Justin Mohn, a 32-year-old Pennsylvania man, is in police custody after allegedly murdering and decapitating his father, claiming the latter was a “federal employee” and a “traitor.” Before his arrest, Mohn posted a 14-minute video to YouTube in which he displayed his father’s severed head, proclaiming: "This is the head of Mike Mohn, a federal
Yeah… I dunno if the “sane” Conservatives are actual Conservatives. Like, hear me out, I know people who totally understand me as a trans person are perfectly supportive and totally grock leftist talking points and even support fairly socialist economic theory … But they still carry their identities as “Conservatives” because it’s a brilliant bit of branding. For all purposes of actual ideology they are actually progressive, but that word “conservative” strokes the ego in a very particular way.
People think “conservative” as basically just meaning “Not prone to extremes” or “careful and measured” or maybe even “liking change to be slow and incremental” or “fiscally moderate” … None of this actually describes modern Conservative party ideology but they definitely borrow off the synonyms for votes. Because everyone is primed to think of their veiw as carefully reasoned and non-volitile these “conservative at heart” types really don’t realize that they are being tricked they just like the pretty label and are willing to let themselves be hoodwinked.
That’s a damn good point. Also throw in 2A rights and I think you have the right mix. Someone who is genuinely “fiscally conservative” as in desiring a close the balanced budget, believes that 2A is just as important and deserving of defending as 1A and 4A (the main ones everyone knows), and who believes in plenty of legal immigration but thinks national borders are required to have a nation is basically in no man’s land.
The Republican party pays lip service to those and other “Conservative” ideals, but by actions has abandoned them and are the furthest down the oligarch rabbit hole. The Democrats by action actually tend to do more of these traditionally Conservative things in modern times, but pay lip service to the opposite (gun control, open borders, etc) because many of the the actual far leftists remained more attached to the party instead of splintering off like the Sov Cits and various flavors of libertarians did from the conservative side.
Since we have a first past the post voting system and thus only 2 viable parties, those “conservative at heart” folks know they are getting grifted by the Republicans, but feel slightly more aligned with Republicans than with Democrats because they feel there is no actual place for them.
The “Liberal at heart” have a similar problem because the Old Guard corporatist Democrats are also in the Oligarch rabbit hole, just not as deep in many cases. That’s why we get lip service about legalizing marijuana, decriminalization, debt relief, etc, but see very little actual or sustainable progress.
Very interested to see what happens whenever the government drops below an average age of 65. Maybe under millennial and Zoomer majorities we can get graduated voting methods and multiple viable parties.