Conservatism Is Dead

[kentuck]

With the death of Margaret Thatcher, the last remnant of the "Conservative Revolution" of the '80's is dead. The likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and FOX news are nothing but undertakers for the rotting corpse. They will dress it up and make it look good but they cannot revive it.

Ronald Reagan's "shining city on the hill" is nothing but a trash-strewn slum, with rats ruling the night. They built their castle upon sand and illusions and it is now disappearing.

By a quirk in history and good salesmanship, they were able to convince voters that Vietnam, Watergate, the oil embargoes, and the inflation that followed was all caused by Jimmy Carter and liberal policies. Government was not the solution - government was the problem, they said.

And the voters bought it, right up through the disaster named George W Bush. Lower taxes and the marketplace did not solve all our problems. Instead, they created ominous problems that are yet to arrive. Without government, there will be anarchy, killings, and civil unrest unlike any we have seen since the Great Civil War.

The bank crisis was only the beginning. The marketplace, free trade, vulture capitalism does not surrender its power voluntarily. The people must become educated to the fact that modern-day conservatism is dead. Even though they will strive to survive through our electoral system, they are the walking dead.

[LeftishBrit]

1. I wish it was, but no!

The policies of many of our current Ministers are Thatcherism on steroids! I say 'many of our current Ministers' rather than 'our government' because we don't really have a coherent government; just Cameron letting his Ministers individually push their own half-baked ideas along as they push the country over a cliff.

[kentuck]

2. Enough said.

There is no coherent government and they are pushing the country over a cliff...

[Larkspur]

3. Racism and Abortion legalization were major contributors to the rise of Conservatism led by Reagan

The political spectrum began swinging towards the conservatives when Nixon was elected President in 1968. It hit a bump with the Watergate and the Agnew scandals. But Reagan took advantage of Carter's inability to free the American hostages in Iran and combined it with Nixon's Southern Strategy and with anti-abortion and misogynous religious fundamentalists to usher in the conservative revolution.

Reagan had rebuilt a coalition of conservatives for Republicans -- plutocrats + racists + religious fundamentalists -- that lasted until the Dubya Admin.

The seemingly unending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan frayed the Republican "strong on defense" image. When WMD's were not found in Iraq and the media could no longer hide the lies the Bush II Admin told to get us into invading Iraq, Americans began seeing the Republican philosophy as hollow and hypocritical. That also happened to the conservative economic philosophy after the banking crisis of 2008 exposed the rampant scandals and sociopathy on Wall Street.

After Dubya's Admin, this coalition began fracturing because the extremists in the latter 2 parts of the coalition became bolder in their sociopathy and turned off the average American. Combine that extremism with the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression, it was inevitable that Americans, who didn't pay much attention to politics prior to losing their jobs and homes, would start turning on Republicans.

The 2006 election, when Democrats retook the House, and Obama's election in 2008 are signs that the pendulum is swinging back towards liberalism/progressivism. However, the plutocrats also have their dirty hands in the Democratic Party via the Third "Turd" Way Democrats, many of whom were once members of the infamous DLC. While most of these plutocrats are more socially liberal than the racists and fundies on the Republican coalition, their economic philosophy is from the Herbert Hoover or "The Roaring 20's" era.

Unfortunately, President Obama is protecting these sociopathic plutocrats. His Admin has not prosecuted any of them for the fraud that led to the Great Recession and he's proposing cuts in Soc Sec benefits, which are supported by hedge fund billionaire Peter Peterson. This support poses the biggest risk to the Democratic Party and Liberals/Progressives. It helps advance the meme "There is no difference between the political parties" and hurts Democratic candidates in purple districts where they need high Democratic voter turnout in non-Presidential year elections.

[kentuck]

4. I think you are right.

The Third Way DLC'ers are hindering and postponing the funeral of these sociopaths and extremists once known as "conservatives".