Jennifer Rubin: Why I dropped 'conservative' from my Twitter profile

[brooklynite]

Washington Post

My Twitter blurb used to describe me as a “conservative opinion writer.” Now it reads: “NeverTrump, pro-democracy opinion writer.” Why the change?

Let’s be honest: There is no conservative movement or party today. There is a Republican Party thoroughly infused with racism and intellectually corrupted by right-wing nationalism. But there is no party that believes in less or small government (though expect the GOP to hypocritically resume singing that tune as soon as a Democrat steps into the Oval Office).

If you say you are a staunch defender of the rule of law, that you are devoted to ending systematic racism, that you are an advocate of legal immigration, that you believe in objective reality (including climate change science) and that you think illiberal regimes such as Russia are our greatest foreign threat, the party of Trump will lash out at you. They will accuse you of Trump derangement syndrome and dub you a “fake” conservative. Well, they have a point. Because conservatives no longer seem to champion any of those positions (or free trade or American international leadership or NATO), it is hard to say I fit in any longer.

[lagomorph777]

1. I wonder how many who made a living off of "conservatism" might actually be re-thinking

their life's philosophy? Trump's caricature of conservatism may be the tipping point for some. How many have been forced to take a look at the consequences of their actions for the society they have worked so long to harm?

[onetexan]

5. conservatism to me is more of an unrealistic, unreachable ideal; now that the GOP is officially dead

rats are abandoning ship and left dazed & confused as to what happened to their party.

[JHB]

27. Too few of them. Too many are pretending it went off the rails recently...

...and that before 4-5 years ago it was all fine.

Even those who do engage in a deeper dive rarely go deep enough. They pine for the "real" conservatism from when they were younger, early in their careers, but usually fail to take a hard look at that time period too, question whether their perceptions at the time glossed over some ugliness that they're now experienced enough to recognize, and do some large-scale re-thinking.

Very few are willing to admit they were somebody else's useful idiot.

[Kind of Blue]

47. +1000! "Very few are willing to admit they were somebody else's useful idiot." n/t

[Blue_true]

36. Mississippi born Stuart Stevens has abandoned it totally, looks like Rubin has followed his lead.

I will wait to see what some other notable ones do. Trump is about as far from their nirvana as one can imagine, and he owns their movement lock, stock and barrel now. Their movement has always been about racism and resentment, even if people like Stevens and Rubin once tried desperately to ignore what was in plain sight.

[yonder]

40. From what I know of Stuart Stevens, he is absolutely qualified

to assess the current state of the GOP, if not conservatism in general.

[qazplm135]

2. I kinda feel bad for her

she held a worldview for most of her life, and now she sees large chunks of it were just a hypocritical lie.

I get it, her worldview was bullshit, but still, I can't imagine having everything I thought was true and right turn out to be a lie.

[yardwork]

45. I don't think that is what she's saying, unfortunately.

She's just saying that today's Republican Part is led by such complete morons even conservatives don't fit anymore.

[qazplm135]

46. I don't think she's rejecting her beliefs

But I do think she thought there was a movement based on principle that she was a part of but now there isn't.

[Beartracks]

50. This didn't just happen. Her "movement" hasn't been moving in the direction she thought...

... for several decades now. Funny she mentions Reagan conservatives fostering the Tea Party as some kind of moderate comeback attempt... because from where her party has ever-so-slowly dragged her over all these years, Reagan looks downright normal. But wasn't that really the era that modern conservatism tacked to the right and never looked back? Or was the die cast with Nixon's "southern strategy"?

============

[qazplm135]

51. I was not commenting on whether her view

Is or is not correct, which I clearly have stated twice now.

[Beartracks]

53. Hey, sorry, I was meaning to Reply to the OP, forgot I was still viewing your post.

===========

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. I still await a truly good conservative idea. It is just all a sham.

[Silent3]

7. If you divorce the word "conservative" from the assholes who have been calling...

...themselves conservative for decades, I think there are some good conservative ideas, at least when seen as a counterbalance to liberal ideas which, without opposition, can go badly in their implementation.

We just haven't seen a lot of smart (and non-selfish) conservatism for a long, long time.

I think of a good conservative as one who will, when liberals implement basically good ideas for, say, environmental regulation, don't screw it up by making the regulations unnecessarily burdensome. (I've definitely seen well-intended regulations which cause more unintended problems than they solve.)

I think of a good conservative as one who will, when liberals rightfully try to alleviate the excesses wealth inequality, remind liberals not to go so far that they disincentivise personal initiative and personal responsibility.

