The Atlantic: McKay Coppins- Is Trumpism The New Conservatism?

Source: The Atlantic

Source: The Atlantic: McKay Coppins- Is Trumpism The New Conservatism?

To answer McKay Coppins question: no, Trumpism is not the new conservatism. And why do I say that? Well, because it's true and if you want more of an explanation than that, I don't blame you.

What is Trumpism? Trumpism by itself is not a political ideology. It's really whatever reality TV addict Donald Trump says and makes it at any given time. The man does have nationalist-authoritarian leanings as President and in that sense is a strong cultural warrior. At least officially and when he's talking to his supporters. But put him back in the real world where little things like facts matter, and arresting and locking up your political opponents, comes off as extreme even from your own fellow Republicans, where Latinos and Muslims, aren't seen as invaders, women aren't seen as property, ( and I'm thinking of Judge Roy Moore ) get Trump away from his political and cultural cult and in touch with real thinking people where again facts and reality matter and the man can actually come off as reasonable and even intelligent.

Return Donald Trump back down to Planet Earth and America where most Americans live, Big Don comes off as more reasonable. He can even come as a an intelligent thinking human being who doesn't have a Breitbart/John Birch Society/Alex Jones worldview that is only shared by people who left Planet Earth for a better life on another planet that hasn't been discovered yet. Talk about space cases, some Trump voters look like poster children for space cases.

On the other hand, Donald Trump's supporters simply see things that aren't there and that no intelligent person could possibly view as being reality. And yet they believe and say those things anyway. Like Barack Obama being an African-Muslim Socialist from Kenya, who is an illegal alien. And unfortunately that is just one example of how Trump voters are so far out of space from reality, it's as if Charlie Manson's Manson Family cult came back to life and they were part of that and managed to get some of the extra LSD that was left behind after the Manson Family soldiers were all arrested. Some Trump voters at least come off ass hardcore cult members, who've mentally left Planet Earth and have invested so much in there dear leader that everything the man says they treat as gold no matter what the man says.

Trumpism itself is not much more than a one-,man reality show who says whatever comes to his mind and at any given second. A lot of what he says is what the last person he spoke to told him to say or what Far-Right media like Breitbart and Fox News, is telling him to say. But nationalism is a political and cultural tribalist philosophy that puts one group of citizens in any given country, against everyone else. And people who disagree with them must be traitors. People who criticize the dear leader is a criminal who should be locked up. The fringe part of Donald Trump's base that are in the South and rural America for the most part, are Nationalist-Tribalist's who view Democrats as Un-American and as traitors. View the Democratic Party as a criminal organization that should be put out of business. Women as second-class citizens, non-European-Americans as Un-American and as traitors. The Alt-Right in America.

What I just laid out is not conservatism. Duh! Where in any part of The Conscience of a Conservative ( written by Mr. Conservative Barry Goldwater ) the unofficial if not official handbook as well as playbook, the definition of what conservatism is and what it means to be a Conservative, do you see any of these cultural war tribalist issues and this McCarthyite tactic of putting one group of Americans against the people they would call the real Americans as if not every American citizen is not a real American, against everyone else in the country. People who simply disagree with the McCarthyite's or today the Trumpian's. Conservatism is about limited government and conserving the U.S. Constitution and our individual rights. Not about putting one group of Americans against everyone else.