Understanding the Conservative Mindset

[Beelzebuddy]

Trump is not a conservative in any meaningful ideological sense,

Sure he is.

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

That's Stinky to a tee, even if he's never been literate enough to understand it.

[ETA] Yes I know you're doing a thing, but still. It fits. He's not an outlier of the conservative process, he's the inevitable conclusion. Everyone saying otherwise is just worried the frog ain't boiled enough yet.

 

[Trausti]

Sure he is.

That's Stinky to a tee, even if he's never been literate enough to understand it.

[ETA] Yes I know you're doing a thing, but still. It fits. He's not an outlier of the conservative process, he's the inevitable conclusion. Everyone saying otherwise is just worried the frog ain't boiled enough yet.

Communists are the conservatives? Mind. Blown.

“your punishment for having a knife when they
searched you would be very different from the thief's. For him to
have a knife was mere misbehavior, tradition, he didn't know any
better. But for you to have one was "terrorism.” ― Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

 

[dann]

Conservatives love to say that everyone is conservative about what they love. They want to keep it the same. Even if you advocate change for an organization you belong to, it's probably because it will make the group stronger.

Communists, socialists and even some (U.S.) liberals want to keep Earth's climate the same.
Conservatives, libertarians and Nazis want to keep the extraction of fossil fuels (and not least the profits made by extracting and selling them) the same, which is why they also want to maintain (or 'conserve') the ideology that anthropogenic global warming isn't real.

Communists, socialists and even some (U.S.) liberals want to improve the living conditions of poor people, not least their health and lives.
Conservatives and libertarians want to improve conditions for the rich, which is why they maintain prevalent ideologies like triple-down economics and pie in the sky when you die.

True Nazis adhere to the John F. Kennedy ideology. They want citizens to live (and die) it out:
"Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." i.e. the purpose of each and every citizen is to serve the nation. True patriotism is to sacrifice your life and well-being for your country.
In early 2020, it was apparent how close conservatism is to national socialism:
Texas' lieutenant governor suggests grandparents are willing to die for US economy (USA Today, March 24, 2020)
(As if the Kennedy motto hadn't already made it clear.)
It was what have rise to the movement of Covid minimizers because people's willingness to die for the economy isn't something you can depend on. It requires targeted disinformation!

Conservatives, centrists and Nazis are aware that members of the Epstein class are exempt from the moral of this ideology. It is meant for ordinary people, not for oligarchs. Oligarchs love the uneducated and pretend to have bone spurs ...

 

[theprestige]

Sure he is.

By that definition, this forum is a bastion of conservativism.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Communists are the conservatives? Mind. Blown.

any Centrally Planned Economy is by necessity Conservative, as it is very hard to incorporate economic, political or social change into an ongoing multi-year plan.

 

[Steve]

Understanding a conservative mindset is quite easy. Many conservative ideas are quite reasonable.

Then we have the US right wing, religious right, and MAGArats who in no way resemble conservatives.

 

[jimbob]

The "conservative mindset" is a very simple one - things shouldn't change, most of what tries to clothe itself as "conservative" policies these days are in fact "right" policies, not conservative policies.

Yup.

There's a reason why I describe Rees-Mogg as

Radical right wing authoritarianism, to use my description of Jacob Rees-Mogg's agenda that he hides under the persona of a laughably fuddy duddy buffoon and why I despise him even more than Johnson.

Although Junkshop's reply works too

Yup. He is a dangerously malicious bastard cosplaying as a ridiculous, ineffectual twig. Thank ◊◊◊◊ he lost his seat eventually.

 

[arthwollipot]

Understanding a conservative mindset is quite easy. Many conservative ideas are quite reasonable.

Then we have the US right wing, religious right, and MAGArats who in no way resemble conservatives.

It's almost as though the labels "conservative" and "liberal" are completely without practical utility.

 

[dann]

Understanding a conservative mindset is quite easy.

Yes. Did anybody claim that it was difficult?

Many conservative ideas are quite reasonable.

No, they're not. They're not at all reasonable. But conservatives like to pretend that they are.

Conservatism (Wikipedia)
In Western culture, depending on the particular nation and the particular time period, conservatives seek to promote and preserve a range of institutions, such as the nuclear family, organized religion, the military, the nation-state, property rights, rule of law, aristocracy, and monarchy.
(...)
Beliefs and principles
Scholars have tried to define conservatism as a set of beliefs or principles. Political scientist Andrew Heywood argues that the five central beliefs of conservatism are tradition, human imperfection, organic society, authority/hierarchy, and property. Historian Russell Kirk developed five canons of conservatism in The Conservative Mind (1953):

• A belief in a transcendent order, which Kirk described variously as based in tradition, divine revelation, or natural law;
• An affection for the "variety and mystery" of human existence;
• A conviction that society requires orders and classes that emphasize natural distinctions;
• A belief that property and freedom are closely linked;
• A faith in custom, convention, and prescription, and a recognition that innovation must be tied to existing traditions and customs, which entails a respect for the political value of prudence.

