We should call Republicans reactionary NOT conservative.

[JHB]

12. Absolutely NOT. This reactionary movement has spent over 50 years calling itself 'conservative'...

...and encouraging as many people as possible to embrace that word as their identity. You can't invite everybody to stay at your house and then say "Oh, no, those people aren't with us" when you're embarrassed about your previous bedfellows pissing out the windows.

Rubin fairly gets credit for being one of the people who spent years dismissing those people as a small fringe but finally realizing that she and people like her were the actual fringe group, but she still can't deal with how much of this was being put into place years, decades ago while she was still having warm fuzzy thoughts about her movement.

Add to that: Get real. This is the United States. Nobody but lefties and intellectuals know the meaning of the word "reactionary" in this context. It has no impact, no resonance, no identity. It's a barracuda in "Jaws." This is politics. Nobody cares about fiddly technical definitions.