The ‘present’ always seems to pay for the past. Conservatives, by their nature, can’t surmount this issue as their view of a future is completely grounded in the past and cannot be unbound from it. If they attempt to do so they become liberal. So they lie, to themselves and to each other, they must do so to remain convinced of conservatism. They have to perpetuate the myth that the past was better than today or the future, not for all, but for themselves particularly. They’ll pick on the ‘other’ as the problem of the present, never themselves, and as one to be superior over.
Today’s conservatives have problems, big logical problems. These people want to claw their way back to the 1950’s, if not earlier. But they have two problematic issues to start with: one is policy and the other is optics.
With policy conservatives have to dismantle many services and ideas that most folks have gotten quite used to over the past 70 odd years. In fact, most people, even conservative minded, are already too progressive to think about turning back now. To be honest, no one has ever said plainly to these conservatives that they can’t go back. The world is new technology, new methods, new ways of organizing to get things done, they can’t change that. The new world doesn’t need thousands upon thousands of workers, automation has seen to that, most every day jobs of the past are these days becoming specialist jobs, conservatives can’t change that. Society is freer, more open, more forgiving, accepting and tolerant than most conservatives are willing to accept. And if there is one thing we know from history, you can’t go back unless authority uses extreme measures to enforce their old ways, and even then we know it won’t last. Life has progressed already too far. Regression will hurt, but it won’t last.
In terms of optics, conservatives today have a tough time. They are the older generation, not the Great Generation, although a few were, but the generation after them, largely boomers, white boomers, who took all the advantages given to them by the Great Generation, free education with all the privileges of their race and class, better working conditions and have ungratefully, selfishly, been dashing them to the ground since Reagan and Thatcher. Okay, boomer.
I am a boomer, the class of 1956, and I am extremely disappointed by many members of my era. At the same time as we gained so much, we had a core of self involved, selfish, people who despised it all. It seems they are the ones who couldn’t find self fulfillment, who couldn’t find happiness unless at the suffering and/or control of others. Perhaps slightly more psychopathic, perfect for the corporate world and Wall Street, they have gained followers within the younger generations, dispirited, unhappy, recalcitrant folks happy to blame their condition on any other than themselves, railing against the laws meant for everyone in favour of more exclusionary rules which favour them only. They sow seeds of discord, crying that their rights are being infringed upon, basing their ideas and justifications on some fanciful view of life and history of the past, when in fact their freedoms are not ruined and they seek to do just that to others in the name of freedom, their freedom. Okay, boomer followers. So, a few white haired old guys (boomers) controlling and using a few disgruntled folks, to do their bidding for them. Okay, boomer. This is all optics, nothing is based on reality, plainly the optics are bad.
The conditions conservatives find themselves in will not last, their control will not last, their regression will not last, their power will not last, their economy will not last (that horse never got into the barn), their society will not last (once that horse gets his saddle removed and a yoke put on to replace it, it’ll bolt for certain). There will be much pain especially among non-conservatives, but like with all other Conservative efforts to go back to another time it will fail. Conservatives are anachronistic in a current world, lost souls who oppose change, are frightened of it, preferring some dim view of better days in the past. And they are stuck, entrenched, in thinking this way, for if they were to think of something new, another way of doing things, that many would think a great idea, that would advance society, they would no longer be conservative.
They do nothing but hold us back from advancing forward. What am I thinking!?!? That’s why they are conservative! They are afraid of tomorrow and the unknown, feel queasy about today and always wishing yesterday, what they think they know, would go on and on. Life ain’t like that…