarchy. At one point long ago, it was the white, male land owner with assets* who stood atop that pyramid. Since then America has slowly embraced progress to include more and more people. We have sinned and committed horrible acts against those we declared Savage or Property, but we have always tried to fight that crippling moral failing across the generations. Our need to know who is “better” and who is “acceptable” has driven this tension between social progress and conservation.
Conservatism says “This is fine. In fact, the way things are is preferable to what others want. They want to harm us all by taking us into an unknown future or by including people we have already decided are unworthy of helping us into the future.”
The “MAGA” movement is rooted in that simple idea that there is a true America buried in the uncomfortable changes that made certain people feel less secure and powerful in their own country. Making America Great AGAIN implies that it is NOT great (a statement that would get a Progressive scolded for a week by conservative pundits) and that America was better somewhere in the past. Given that it is a slogan and not even ripe to an opinion, anyone can apply their own judgment as to when that time was.
Was it before Affirmative Action? The push for an Equal Rights Amendment for Women? Before Roe v Wade? Before the Civil Rights Movement? Before Brown v. Board of Education? Before the repeal of Prohibition? Before the enactment of Prohibition? Before the Emancipation Proclamation? Before People v. Liberta? Which Amendment to the Bill of Rights ended America’s “greatness”?
I listen to conservatives like Congresswoman Margorie Taylor Greene and think that political progress for the rights of women in this country allowed her to not only speak without the permission of her husband, but run for and later serve in Congress. I look at some conservative women of color complaining that “the left” manufactures social injustice hype while remembering that a woman of color speaking assertively about America would have a good chance of being beaten to death for just expressing an opinion – not just in the south but in most parts of all American states and territories. Some of our loudest conservative voices prove that we are a nation where progress toward a more inclusive and cooperative society is natural. We have an accelerator for that progress in Progressives and a brake for that process in Conservatives.
Progressive v Conservative and “Democrat” v “Republican”
I’ve talked about the two major political parties in America as cartels. While Democrats and Republicans fight for market share and screen time, they collude to the point that they remain the only options in the political market. Anyone else is a “spoiler” to the two-party system and, at least in national elections, will only cause the opposing ideology to win an important office.
I maintain that it is insane to believe that only 2 parties can represent a diverse nation of over 341 million people. But it is the system we have for the moment. And the Democrats currently represent the various forms of socio-economic Progressivism while the Republicans represent a more narrow spectrum conservative American ideas. However, the parties are not philosophical bodies but political cartels that fight to win assets in government by any means necessary, so an argument that diverges into a discussion of the RNC and DNC ultimately fails to align with a discussion about broader conservative or progressive ideals, even acknowledging that those two terms are generalized, simplified placeholders in this essay for more complex ideas.
But to the “accelerator/brake” analogy, conservatives simply choose how hard they want to slow progress. Progressives argue and fight over how fast the nation should move forward. There doesn’t appear to be much disagreement about how hard we want to slow progress, but Progress has this idealistic quality that champions the idea of “fixing” everything NOW and has to be tempered by what CAN be fixed reasonably NOW while dealing with resistance from those struggling to keep the country as it is while arguing the virtues of what it had been.
Sharing Rights versus Losing Power
Progress is a slow march. It has to respect the resistance of those who don’t understand or who would lose power and control by giving opportunities to those marginalized or ignored in the past. There’s a “meme” out there that likes to say that rights for all do not diminish the rights of the few who already have them, but the reality is that most Americans confuse “rights” with “power”. It is a “right” to be a Christian in American – a fact no one contradicts – but it is also a right to be a Jew or a Muslim or a Pastafarian or a Jedi. The difference is that there are degrees of POWER in those rights which means that few complain about the rights of a Christian to worship or practice openly and in fact advocate for mandatory Christian teachings in school, but Christians would lose POWER if the faith mandated in school was not based on the teachings of Christ or any of the churches aligned with The Savior. Those who claim First Amendment rights to do so might be inclined to fight someone invoking the same right to teach Islam and practice Muslim prayer in public school.
It’s about a loss of power. Those in power know that when someone who did not have power before gets it, they lose it. And reflecting on how some abuse the power they possessed, they FEAR what will happen to them at the hands of those who now have it. Reasonable fear. Just look at American Reconstruction after the Civil War. Whites had to surrender a share of legal authority over non-whites which granted them freedom they did not have but also reduced the power possessed by whites to do to keep them under control. Again, it’s not about sharing freedom; it’s about keeping power and control.
The other thing about change is that it forces innocent people to confront the reality that the most trusted people in their lives, those who helped establish their morals, beliefs, and world views, were “wrong”. It is difficult for people to hear much less accept that the wisdom of their loved ones is now considered hurtful, offensive, or oppressive. This is why we hear words like “tradition” and “culture” in the defense of conservative ideas. It is difficult for some and impossible for others to accept that they are the legacy of bad ideas.
