The Democrats Are Now America’s Conservative Party
Liberals find themselves in the strange position of having won most of their major battles of this century.
This article has a very weird definition of the word "conservative."
It argues that Democrats working to restore reproductive rights to women is a conservative value, because it's trying to return to the Roe v. Wade detente that existed prior to this Supreme Court. But that ignores the entire history of the conflict, which is that conservatives, traditionalists, and the Religious Right fought long and hard to undo women's access to reproductive rights... against liberals. Now that they've succeeded, they're not suddenly liberals and Democrats are not suddenly conservatives. These words mean something other than pro-status-quo and anti-status-quo, which this author seems to ... not know I guess?
And even if you were somehow to say "Republicans are anti-status-quo and Democrats are pro-status-quo," in what sense are Democrats protecting the current abortion status quo? Improving women's access to reproductive healthcare is an explicit Democrat goal.
You can use exactly the same framing to claim that Democrats are conservative about LGBTQ+ rights because they fight hard to protect and expand existing LGBTQ+ protections. But that's not politically conservative; that's still a liberal goal.
Anyway, strange framing, Atlantic!
The missing nut graf was "The GOP is nostalgic for the antebellum South; Democrats are nostalgic for 2016."
The point stands that both parties are focused on the rear view, which is pretty much textbook "conservative," regardless of how the term has been intentionally co-opted.
Even that definition is myopic. The Dems only want to return to 2016 in the same way I want to return to 1933 when minimum wage was actually valuable. It's not a focus on the past when your actions wouldn't change even if the past wasn't there.
I've been thinking about the difference between conservatism in general and what is Conservatism in the United States with a capital C. The ethos of conservatism in general is to depend on established systems and to be risk averse, and this is a great summary of the behavior of the Democratic party for the last few years. Capital C American Conservatism as it exists in the US is a radical right wing movement which opposes liberalism fundamentally, which is composed of democracy and capitalism. Although Capitalists prefer what is to the right of them than to the left of them, Fascism and Feudalism are to the right of capitalism which will allow anything in the interest of profit good and bad. Fascism and Feudalism are much more restrictive than capitalists, and will oppose "woke business" whenever it opposes traditional right wing values. The contemporary capital C Conservative movement in the United States opposes even the Enlightenment values of the Founding Fathers (who were themselves slave-holding capitalists) in favor of a more traditional feudal structure which is venerated by Fascism. DeSantis is the leading figure of the far right in the US, and does not wish to revert the US to a prior state, but to revert the US to a system which existed prior to the United States in the interest of traditional values which are centuries old. One of the key components of fascism is to mythologize the past and contend to "return" to the ideal which never actually existed. This is the ethos of the capital C Conservative movement which does not seek to conserve but to enact a far-right system similar to what existed pre-enlightenement.
I feel like I'm yelling at a wall when I tell people that liberal doesn't mean progressive. It simply means status quo capitalists. If abortion stays as it is long enough, then liberals will argue against changing it, and progressives will fight to make it legal.
Only Americans call liberalism a left wing ideology. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
So is your definition of "liberal" just "someone who wants to maintain the status quo", full stop? If so, that's a very strange definition.
As I understand it, Classical liberalism, as described in the link you provided generally just prioritizes individual liberty. It's not full on anti-government libertarianism, but it favors a limited government.
And again, as I understand it, Neoliberalism is essentially the orthodoxy of the west, post WW2. It's still largely focused on individual liberty but perhaps not to the same extreme, and it's largely based on the idea that capitalism (regulated, and with social safety nets) can be harnessed as a global force for good.
I don't see how anyone who adheres to either of those ideas could use them to justify an anti-abortion position, aside from deranged religious based arguments about fetal personhood.
I didn't define it, I described it in its current form, though I definitely see how my phrasing is a bit poor. The definition is in the linked article. Almost always liberals DO want the status quo, because the status quo is capitalism. Progressives join the Democrats because where the hell else are they going to go?
It's important to point out though that when conservatives attack "liberals," they are actually attacking progressives. They see progressives joining their opponents and use to to attack both at the same time.
I'm not averse to some form of this argument — though I'd argue this has been the case as far back as the 1994 midterm election — but this article is just a mess. Democrats look to preserve their gains, but they've won their battles already. LGBTQ issues have broken for the Democrats, except for the backsliding in the states and at SCOTUS this year. The drive to be conservative is being pushed by working-class whites and Blacks, but also by upper-class white professionals. And a day "probably" won't come where the Republicans end up to the left of the Democrats on economic issues, despite some "promising" noises (which are pure posturing) from some unnamed politicians (I'm going to say likely Hawley and Vance, which, LOL).
It's like David Graham is so intent on not giving a single point to the Democrats/being fair to the Republicans that he tendentiously reads everything in the most ludicrous possible light. I'm aware of the establishmentarian bent of The Atlantic, and normally I can read around it, but this is just weaksauce.
Why are you all the way down here by yourself, we gotta move this comment up, and thank you!
Your comrades thank you.
Now?
Looking at the US from an international perspective, the democrats have been rather conservative for a very long time.
Yeah, the opening sentence
The Democratic Party, for decades the progressive bastion of the United States, is emerging today as the party of the status quo.
had me scratching my head.
Our Overton window runs centre-right to fascist. A lot of labels have been orphaned, and writers just want to give them a home, inappropriate as they may be.
Were I to write a satire column on the topic, I'd easily end up with some variation on the lede through the dependent clause. The problem is the predicate fails to keep the tone, leaving ambiguity about the writer's intent.
I was taken seriously by much of the student body with an editorial that started: How lucky we are to live in a time where modern conventions have yet to overtake some of our more archaic traditions. At universities across the country, including [redacted], the next few weeks will see celebration and revelry thanks to Homecoming. And Homecoming is truly an exciting time to be here.
