Conservatism

in the time of coronavirus.

It’s time to get our fiscal house in order.

And no, reforming conservatism should not include embracing the New Deal.

On that last link, I hadn’t been aware that Conrad Black is an admirer of FDR. That’s disappointing.

[April 1st update]

Conrad Black responds.

[Bumped]

5 thoughts on “Conservatism”

  1. I’ve long been a fiscal conservative, and I very much agree that we need to get our financial house in order.

    There are many things that need to change. One of the first IMHO is paying off the 2 trillion we just plunged ourselves deeper in debt with.

    For a start, how about knocking 1.4 trillion off that debt? Do it just the same way that a liability judgement offsets a debt (And for the same reasons), and cancel the 1.4 trillion in US treasuries China holds.

  2. The misconception is that Mr. Trump is a conservative.

    What he really “is” is a Democrat. Or least what Democrats used to be when they were a mixture of a mild case of corruption, a high degree of pragmatism, an appeal to the factory worker and skill trade classes and a dash of populism. You know, before Democrats went all Intersectional and Climate Changey. The kind of Democrat who as Chicago Mayor and his police officers, who att the 1968 Convention were battering current-style Democrats.

    1. If the Dems hadn’t been blinded by their furor over losing an election they’d thought was so rigged they couldn’t possibly lose, they’d have realized that with the right nice things said, Trump would’ve “grown in office” more than any other Republican, and given them plenty of cover to get all sorts of things done.

      a high degree of pragmatism

      That they never purged the Segregationists from their ranks, even after they started accusing the GOP of racism, but let them die in office is a great example of this.

      1. What I remember from Mr. Trump’s victory speech in 2016 1) “lock her up” was not going to take place, he was going to be magnanimous in victory and 2) he wanted a yuge infrastructure program.

        “Lock her up” to not take place was an olive branch — the expectation was that the Democrats would not set out to lock him up. Yeah, yeah obvious criminality needs to be punished, except when it includes that bathroom-closet e-mail server, but you get the idea, the offer was that that the Trump Administration and the Democrats would afford each other “some space.”

        The infrastructure plan was meant to be a bipartisan initiative because that is, to say the least, not the first thing on the lips of conservative activists.

        The hatred of Mr. Trump was so strong that none of these happened. I guess the crisis was so strong that Ms. Pelosi backed off from Green New Deal in the 2 trillion dollar rescue package — did she?

        But you get the idea.

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