Progress Requires the Acknowledgement of Error
Tradition and culture often cite faith to justify or reinforce those beliefs because it is difficult enough to convince people of bad ideas shared by loved ones but when those bad ideas are alleged to be the word of GOD, it projects (or deflects) responsibility from people acting with agency to obedience to an all-knowing cosmic authority. Of course, this is not an exclusively conservative trait. Progressive beliefs are as often attributed to a belief in a cosmic authority but when it comes to overcoming resistance to change and conserving the status quo, appeal to the cosmic authority is usually bundled with nationalism or patriotism to justify why “what has always been” is better than what others are proposing and those who tie their urgency for change to a cosmic authority are often accused of bearing false witness or misinterpreting the cosmic gospel.
This is a simplified explanation about why we’re fighting all the time but I don’t think it is an over-simplification. We are simple creatures who respond to changes in our environment with suspicion and reluctance. We are sustained by our comfortable beliefs. Knowing that our parents who may have sacrificed all their lives, attended church, and acted as upstanding citizens of their communities might be less of something because they defined certain people as “less than” based on the color of their skin, gender or sexual identity, or religious beliefs. They may have been raised to accept their discrimination as a natural tribal defense practice to identify potential threats to the community based on past experience or anecdotal evidence. However, when you unpack that rationalization to confirm “therefore you suspect all black people of being violent potential criminals” we weaponize that belief.
For someone who is not a pundit or politician, it is just LIFE. People who go to work, pay taxes, raise families, and try to do the best they can with what they have do not want to be defined by something they do not think about or that is the product of a life where such beliefs are normalized. Change is a threat. Life is hard enough without being told “You’re a racist and awful. Now CHANGE because I said so.” Resistance is natural.
The challenge to “Critical Race Theory” is a rejection of the idea that power has shifted away from the legal and moral institutions that have, for many generations, been tied to America’s greatness but that contain terrible truths about that some Americans do not want to accept. We want to display colorful images and play rousing patriotic music when we talk about our history. We don’t want to admit to future generations that there are significant parts of our history that we’ve had to lie about to avoid accountability. Conservatives don’t want to look closely at the slave trade or legal and moral arguments supporting the institution of slavery, the birth of white nationalism and cultural identity, segregation, and the polar reversal of the Democratic and Republican parties regarding these issues. To adopt CRT in public schools would be to acknowledge our mistakes – not just the vilified south but a nation that had “sundown towns” and red strikes in its Green Book atlas all across the continent. When opponents say that the “Confederate Flag” is not a symbol of hate but of culture, they are thinking about the part of that heritage that means something deeply important to them and not the part where whites had the legal right and moral responsibility to subjugate and murder non-whites infiltrating their tribal communities. They don’t want to talk about that part and choose to focus on the hardworking parents who raised them, the preachers who taught them about the mercy of God, the happy summer days with friends and the adventures they had while overcoming the trials and challenges life forced upon them. All that time, this symbol has been part of that life and their first thought upon being told that symbol is NOT those things is to hear that all the good parts of their lives were awful and wrong, too.
This is why conservatives sometimes cry that progressives are trying to destroy their culture and heritage rather than getting them to acknowledge that one part that could be carved out like a malignant tumor without sacrificing the healthy tissue of their otherwise worthwhile lives. We also have to acknowledge that some conservatives consider their racial superiority as part of their identity. Without the “status” of being a part of a certain tribe, they struggle for any greater identity or role that gives them the esteem they crave. They need the tribe AND the conflict. For them, CRT and similar developments ARE a direct threat.
This is troubling to me when I hear someone say that CRT is trying to erase America or tell lies about people or the past. It suggests that admitting our sins will not lead to eventual absolution but damnation. It suggests that if we accept the cruelty and horrors perpetrated by our forebearers, we cannot be a great nation. It also suggests that some people wish to live in the comfort of a great lie than grow in wisdom for the benefit of future generations.
People Build on the Progress of Others
Based on social change over the past 40 years in this country, even progressives will be called out for their relative conservativism if they do not continue to change and build on the values they helped bring to the culture. As Robert A. Wilson once noted, “It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.” While that quote is sometimes attributed to Buckminster Fuller, the idea is that society and the individual will revise what it agrees represented a liberal or conservative view in the span of a generation. As society’s march leans toward progress toward expanding human rights, an individual who draws a line to define what is acceptable inclusion without eventually accepting to move that line will become a conservative.
For example, President Bill Clinton instituted a policy commonly referred to as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” related to the sexual orientation of military service personnel. Before 1994, the American armed forced prohibited the service of non-heterosexual individuals and actively identified and ejected those found to be engaging in homosexual acts. “DADT” was considered a progressive victory at the time because it allegedly halted the practice of actively rooting out homosexuals in the military. However, it also prohibited members of the armed forces from declaring their sexual identity, keeping them in the proverbial closet.
