If those "stuffy rules" weren't there in the first place then it wouldn't have taken root the way it did. You're talking around my point without addressing it. A bunch of college graduates didn't lead the people who'd become progressive into that ideology, the culture did so in a manner that lead them that way. Had the culture not had an overbearing right-wing authoritarian presence the situation we see today simply wouldn't have a reason to exist.
Ethno-nationalism and theocrats are both concerned, typically, with conserving cultural/traditional values, but through ethnic homogeneity or religious homogeneity. Ethno-nationalists of the white variety are also commonly concerned that with the changing of the genetic makeup of the population, so too goes with it the founding stock's ideals and shared culture. Ditto for theocrats except you can neatly change out the racial focus for a religious one. In a way, conservatives are merely ethno-nationalists/theocrats without the overt hyper-focusing on race or religion. They're often even accused as much by the former and the latter, that they're "weak" and "don't go far enough".
So if you can be conservative without being overly concerned about ethnicity or religion, instead only caring about core values and tradition, it stands to reason that there's no reason you cannot be a leftie without necessarily being vulnerable to buying into their analogous counterparts such as identity politics or gender politics.
I don't really need to describe what they could be associated with when it should suffice to explain what it isn't. And I already have.
It's not, though. It's merely a position that conservatives commonly hold. Ideological positions aren't territories ideologies can plant their flags on and claim like pieces of property. This is like saying that miscegenation being abhorrent is an ethno-nationalist position, or that welfare systems being necessary to a healthy society is a progressive position when there's plenty of people across the political spectrum who'd agree with one, the other, or both.
And I keep making the distinction very clearly because that line of thinking is used very often to justify, as I said, pigeonholing people as "allies" or as one of your own when they're not. Cooption is annoying and makes conversation regarding such topics unnecessarily difficult.
Why? It doesn't ultimately matter, as it's again sufficient to point out what it isn't when the conversation is specifically whether or not they are [political affiliation] or not. Same as if I were talking about whether or not a group or individual were progressive, liberal, libertarian, whatever.
No it really wasn't. This transgenderism shit has only really been taking off since 2013-2014, thereabouts. By the time gay marriage was fully legalized in the U.S. (2015) it had been normalized in the public view for years.
Just because you can't see the logic in a position doesn't make it untenable nor does it make it illogical for someone to buy into it. The modern political landscape should have shown you that by now.
As far as why it'd be by necessity, in a situation in which times are rough it's not only not uncommon but rather prevalent to look out for yourself and those closest to you. Your ideas of how the world should work and what could fix it don't change basic human nature. Or are you going to argue that they'll have a better start than millenials did?
That's nice but they won't give a fuck, and that's what I'm saying. The time for such ideas to take hold and actually win people over, especially the generation coming up, have passed. You seem to either not get that or unwilling to accept that. Regardless of what your opinions on the topic are, I'm not arguing for or against the positions I'm theorizing they'll have - I'm merely pointing out what I think they'll be of the lot who don't buy into the propaganda they're being fed in public schools and the media. You seem to keep trying to
convince me I'm wrong about this like I'm the one who believes this shit. I mean whether or not you like my predictions, whatever, but if you're expecting these people to listen to you and by-the-books old-school conservatism, you're pissing up a rope and indeed all over yourself.
It's increasingly clear to me that you think so not because it objectively is, but rather that you cannot accept that it possibly could be. You do you man but your view on the situation and the necessary means to counteract it are seen as claptrap by the people we're talking about. Hell, I'm not exactly young and it was seen as such back when I was getting out of high school, and I even agree with most of it for fuck's sake.
Whether or not you want to, what you're suggesting will indeed lead back to it.
Yeah? And remind me again what gave them such prominence over the non fundie conservatives? Oh, right, the very same system that's perpetuating the current hysterical leftists who are acting in their place as the witch-hunters and whip-lashers of society. You act as if though they wouldn't just be coronated in the same way that the progressives were after O.W.S. You swing that pendulum right back to where it was, and you'll get exactly what you had. You'd be slotting out our current problem for one we've already as a society moved past, and this time they'd be as fervent as the progs, or more likely even more fervent given that they'd be scared witless of being cast out again.
Has the thought never occurred to you that they didn't have to listen to what was obviously a loud minority? Or did you/do you think that federally elected politicians, who are known to be most often lawyers and psychopaths to boot, are so brain-dead stupid as to really follow the paradigm of giving the squeaky wheel the grease? Of course not. Remind me again what kind of person was
for the Patriot Act? What kind of person voted George Bush Jr. into the white house? If my point isn't obvious by now maybe this will drive it home:
View attachment 2099252
the people who've been in these positions, and/or have had relatives or friends in these positions for thirty, forty, fifty years don't give a fuck about petty squabbles regarding gay marriage or whether or not trannies can use women's restrooms. They don't give a fuck how many illegals rob/rape/murder americans. They don't give a shit and never have. Trying to pass off the religious right as if though they weren't just the extreme version (or as you put it when talking about progressives and them sharing a "substantial rational base" with moderate lefties) of conservatism is laughable. They were elevated to cause as much of a kerfuffle as possible in the public political discourse over shit that ultimately doesn't have even half the effect of say, jobs being shipped overseas or immigration illegal and otherwise drowning out opportunities and depressing wages for the native population - or being in pointless wars for shitty reasons. You know, shit that if the public actually could come together and demand be fixed would hurt the bottom line of elected officials
of both parties? Same way that the progs have been.
We simply aren't going to fix a problem by reverting to the same state that helped both it along and the people who fomented it in the first place. If we do we'll just end up right back where we started, people squabbling over bullshit that won't ultimately bring the country any further towards betterment and ever further down the spiral of slow decay from within.