[Celerity]

19. personal responsibility in the US means I got mine, fuck you, go look for some bootstraps on yer own

It is a RW talking point to infer that people will lack personal initiative simple because of a more expansive welfare state than the threadbare joke of one that exists now.

[Silent3]

28. The phrase "personal responsibility" doesn't have to have that particular coded meaning...

...and nothing else, however. When it is treated as having a more literal meaning, that's when in becomes a useful concept.

[Celerity]

29. It was long ago weaponised in the US to the point it is no longer a useful concept there. nt

[Silent3]

30. Of course it's a useful concept.

You might perfer to find different words, perhaps, if you feel a need to disassociate with past abuses of the concept, but of course personal responsibility itself still exists.

What many of us here on DU are desperately longing for is to see Trump and his cronies forced to take personal responsibility for the damage they've caused, hopefully in the form of long jail sentences (yeah, not too likely, especially for Trump himself, but we can dream).

If I were religious (which I'm not) I'd not be too happy to be a liberal Christian and have my belief system so badly tarnished by the way the right wing has weaponized the word "Christianity", but that doesn't suddenly make Christianity itself "no longer a useful concept". The basic meaning behind the word doesn't disappear because the word itself has been abused.

[Tommymac]

61. I disagree. Personal Responsibility as an idea

has died long ago in the USA if it ever really existed.

Go back to 1942 and the U-Boat offensive against the USA - it took over 6 months for the government to FORCE beach resorts and eastern cities such as Miami and NYC to turn of the damn lights at night so the subs would not have easy targets highlighted by the neon signs. In fact, I believe NYC sued the federal government in attempt to keep the lights on in Times Square.

Beaches and tourism were more important then keeping merchant sailors alive - a blackout infringed on peoples right to have fun.

We are inherently a selfish society.

[Silent3]

64. "We are an inherently a selfish society", so... what? Give up on talking about it?

That's a ridiculous take on this. "We aren't personally responsible, we're too selfish, so therefore the idea has no meaning. Don't say that anymore!"

[Tommymac]

65. Hide from a fact and I would be just like HIM.

American Culture is inherently selfish. It is in our culture and can be traced back to the very begiining of it.

Don;t want t ohear it, or don't agree, fine. But never tell me not to say anythung. You have no right. Disagree yes, - but tell me to shut up - goodbye.

Good day and happy ignore to you.

[Silent3]

66. I think you failed to notice the quote marks.

I never told you not to say anything, or to shut up.

And there's nothing in my words that in anyway involves hiding from any facts either.

[Mopar151]

49. Rachael Maddow calls them "small c conservatives"

I call them "Merrriam-Webster Conservatives" Careful, thrifty, capable of kindness, fair and honest. To quote Howard Dean (badly..) "If you want to have money to help people, you can't waste it!"
I have also heard the term "Ikes" (Eisenhower conservatives, education and infrastructure are investments), and "Main Street Republicans" (Gerald Ford was the last example, nationally)

[Blue_true]

37. They have always been about hatred and resentment of something.

They have never had a visionary idea of how to truly make society a better place for all of us.

[NRaleighLiberal]

38. that's my view.

[Blue_true]

44. They had it, to some extent in Lincoln and Grant.

But after those two, big business took over the party and eventually the Dixiecrats, with their race based hatred and extreme religious views flooded into the party after the Democratic Party started to fully embrace civil rights for Black people starting in 1948

[gratuitous]

4. Glad enough to see it

But after all the shenanigans of the last Bush administration, including the torturing, indefinite detention, domestic spying, lying the country into two wars (that continue to this day), and the rest of it, I still have a reserve of head-shaking disbelief that it took the Trump administration to finally get some people off their dead and dying asses.

[zentrum]

18. Agreed.

[Thomas Hurt]

6. still can't bring themselves to say fascist...

[AZ8theist]

8. Fuck her..

"NOW" Repukes are a problem???
She advanced their agenda every chance she got.
Fuck her.

[sarge43]

17. Second that

It took her four years to come to that conclusion??

After taking children away from their families and locking them in cages to hand waving away Russian bounties on American soldiers.

Pottery Barn rule, sweetie: You broke it; you pay for it.

[tulipsandroses]

24. Jennifer Rubin has always spoke out against Trump. It didn't take her 4 yrs to figure it out

She's a regular guest on MSNBC. Even before he got the republican nomination, she was against him.

[Celerity]

34. She is still a huge fangirl of the underlying memes and modes of government that led to Trump.

Her vision of governance is that of a fundamentally unchained, for the most part, laissez faire hellscape of corporate control, buttressed by a globalised, hyper-built American military clutching at maintenance of the petrodollar matrix as the dominant geo-political, geo-economic force.