It was a compromise that, for 1994, represented a major step forward. Thirty years later, however, it could be seen as not progressive enough. If this act represented the beginning and end of military reforms protecting the rights of men and women serving their country, it would represent a stagnant, conservative and discriminatory practice enacted by a President then celebrated as a highly progressive Democrat.
In fact, legal challenges to DADT began almost immediately from both those who felt LGBTQA+ people should not be allowed to serve at all in the military and those who believed that they should be able to serve like anyone else. In 2010, another celebrated progressive Democratic President signed the repeal of DADT in the face of better policies that accepted and applied broader protections to the LGBTQA+ community over the intervening years.
And President Bill Clinton – the first Rock’n Roll President of the Baby Boomer generation, darling of liberals as the President who ended the Reagan-Bush military-industrial regimes – signed the DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT in 1996 defining that marriage was exclusively a contract between one man and one woman in a country that had only eradicated the legality of marital rape three years earlier. Times have changed radically since then even if you don’t think that the idea of a young, black man with the name of Barack Hussein Obama would become President of the United States two names down the line.
Just as the military has used the cultural and historical excuse that including certain Americans “would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability” this argument failed yet again without compromising the strength or adaptability of the largest military force on the planet.
The Myth of the War Between Good and Evil
2024 is, like any other major election year, presented as a war for the soul of America. It isn’t enough to have a strong candidate with good ideas and skill. An election must present a ideological gladiator with a plan to vanquish a morally inferior, corrupt, and possibly EVIL opponent. Civility and statesmanship are outdated ideas because the stakes are allegedly too high to do nothing but destroy the other side – at least that’s how the narrative plays during the election year. In a few short years since Republican John McCain challenged Democrat Barack Obama and rejected the politics of personal attacks, the conservative-owning political party has embraced a toxic, personality-driven marketing campaign that would not be off-brand for a professional wrestling organization. Bigger personalities and distinct characters making loud, controversial statements and accusations earns more attention than legislating. Discussions about the future of the country are boiled down to Left versus Right or Democrat versus Republican with one side having all the answers and the other none for every single American.
Conservatives accuse progressives of being anti-American and throw provocative yet meaningless labels designed to inflame conservative phobias – Socialists. Communists. Atheists. Sometimes they throw out stronger language to get the cameras turned their way. Pedophiles. Perverts. Unchristian. Satanic. Conservatives are labeled with as broad a brush, perpetuating this war of tribal superiority that has overtaken the competitive debate over the velocity of progress in this nation. It is no longer enough to present the best of good ideas to move the country forward but to make sure the opposing idea is wrong, evil, and comes with dire consequences hidden in its fine print.
This is how vast empires and great republics die.
For the American experiment to endure, progressivism is as natural and essential as the growth and development of healthy, living human cells to sustain a person. Conservativism should slow the acceleration of progress so that good ideas and especially people are not trampled in the process. It is not intended to stop or eliminate progress. This “war” of two Americas is a product of marketing and propaganda. America will adapt, change, and include more voices or it will die. Those fighting to hold on to POWER rather than embrace change only harm the nation as they attempt to interfere with the natural course of a good and true people attempting to learn from its past to create a better future.
Conservatism is not bad or evil. Dressed in the costume of politics it has transcended “bad” and become toxic forcing progressives under the Democratic brand to fight by the same rules. You can argue who lowered the bar, but the truth is that the only two cartels in this entire country agreed to lowering it. The only questions are how low they will allow it to fall and the consequences resulting when the people will no longer be able to prosper or even function when that level is reached.
We have been weaponized. People are expected to talk like pundits and throw in with one side or the other totally. We are told that we have to treat the issues of the day as matters of life or death for our way of life or the nation. We have been told to hate other Americans and ignore or dismiss their humanity for the sake of votes and the power collected by one side or other. We’re trained to believe that alternative parties only embolden the “other side”. We are told many things that make us afraid and inspire us to act against our neighbors based on a label.
Even my own simplification of “brake” and “accelerator” overlooks the idea that we are each personally BOLD and RELUCTANT in our everyday affairs. We want to make progress in our personal and professional lives but temper our enthusiasm with a constant assessment of risk. WE represent a balance of progressive and conservative attitudes and we weigh the input of both with every decision. We improve and grow by making progress and changing, but we also protect ourselves by being wary of some change and possible consequences. We are also the sum of our mistakes and our successes. We learn from our mistakes and achieve new skills and potential in our successes.
Our politics must return to this understanding and reconsider its war footing and the preposterous idea that the soul of the nation is in the balance with every choice. An individual acting in this way could be diagnosed as suffering a mental health crisis. We need to assume the same is necessary of our government.
THEunJAYdedBOOK 
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