I still feel like Russel Kirk's "The Conservative Mind" is one of the most honest accountings of the history of conservative thought in the US and Britain. Because Kirk himself was (I believe) a misanthrope and elitist, comfortable with racism and highly suspicious of democracy, he made no effort to sand off the misanthropic, elitist, racist, or anti-democratic features of conservative thought.
I had never heard of Kendall before, but I'll have to read him. He's basically giving the same interpretation of American history I've come to, but from the other side. Historians of the American Civil War like Foner, Oakes, and McPhereson all argue in their own ways that the Civil War constitutes a 2nd American Revolution, where the modern vision of America as a pluralist democracy finally comes into being. Its probably better to think of America as a white settler society until at least then, and I think that self-understanding of America being a pluralistic democracy only really became hegemonic post WWII, and it seems to be really breaking down now. For that reason, I respect Kendalls honesty in being a conservative who espouses the view that Lincoln was a disaster.
Incidentally, the right wingers I know and talk to here are all obsessed with voter fraud and the "quality of votes". I live in Iowa, and having a conversation about democracy with an acquaintance recently he started babbling about relative differences in birth rates between rural areas and cities being the pretext for why we need to keep the electoral college. It's that grim.
One difference between 1950s "conservatism" and fascism seems to be that conservatives were honest about being against majority rule whereas fascists always claimed that, despite appearances, fascism was what the majority truly wanted.
I agree that the modern GOP is minoritarian in its instincts, but I also believe we can vastly overstate the case. It is true that the GOP has lost every presidential election in my lifetime (by popular vote) except 2004, but it's also true that the GOP has been far more competitive in the House of Representatives both in terms of winning seats, and winning the popular vote. Here's the timeline in reverse order:
2020: Democrats win popular vote
2018: Democrats win popular vote
2016: Republicans win popular vote
2014: Republicans win popular vote
2012: Democrats win popular vote
2010: Republicans win popular vote
2008: Democrats win popular vote
2006: Democrats win popular vote
2004: Republicans win popular vote
2002: Republicans win popular vote
2000: Republicans win popular vote (basically a draw)
1998: Republicans win popular vote
1996: Democrats win popular vote (again, a draw)
1994: Republicans win popular vote
1992: Democrats win popular vote
The Republicans won the popular vote 8 times out of 16 elections, which is basically a draw.
The point being: we are not living in a country where a tiny minority is massively imposing its will over a huge majority. We're a country split 52-48 (or, more accurately, 48-46 with the remaining 6% undecided).
But this is really besides the point here, which is in the main ideological. That democracy is not dead in America yet doesn't mean the GOP isn't committed to ending it and hasn't been trying to erode it. You will not find any serious support for extreme gerrymandering among leftist or liberal thinkers, whereas it's defended as (at minimum) a constitutional prerogative by conservatives. On that note, focusing on the popular vote itself without attempting to correlate that to the number of seats garnered by any given level of support for either party seems like a mistake: that it's fifty-fifty doesn't tell you much about whether there were anti-democratic measures in place, but at most shows that they weren't terribly effective. It's why trying to argue that the record black vote in Georgia signals that vote suppression wasn't going on there is specious. In any case, it's much easier to note that the ideological framework of anti-democracy runs very deep in conservatism than to try to argue about what the existence and effectiveness of antidemocratic policies in GOP-run polities have been and extrapolate something about how committed the right is to their hostility to democracy from that.
There aren’t any ‘serious’ liberal thinkers who support gerrymandering, but of course the Democratic Party gerrymanders as well.
I am not arguing the GOP more willingly leans into minoritarian institutions than Democrats. That does not also mean that the arguments presented about the end of American democracy are not hyperbolic and edge on the absurd (the new voting laws being a new Jim Crow being the prominent example).
-The Dem party clearly gerrymanders, and I can't say I'm a fan, but unilateral disarmament on this is pretty clearly for chumps. Though as a practical matter I don't think 'both sides do it' captures degree. In any case, that'll be the extent of any defense of the practice you'll get, and that's as it should be; not so with the right.
-I think your second sentence is missing a negative.
-You have not even tried to substantiate this last claim. Historical performance since the 90s tells us nothing about how serious or widespread the anti-democratic strain is in the Republican party, particularly since the election. 'Hyperbole' is not what I think of when looking at the ongoing farce in Arizona or the now successful effort to reopen absentee ballots in Fulton County. It's certainly not what I think of when considering how widely-held the belief that the Democrats stole the election is among the rank-and-file, either: even if the current crop of reactionary legislation bothers you less than others, the attitude than prompted them is going nowhere. And it's not just the base and the nominal pols, too; witness Kav's opinion in the Pennsylvania case a few days before the election. People are right to be concerned about all this, and deserve better than to be dismissed as kooks because you think a historical analogy doesn't quite fit. That feels very similar to the interminable "But Is It Fascism?" debate, which was largely a waste of time that distracted from the very real harms being done in favor of playing semantic games. Who ultimately cares??? Is shit getting real, or isn't it!?
Presumably some Internet Omega Point deity will see that I was trying to correct things (usually it's mine own posts) and torture my uploaded consciousness-analogue a _bit_ less awfully.
I still feel like Russel Kirk's "The Conservative Mind" is one of the most honest accountings of the history of conservative thought in the US and Britain. Because Kirk himself was (I believe) a misanthrope and elitist, comfortable with racism and highly suspicious of democracy, he made no effort to sand off the misanthropic, elitist, racist, or anti-democratic features of conservative thought.
