Speaker 1: OK, next question today.
Does classical conservatism still exist?
This is an interesting question.
You know, when we talk about classical conservatism in the United States, understand that the
idea of conservatism, the roots of conservatism, go back actually to the French Revolution
when you had conservatives who were often French intellectuals saying they wanted to
sort of go back to the previous way that France was organized rather than the post revolution.
France, when we say classical conservatism in the United States, we're talking about
we're not talking about what things were like pre French Revolution.
What were my understanding is that conservatism is basically talking about sort of like the
1950s where you still had there was less awareness of and opposition to not only sometimes systemic,
but actually codified racism out and out sort of glorification of patriarchy, even crony
capitalism in some ways, where it was more open, where maybe now crony capitalism is
in some sense more more hidden, that that's what I understand as classical conservatism
being in the United States.
And sometimes it's presented as we want so-called family values based on the Bible, as well
as a low, very low regulation environment which goes towards that crony capitalism thing
that I said.
The basic reality is that as it is, the idea of conservatism is a form of sleight of hand
where what they're really talking about is classical conservatism in many cases is limiting
the structures of power to privileged groups, whether it's men over women, whether it's
business elites over workers, whether it's so so it's not just a class analysis.
It's not just a race analysis.
That's fundamentally, though, what we mean by classical conservatism.
It exists today in some vestiges among certain Republicans.
It's funny because the people that Trump calls rhinos, Republicans in name only saying they're
not really Republicans anymore.
That's kind of where more classical conservatism still exists.
It's people sort of like Mitt Romney.
It's people I mean, I hate to say it.
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is kind of like a 1950s conservative in some ways.
They are ostracized by the Republican Party now because the Republican Party is no longer
about the types of issues people like Mitt Romney care about.
Even John McCain was sort of beyond what classical 1950s type conservatism was.
The Republican Party has become about owning the libs, about rhetoric over substance, about
culture type issues divorced from actual policy.
Even when you look at the more social issues, even calling them cultural issues instead
of social as social issues, as interesting before when it was, you know, gay marriage,
abortion, et cetera, it linked to policy and more of a direct way than a lot of these culture
issues.
When you talk to a lot of these Republicans who want to fight against cancer culture and
you say, great, what's the solution?
There's often really no policy attached to it because they will quickly realize the policy
that would come to mind would be outrageously authoritarian and supposedly against many
of their stated values.
So does classical conservatism still exist in the United States?
To some degree, it's increasingly on the outs within the Republican Party.
It does exist, but it is not predominantly what the Republican Party today has decided
to be in favor of.
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