Conservative Republican Elites -- Always Lying, Grifting Fakers?

Tom Nichols created a Twitter thread a couple of weeks ago. I'm going to quote extensively (I don't think this runs afoul of free use, but if it does, I'm sure it will be edited by someone who did not get laid in high school):

Quote:

I think this howling about the eternal evil of conservatives is dumb, and worse, it's myopic and misses the point about the danger of the GOP as it stands today... Part of it is to grasp that "Republicans" were not just an undifferentiated blob even then. I've always said that my greatest sin was not paying more attention to the people who were on the same bus I was, but that doesn't mean none of us believed anything. That's just silly... The heartbreak you see with [Never Trumpers] ... is *because* they believed in things. Likewise the "national security" Reps, among the first to walk out, were not faking it. I knew ppl like Kirkpatrick. She believed in what she said (even if you think we were wrong.) ... Intellectuals and moderates (yes, even Nixon) were mostly, until the mid-90s, running things. Yes, even under Reagan, kids. He hired a lot of eggheads and professors. I mean, really, I still think it's funny that people think Reagan was super-far-right. People really thought he was gonna put prayer in schools or something. (I think it was a Reagan staff guy who said of evangelicals: "**** 'em, what are they gonna do, vote for Mondale?") Anyway, I'm not up for the "you've all been hideous since Ike" ******** [i.e., BS], just noting that conservatives are different from Trumper nihilists, and if we're going to ever return to a healthy left/right debate, "you're all the same since '56" is a dumb play - and factually wrong.

Jonah Goldberg adds some thoughts:

Quote:

I find the “conservatism was always a con” stuff to be total b.s. It misses the fact that people(s) can change over time. The neo-populist right isn’t revealing conservatism’s “true colors” it’s trying to replace conservatism. Many admit it. Ideological commitments ≠ identity politics. People and parties change because cultures change. A lot of Democrats say they are socialist today. This doesn’t mean Ds were always secretly socialist and only now are showing their “true colors.” The left’s changed a lot over the last 40 years. But you don’t hear people trying to seriously argue that Sam Nunn or Scoop Jackson were just providing cover for socialists or were secret socialists, because they weren’t. 2021 Al Gore is a different dude than 1990 Gore. But a lot of people are making that kind of argument about the right, as if Trump merely exposed what it was all along. No doubt he exposed some ugliness, fraud, and cynicism but the truth is the right has changed. It’s suffering from populism poisoning. Populism changes peoples’ outlook. It corrupts and overwhelms institutions. It distorts incentive structures and creates horrible permission structures. Conservatives deserve a lot of blame for fueling it, and even more for surrendering to it.

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