Modern “conservatism” has always been a cover story. It was invented, as my book Conservative Estimate shows, by Russell Kirk in the 1950s, precisely to cloak the character flaws of “conservatives.”
But the election of Barak Obama in 2008 evoked the hidden racism in “conservatism” and gave birth to the Tea Party around 2010. Then the election of Trump not only made the racism explicit but also turbocharged all the degenerate traits that “conservatives” kept hidden—white supremacy, hatred of people of non-conforming gender, loathing of intelligence, hostility toward inconvenient truth, aggressive belligerence, heedless recklesness.
The Mr. Hyde of “conservatives” has overpowered their Dr. Jekyll. The personality that remains is monstrous.
There are two possible solutions to this problem. In recent posts, I’ve been focusing on one of the two—taking all power away from “conservatives” at the polls, so they cannot harm society any longer. What is left to them would be only wailing and gnashing of teeth.
But the second solution, which I have not addressed, is that the monster could tame itself. I’ve ignored this because it seems so unlikely. But unlikely is not impossible.
A monster can tame itself, but it requires an iota of self-awareness. There has to be at least a tiny glimmering in the depths of the monster’s brain that it is doing something wrong, something that not only injures others but also harms itself.
It is clear than many “conservatives” do not have even one such inkling. Their behavior indicates that they will do anything to hide their degeneracy from themselves. Banning books that discuss ugly historical facts, legislating truth out of schools if it reveals their past sins, allowing “conservatives” to discriminate on the basis of race and religion while protecting them from legal consequences, promoting weapons of mass destruction to and for society’s least temperate deviants—all these actions point to a monster that wants to be blind to its own perverseness.
Without an insight to the ways in which one’s flaws damage one’s own life, no one has an incentive to change.
But sometimes the insight comes despite the unwillingness to see it. When it does, it is usually pain that breaks through.
“Conservatives” are experiencing pain right now. It is worse in some places than in others. In Michigan, for example, I’m told that not a single Republican has won a statewide office since 2016. More generally, the inability to convince the majority to back “conservative” ideas—like bans on abortion, guns for all without restraint, unrestricted corporate greed, and heedless spoliation of the world’s natural resources—leaves them with no option but abusing power. Wherever Republicans control government, they use their political advantage to force the majority to accede to their will.
This is going to continue making them enemies. You cannot force people to agree with you—especially when you espouse ignorance, mean-spiritedness, hatred, and arrogant religious and racial bigotry.
More enemies means more the pain. As “conservatives” continue to lose power to inflict their will on the majority, some of the monsters may have the insight needed to begin control their monstrous inclinations.
Granted, “conservatives” detest self-awareness because it leads to knowledge of one’s faults. And they fear their own faults most of all because, as is universally true, self-awareness always teaches us only one thing: we must change our lives. Their deep-rooted fear of loss, however, makes them instinctively recoil against change. Their arrogance makes them refuse to change. And their belligerence makes them attack anyone whose mere existence reminds them of their own inferiority.
So, all in all, it is very unlikely that “conservative” monsters will reform themselves.
But unlikely is not impossible.
St. Paul was actively persecuting Christians when he had the insight that struck him blind and threw him from his horse. The metaphor is obvious.
If one or two percent of the monsters get thrown from their horses, it will increase the pain for the rest, because the losses will snowball with even that little an impact on the tribe of Mr. Hydes.
Am I suggesting this will happen by itself? No. Decent Americans have to keep inflicting as much pain as they can at the polls, as quickly as they can. That too will keep the pain mounting.
I had an uncle who, at every holiday meal, used to pick up his fork and say, “God helps those who help themselves.”
Decent America should help themselves by voting against every single Republican on every single ballot. This will increase the monsters’ pain.
And then we can regard every monster who sees the light as God’s gift to democracy and the future of rational government.
Hi, David. Thanks for your support!
I'm not a big fan of ranked choice voting. In a highly polarized political climate, it can make it impossible for the people to get who they really want. In the first round, extreme partisans will vote for their preferred extreme candidate and knock out more moderate candidates--whom the people may well have chosen in a non-ranked contest.
That actually happened in Alaska, where Begich was knocked out in the first round. Post-election analysis revealed that Begich would have beaten Peltola by about 8K votes and Palin by tens of thousands of votes in a head-to-head contest.
There are ways to fix this, but they involve statistical manipulation of the votes by giving points for this or that move in the voting totals. This may be statistically accurate, but the people will never accept it--it will seem to them like meddling.
And in the current climate, when the fetid remnants of one of the two major parties is actively working to destroy democracy (the Heritage Foundation is preparing a "wrecking ball" slate of appointments for the next Trump administration that will tear the federal government to shreds), it is too dangerous to do anything that might give Republicans an edge anywhere in the country. In the case of Alaska, it worked out all right because Palin was so detested. But ranked-choice could just as easily give the edge to Republicans--and we can't afford another Republican administration ever again, since they no longer accept the fundamental tenets of democratic government.
Thanks again!
Thank you, Scott. Really appreciate the depth and thoroughness of your perspectives in this Substack. They are a balm for the hurts I've felt from callous conservatives. You vision for our future seem more and more credible as the seasons progress. I fear, however, that disempowering Republicans might merely exacerbate schisms. I'd love to read your opinions on ranked choice voting to foster moderation. Aren't political parties, period, a substantial part of the problem?