[AZ8theist]

35. Oh, how soon we forget about the GWBush boot licking by Rubin......

[Blue_true]

42. She is an adherent of the George Will philosophy of small government.

They confused small government with efficient government and never realized their delusion. In reality, democratic Presidents and Congresses have far out-performed Republican ones on the economy and meaningful societal chance for over three quarters of a century.

They see us as the potential saviors that can slay the demons that they helped created and give them their party back. But except for Stuart Stevens, I have yet to see one of them do a deep introspective analysis of all they once held dear and agree that it was all a mirage.

[RhodeIslandOne]

48. She knew it was the end of Reagan/Bush era Rethugs.

She wanted puke to stay employed instead of feces.

[quakerboy]

58. And how about Bush?

How about Pence? How about Mitch and Collins?

Trump has only been the next logical step in supporting a long line of terrible people and ideas that the right have forced upon us. anyone who supported the whole rest of the doom train is not a person to be giving great credibility.

[Celerity]

20. +1000

[aggiesal]

23. You beat me to it ...

She's been an opinion writer for the last 20 years,
she help bring on, this current scourge of Pendejo45.

So she can't hide behind her, "no longer conservative" writing.

[Hekate]

9. I'm glad to see this. "Conservative" no longer means any of the things "conservatives" used to ...

...believe in back when they were credible, responsible, believed in good government, and could work across the aisle.

[andym]

10. Note that she doesn't really believe in liberal social programs either AFAIK

and most likely is a strong free market advocate. Rather she is a traditional Republican whose party has become unrecognizable. She is neither a Democrat nor a Trumpublican.

[RhodeIslandOne]

13. She just wants Mitt or John Kasich

A Conservative who's polite about fucking America over.

[BadGimp]

11. Another casualty resulting from #GOPSurrender

[RhodeIslandOne]

12. I remember how she thought Mitt Romney was going to be an awesome President

Ms. Rubin and her buddies Bill Kristol and Mike Steele can kindly shut the fuck up.

[Crunchy Frog]

22. I'm always very happy to see Mike Steele speak out, and

as much as I've loathed Bill Kristol in the past, and very likely in the future, I think he's doing an outstanding job with RVAT.

Mike Steele was on fire last night on the 11th Hour. We need as many hands on deck as possible right now IMO.

Start about 1:22 min in.

[moonscape]

26. He really was (on fire). That's

the most emotional I think I’ve ever seen him.

[Dem2]

14. I remember chiding her in an email a few years ago

I was pleasantly surprised to see that she has acted as if she almost took my advice.

[LiberalLovinLug]

15. The USA should probably have 4 parties (not counting Libertarian and Green)

We always witness the divide between the left and right in the Democratic party. With AOC going so far as saying that in another country, Biden and her would be in different parties. Its such a cause of contention in here that's for sure. Letting them have their own party would solve a lot of angst on the left. But only of course if there was also a new QAnon Tea Party along with a revamped Never-Trumper Lincoln Project, moderate Republican Conservative party. To balance things out

With the concept of having two other parties to represent the extremes in both two major parties. And the assumption that each of those new parties would back their more moderate sister parties in legislation they agreed with, much like Sanders, an Independent, usually votes with Democrats.

I know I'd feel more relieved to know that most likely the more extreme QAnon Tea Party, or Trump Party, would never gain a majority, even if it means the AOC/Sanders New Revolution party would also be marginalized. (They already are anyways).

It would keep the two major parties more moderate every election, but with an eye over their shoulders.

Just ruminating here, Vote Blue always of course!

[Celerity]

21. A lack of proportional representation will be one of the long wave constitutional flaws that does

the union in. The Senate itself is another, as is the Electoral College, and a far newer one, the rise of the imperial presidency over the past 50 to 55 years or so. The poorly written, nebulous, 2nd Amendment is yet another.

[LiberalLovinLug]

32. Good points

Yeah, PR should be the norm for every democracy. It would not only be fairer representation, but make it easier for new parties to have inroads. New parties = new ideas. Never a bad thing. And those new ideas would not be taken seriously unless they held some kind of power, ie. PR.




*again, vote Blue! Not advocating for voting third party in November (I can't believe I have to do this) We should be able to discuss broader political projections without being accused of being traitors to the Democratic party.

[MoonchildCA]

52. Is it poorly written,

...or poorly interpreted?

