I disagree here. 'Centrism,' I see, as an ideology of consensus and compromise, regardless of the ideological coherence of either. Meanwhile 'roll back' reforms is not conservatives, but reactionaries, a distinction that matters.
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I think you're focusing on political behaviors, in which respect yes, the positions you're describing are different. But when interrogating party transitions, I think that's less useful than focusing on how political ideologies behave in different contexts.
aug 28, 2025, 6:56 pm • 1 0 • view
What I'm describing as centrism can be incoherently focused on finding a middle ground, especially in the current context. But in a different context with broad political cohesion and functioningly moderate parties, it looks like hesitance and possible acceptance of light reforms.
aug 28, 2025, 6:56 pm • 0 0 • view
What I'm describing as conservatism often looks like hesitant resistance to reforms in the same context, because often an most effective way to resist change. But once that change has happened it becomes reactionary, because that's what's required to roll reforms back.
aug 28, 2025, 6:56 pm • 1 0 • view
And I think you are taking some conservatives at their word when they protest that this isn't the inevitable reaction of conservative parties which fail to prevent change. They say they were just legitimately hesitant about radical reform, and all this chaos is evidence they were right to do so.
aug 28, 2025, 6:56 pm • 1 0 • view
But that's a convenient mask, and only believable if you don't belong to a demographic that was under their bootheel during that period. "Liberal conservatives" have *always* embraced authoritarian methods of controlling and suppressing minorities and leftist change, they just didn't have to upend
aug 28, 2025, 6:56 pm • 2 0 • view
democratic society to hold the power to do so. They are asking you to believe that there has been a deep ideological change in the Republican Party which just isn't true, because it's the only way to justify inviting non-Trumpian conservatives back to the table after all this.
aug 28, 2025, 6:56 pm • 2 0 • view
But there hasn't been. I really do think that the Republican Party ideology hasn't meaningfully changed, only the context of what is required for them to pursue it. And I think we can understand the historical behavior of liberal conservatives much better in that context.
aug 28, 2025, 6:56 pm • 3 0 • view
They will mask as centrists, and claim centrist principles for their own, so long as it is useful to block change. But once it's not, "liberal conservative" parties consistently and reliably turn reactionary.
aug 28, 2025, 6:56 pm • 2 0 • view
Not sure that works because the reforms are radically faster than a human lifetime now. If you are conservative to the values of the 80s then you will oppose gsy marriage and be sceptical about interracial marriage. The Status quo goal for conservatives does not change as fast as the Status quo.
aug 29, 2025, 7:54 am • 1 0 • view
But not one that conservatives can hold to because they aren't going to suddenly end up okay with a new status quo when progress happens. They want the status quo of their past, and that means reaction.
aug 29, 2025, 2:20 am • 1 0 • view
Exactly. Conservatives will ask you to believe that they are resisting change out of hesitance because it implies a more reasonable response to those changes happening anyway. But that's just not how it has ever worked in practice.
aug 29, 2025, 12:13 pm • 1 0 • view