Thank-you. Age has made Kirk respectable in many circles…which is an example of the ills of the conservative impulse.
I had never heard of Kendall before, but I'll have to read him. He's basically giving the same interpretation of American history I've come to, but from the other side. Historians of the American Civil War like Foner, Oakes, and McPhereson all argue in their own ways that the Civil War constitutes a 2nd American Revolution, where the modern vision of America as a pluralist democracy finally comes into being. Its probably better to think of America as a white settler society until at least then, and I think that self-understanding of America being a pluralistic democracy only really became hegemonic post WWII, and it seems to be really breaking down now. For that reason, I respect Kendalls honesty in being a conservative who espouses the view that Lincoln was a disaster.
Incidentally, the right wingers I know and talk to here are all obsessed with voter fraud and the "quality of votes". I live in Iowa, and having a conversation about democracy with an acquaintance recently he started babbling about relative differences in birth rates between rural areas and cities being the pretext for why we need to keep the electoral college. It's that grim.
I, too, can be a sinner: the degree of support for Trump, avalanchine in some states, erodes _my_ faith in democracy.
'Anton’s practical solution to the problem of the bad electorate: basically dissolve it and elect another.'
A good reference to a poem I can't get out of my head these days:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_L%C3%B6sung
One difference between 1950s "conservatism" and fascism seems to be that conservatives were honest about being against majority rule whereas fascists always claimed that, despite appearances, fascism was what the majority truly wanted.
I agree that the modern GOP is minoritarian in its instincts, but I also believe we can vastly overstate the case. It is true that the GOP has lost every presidential election in my lifetime (by popular vote) except 2004, but it's also true that the GOP has been far more competitive in the House of Representatives both in terms of winning seats, and winning the popular vote. Here's the timeline in reverse order:
2020: Democrats win popular vote
2018: Democrats win popular vote
2016: Republicans win popular vote
2014: Republicans win popular vote
2012: Democrats win popular vote
2010: Republicans win popular vote
2008: Democrats win popular vote
2006: Democrats win popular vote
2004: Republicans win popular vote
2002: Republicans win popular vote
2000: Republicans win popular vote (basically a draw)
1998: Republicans win popular vote
1996: Democrats win popular vote (again, a draw)
1994: Republicans win popular vote
1992: Democrats win popular vote
The Republicans won the popular vote 8 times out of 16 elections, which is basically a draw.
The point being: we are not living in a country where a tiny minority is massively imposing its will over a huge majority. We're a country split 52-48 (or, more accurately, 48-46 with the remaining 6% undecided).
But this is really besides the point here, which is in the main ideological. That democracy is not dead in America yet doesn't mean the GOP isn't committed to ending it and hasn't been trying to erode it. You will not find any serious support for extreme gerrymandering among leftist or liberal thinkers, whereas it's defended as (at minimum) a constitutional prerogative by conservatives. On that note, focusing on the popular vote itself without attempting to correlate that to the number of seats garnered by any given level of support for either party seems like a mistake: that it's fifty-fifty doesn't tell you much about whether there were anti-democratic measures in place, but at most shows that they weren't terribly effective. It's why trying to argue that the record black vote in Georgia signals that vote suppression wasn't going on there is specious. In any case, it's much easier to note that the ideological framework of anti-democracy runs very deep in conservatism than to try to argue about what the existence and effectiveness of antidemocratic policies in GOP-run polities have been and extrapolate something about how committed the right is to their hostility to democracy from that.
There aren’t any ‘serious’ liberal thinkers who support gerrymandering, but of course the Democratic Party gerrymanders as well.
I am not arguing the GOP more willingly leans into minoritarian institutions than Democrats. That does not also mean that the arguments presented about the end of American democracy are not hyperbolic and edge on the absurd (the new voting laws being a new Jim Crow being the prominent example).
-The Dem party clearly gerrymanders, and I can't say I'm a fan, but unilateral disarmament on this is pretty clearly for chumps. Though as a practical matter I don't think 'both sides do it' captures degree. In any case, that'll be the extent of any defense of the practice you'll get, and that's as it should be; not so with the right.
-I think your second sentence is missing a negative.
-You have not even tried to substantiate this last claim. Historical performance since the 90s tells us nothing about how serious or widespread the anti-democratic strain is in the Republican party, particularly since the election. 'Hyperbole' is not what I think of when looking at the ongoing farce in Arizona or the now successful effort to reopen absentee ballots in Fulton County. It's certainly not what I think of when considering how widely-held the belief that the Democrats stole the election is among the rank-and-file, either: even if the current crop of reactionary legislation bothers you less than others, the attitude than prompted them is going nowhere. And it's not just the base and the nominal pols, too; witness Kav's opinion in the Pennsylvania case a few days before the election. People are right to be concerned about all this, and deserve better than to be dismissed as kooks because you think a historical analogy doesn't quite fit. That feels very similar to the interminable "But Is It Fascism?" debate, which was largely a waste of time that distracted from the very real harms being done in favor of playing semantic games. Who ultimately cares??? Is shit getting real, or isn't it!?
was not looking for sed syntax here, was v cool to see it!
Presumably some Internet Omega Point deity will see that I was trying to correct things (usually it's mine own posts) and torture my uploaded consciousness-analogue a _bit_ less awfully.