[Celerity]

55. both

[Roy Rolling]

16. One thought

Republican racists now claim they are currently great emancipators in the image of Lincoln. They also claim Democrats were the party of slavery—which at one time some Democrats were guilty.

Labels change. People seldom do. And time makes fools of us all if we equate the two.

People like Rubin and Michael Steele don’t need to pass a purity test to participate in the debate about why Trumpism is fascism 2.0. They have a platform most, if not all, of us don’t have. If they’re using that platform to help me defeat fascism, I don’t care what flag they once flew under.

The corruption of the English language is a gigantic element of propaganda. The words “liberal” and “conservative” need to be taken away from zealots and redefined accurately.

[hibbing]

25. Jennifer, you a big fan of Saint Reagan?

All those attributes you apply to the current Republican party also apply perfectly to the man and party then. I guess we can be thankful it took you 40 years to realize it.


Peace

[Cha]

31. KR.. All HANDS on DECK!

[Sympthsical]

33. Translation: Republicans aren't paying me anymore

Now she wants liberals to.

People don’t seem to get this about a lot of Never Trumpers. Trump dislodged them from their comfortable DC social pecking order. They would have been perfectly content with a Bush, Rubio, or Cruz. They’d bang a drum for Cheney.

Trump wasn’t supposed to take over a party they largely felt they had some control and say in. They were the political equivalent of Instagram influencers. But the base moved on to a carnival barker, and they’re pissed about their diminished influence.

I love that she threw systemic racism in there. Like she ever gave a shit before. She’s just sniffing after the cash she figures she’s likeliest to find nowadays.

I wish people wouldn’t celebrate her. It’s like the fawning over Steve Schmidt. I know he hates Trump for much the same reason. Let’s have him as a friendly enemy until Nov. 3rd. But he’s not some awesome genius of great insight and wisdom. This is the man who gave us Palin.

[DFW]

39. She had better not show this to Richard Viguerie

There will be a shootout in the middle of Constitution Avenue !

Oh, and as for the definition of "conservative" vs. Republican, I suggest she get herself a good dictionary (one the preferably does NOT tell you to form a plural with an apostrophe). Less or small government is a conservative concept. It's a right-wing Republican concept. Just because Republicans have hijacked a word doesn't mean they get to transform its meaning. They can wade into the ocean, too. It still doesn't turn them into fish.

If you want to play with words, you use them to MAKE jokes, not to become one.

[Raine]

41. She's only sore because she's no longer one of the party insiders

that she would've been if Jeb or Mitt had become president.

[warmfeet]

43. tRumpublicans, republicans, conservatives, whatever!

They all suck.

I will never again entertain the thought of compromising with one of these disingenuous pricks.

They have as much use to me as toe jam. Wash them away and move on.

[StrictlyRockers]

54. Screw her

I can't stand her. She can f off with all this soul-searching crap. Too little, way too late.

[czarjak]

56. Can y'all ever really be an Ex...

Jen? You built this! So, no way, do you get a pass here.

[quakerboy]

57. There hasnt been a conservative movement in the country in my lifetime

The republican party has been wholeheartedly a meeting of compatable racists, religeous powerbrokers, and the wealthy elite for longer than i have been alive. The only thing that has happened now is that the thin veil they used to pretend to be "conservative" has been even more blatantly shredded.

I have 0% trust for any public person, and precious few private persons for whom this is the turning point. Rats who want to abandon ship after knowingly gnawing holes in the hull are not exactly sympathetic or reliable.

[Grins]

59. Conservatism has been a fraud for more than two centuries.

Conservatives, then called Tories before and during the American Revolution - backed the King!!

Someone defined it as the philosophy of: "If you get more, then I get less."

And that includes getting the right to vote - because if an African-American or an immigrant gets to vote that means his vote means less. And you can extend that to everything in American culture.

[Warpy]

60. Dear Jennifer: Thank you for finally noticing what se've seen for many years.

Coming to the party late is better than never showing up, at all.

Republicans have never wanted to conserve anything. They are radical reactionaries blinded by dogma that has never worked in practice. Nixon brought in the bigots, Reagan prought in the religious nuts. Glad you've noticed that, after all these years.

[Zambero]

62. "Conservative" defined, then and now

Pre-Trump = Astroturf
Trump Era = Scorched Earth

[SleeplessinSoCal]

63. conservative somehow morphed into right wing extremists

Possibly because Democrats embrace conservatives into their party via blue dogs and an occasional religious fanatic. It was either Iraq or gay rights that purged all liberals/progressives from the GOP. Arlen Spector for example. One of the last moderates in the GOP.