You should definitely read the book if it’s a topic that interests you; it’s the best overview of conservatism that I’ve read. I’d say you’re pretty well aligned with what he wrote within, too.

But I’m not sure how to reconcile that with modern “rightists” who want to burn down the system and aren’t conservative in the lowercase-C sense.

The Republican party (and conservatism as a movement) are full-blown reactionaries. I like this passage from Corey Robin’sThe Reactionary Mind:

People who aren’t conservative often fail to realize this, but conservatism really does speak to and for people who have lost something. It may be a landed estate or the privileges of white skin, the unquestioned authority of a husband or the untrammeled rights of a factory owner. The loss may be as material as money or as ethereal as a sense of standing. It may be a loss of something that was never legitimately owned in the first place; it may, when compared with what the conservative retains, be small. Even so, it is a loss, and nothing is ever so cherished as that which we no longer possess. It used to be one of the great virtues of the left that it alone understood the often zero- sum nature of politics, where the gains of one class necessarily entail the losses of another. But as that sense of conflict diminishes on the left, it has fallen to the right to remind voters that there really are losers in politics and that it is they— and only they— who speak for them. “All conservatism begins with loss,” Andrew Sullivan rightly notes, which makes conservatism not the Party of Order, as Mill and others have claimed, but the party of the loser.

The chief aim of the loser is not— and indeed cannot be— preservation or protection. It is recovery and restoration.

And from another section:

There’s a fairly simple reason for the embrace of radicalism on the right, and it has to do with the reactionary imperative that lies at the core of conservative doctrine. The conservative not only opposes the left; he also believes that the left has been in the driver’s seat since, depending on who’s counting, the French Revolution or the Reformation. If he is to preserve what he values, the conservative must declare war against the culture as it is.

Depends how old. If it’s a Shakespeare play, I like to have read the play beforehand so that I can understand the nuance in the performance. If it’s an opera, I’ll probably read a synopsis beforehand. If it’s a stage play in English written since the 19th century I’ll probably have more fun going in without prior knowledge.

“One thing I know is the conservative movement has always been steeped in respect for other people, respect for religious liberty, respect for economic liberty,” Donalds told reporters during a campaign stop in Miami this week.

Oh, so we’re just straight up lying now?

Isn’t it just so weird that another TPUSA group chat was full of Nazis?

Gonzalez described Agartha to the group chat as, “Nazi heaven sort of,” and Valdes explained it, “esoteric nazism essentially.”

“This is not something you would know about unless you had spent a considerable amount of time in white supremacist circles,” said Heidi Beirich, who researches extremism and co-founded the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.

“It was something Himmler was obsessed about and it’s basically a mythical white homeland in the center of the Earth. If you’re using the term Agartha, you have spent some time reading about white supremacy and Nazis, there’s just no way around it,” she said. “You’re embedded in the culture.”

“Pro-life” has never been about protecting life. It was always a means to control women.

Yeah, I need to listen to most recent one; I’m curious how Jones is dealing with the attack on Iran.

The podcast is very good, I highly recommend picking out a few episodes that look interesting and diving in.

It’s quite remarkable how he launders dumbass galaxy-brain conspiracy theories to his audience and drives the conversation towards PR for billionaires.

Mark Andreson led him around like a bull with a ring through his nose; the guy is one of the most useful idiots in history.

Edit: For people who didn’t read the article, I’m talking about the author’s podcast, The Know Rogan Experience.

1. Suck up to Donald Trump

That’s it. That’s the list. I guess hypothetically he’d need to be confirmed by the Senate, but what are they gonna do? Not rubber-stamp an appointment?

It would be so funny if he was doing one of his bullshit press conferences where he gets pathetic sycophants to bow and scrape before the king, when they gradually realize that he’s been sitting there dead for about ten minutes while they pretended like nothing was wrong for fear of making him look weak.

Hope it hurts.

Burned like a CD-RW

“I apologize to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake I made,” he said. “It definitely is the opposite of the values of the Foundation and the goals of the Foundation.”

It’s not though. The foundation is a way to spread his influence, bolster his ego, and pay less in taxes. Wasn’t that why he was pals with the pedo kingpin?

Ah, right. I guess we’ll have to flush him nationally now.

This greaseball wants to sell out trans people, not understanding that the reactionaries will just move on to the next target.

But you can’t expect a liberal centrist to understand solidarity. I want him to lose the gubernatorial primary so fucking much.

The piece of shit got his ego rocked.

That dipshit, Joe Wilson, is still in the House of Representatives. He was pissed because Obama said illegal immigrants wouldn’t benefit from the ACA.

His yelling at Obama was making political hay; scaremongering that “undeserving” people might get healthcare in the richest country in the history of the world.

They sure taught those kids to respect the police.

Very cool! I just gave it a watch recently.

The act 1 finale is a spectacular piece of music.

Here’s the full show that I watched. Great performances all around (especially from Rosina and Figaro); I usually prefer historical costumes and sets, but this one was fun. Highly recommended!

I’ve been a bit obsessed with one of Cleopatra’s arias from Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Se pietà di me non senti. She’s bummed that she thinks her brother is going to have her killed.

Se pietà di me non senti giusto ciel io morirò.

Tu da’ pace a’ miei tormenti o quest’alma spirerò.

Just heaven, if you feel no pity for me, I shall die.

I shall give up the ghost if you do not pacify my torment

The legacy that reactionaries actually stand for:

Conservatism is the theoretical voice of this animus against the agency of the subordinate classes. It provides the most consistent and profound argument as to why the lower orders should not be allowed to exercise their independent will, why they should not be allowed to govern themselves or the polity. Submission is their first duty, and agency the prerogative of the elite. Though it is often claimed that the left stands for equality while the right stands for freedom, this notion misstates the actual disagreement between right and left. Historically, the conservative has favored liberty for the higher orders and constraint for the lower orders. What the conservative sees and dislikes in equality, in other words, is not a threat to freedom but its extension. For in that extension, he sees a loss of his own freedom.

-Corey Robin, The Reactionary Mind

They want a neofeudalism that returns power to those whom they see as deserving it: White Christian Fundamentalists.