At this point there are all of about twelve people left in the United States who are conservative AND opposed to Donald Trump.
They all work for the
Atlantic or the
Weekly Standard, grifting perfunctory clicks out of liberals who fancy themselves broad-minded.
They regard themselves as gentlemen, men of honour, the last champions of chivalry, because they gave us the Iraq War and the surveillance state and the financial crisis in the
right way, without resorting to cuss words on Twitter. Good day to you, Sir!
But apart from these rare and endangered birds, nothing remains of American conservatism independent of Donald Trump.
True, a small proportion of Trump voters are poor, confused, and desperate, and the Democrats deserved to lose for not even bothering to compete for them.
But the overwhelming majority of American conservatives are white, elderly, suburban, and eminently comfortable Trump supporters.
The welfare state was invented to service their every need, and they are helbent on hoarding their privileges. Their education, housing, healthcare, salaries, security, pensions, and savings have all been subsidised cradle-to-grave, by a state that forcibily barred anyone but other white men from competing for jobs and resources.
Yet they maintain an exquisite sense of martydom, their victimhood carefully fostered over the years by the procession of grifters and demagogues that is the post-Civil Rights Republican Party. They are history's most pampered generation, yet they are still JUST SO ANGRY, ALL THE TIME!!!
They vote for Trump not out of any ideological vision, or dreams of a better future, but because they are triggered by uppity black athletes infringing upon their sunday afternoon safe space. Or because the single mothers on minimum wage at the Applebees sometimes fail to attend them with the servility to which they're accustomed. Or because their grandchildren have tattoos and treat gay people like human beings and roll their eyes whenever grandpa falls back on his favourite gripes about "
those people".
To scratch these most trivial of itches, they are prepared to rip up the rule of law, the constitution, international order, and even the climate itself, righteously shaking their fists at the clouds while the Republicans sow corruption and plutocracy that's staggering even by American standards.
American conservatives function like parasites, instinctively enriching themselves to the last breath even if destroys the host.
And the planet might never recover.