Then we have the US right wing, religious right, and MAGArats who in no way resemble conservatives.

Then we have the U.S. right wing, religious right, and MAGA inlfluencers who in every way resemble conservatives because that's what they are. They're just slightly more radical in their conservatism and open about it, i.e. they no longer pretend to care for the environment and human beings other than their immediate family and cronies – and they care for those only as long as they're useful to them. Instead of pretending like Biden, "We are America. We can do both," they say it out loud, "Drill, baby, drill."

This is what some conservatives can't forgive him for. They long for the time when conservative politicians didn't give the game away by openly admitting to it. They know it endangers their interests to point it out to the people who went along with Biden's version of conservatism and stayed complacent. Trump's in-your-face corruption and cronyism makes it much too obvious what conservatism is always about. The old-fashioned conservatives fear for the morale of dispossessed.

See, Steve? Understanding a conservative mindset is actually quite easy! You make it much too difficult by pretending that it's something other than what it is.

 

[Steve]

Yes. Did anybody claim that it was difficult?

No, they're not. They're not at all reasonable. But conservatives like to pretend that they are.



Then we have the U.S. right wing, religious right, and MAGA inlfluencers who in every way resemble conservatives because that's what they are. They're just slightly more radical in their conservatism and open about it, i.e. they no longer pretend to care for the environment and human beings other than their immediate family and cronies – and they care for those only as long as they're useful to them. Instead of pretending like Biden, "We are America. We can do both," they say it out loud, "Drill, baby, drill."

This is what some conservatives can't forgive him for. They long for the time when conservative politicians didn't give the game away by openly admitting to it. They know it endangers their interests to point it out to the people who went along with Biden's version of conservatism and stayed complacent. Trump's in-your-face corruption and cronyism makes it much too obvious what conservatism is always about. The old-fashioned conservatives fear for the morale of dispossessed.

See, Steve? Understanding a conservative mindset is actually quite easy! You make it much too difficult by pretending that it's something other than what it is.

Whoa, dude! Much anger here. Not good for your blood pressure. Calm down and tell me what I am pretending it is. Please be concise - no more rants.

 

[arthwollipot]

Anger?

 

[theprestige]

Anger?

Do you have a problem with making pronouncements about someone's mindset based on what they say and do?

 

[arthwollipot]

Do you have a problem with making pronouncements about someone's mindset based on what they say and do?

Not at all, I just didn't see any anger in @dann's post. Certainly not enough to justify a "whoa dude". "Calm down"? @dann was as calm as anyone.

 

[dann]

Whoa, dude! Much anger here. Not good for your blood pressure. Calm down and tell me what I am pretending it is. Please be concise - no more rants.

I was specific and gave you examples – and even links to some of those examples – very much unlike you who simply claimed that many conservative ideas are quite reasonable. I don't think you understand the meaning of concise. You seem to confuse it with being vague and postulating. You were as unspecific as you could possibly be and didn't mention a single example of the alleged reasonableness of many conservative ideas.
And instead of telling us about those allegedly reasonable ideas in your next post, you're tone policing.

More examples in this very short video: climate, elections, Jan 6 insurrection, pet-eating immigrants, vaccines ...
Why Conservatives Lie And Don't Care Who It Hurts (Lucas Bean on YouTube, June 14, 2026 – 2:33 min.)

 

[dann]

Do you have a problem with making pronouncements about someone's mindset based on what they say and do?

More tone policing.
Besides lying, it's one of the argumentative tricks conservatives are good at and thus resort to.

 

[Lithrael]

Off topic, but are people intentionally cutting their videos to make it look like they're speaking in AI generated chunks, or was this already a style thing and that's why nobody seems to be able to notice when a video is made of AI generated chunks?

ETA to reply to Darat below without cluttering the thread - lol, yes, I follow a few flesh and blood youtubers whose voices sound filtered or like AI narration and it's always funny when they're in the comments pointing people to proof of life! 'No, that's just me! Look, go to my channel to see me in a video that's been up since 2007!'

 

[Darat]

Off topic, but are people intentionally cutting their videos to make it look like they're speaking in AI generated chunks, or was this already a style thing and that's why nobody seems to be able to notice when a video is made of AI generated chunks?

There's one that I listen to for the AI news and he is always being called out for being an AI voice - but he was making the videos with the same voice before AI voices started to even begin to sound human.

 

[dirtywick]

Off topic, but are people intentionally cutting their videos to make it look like they're speaking in AI generated chunks, or was this already a style thing and that's why nobody seems to be able to notice when a video is made of AI generated chunks?

ETA to reply to Darat below without cluttering the thread - lol, yes, I follow a few flesh and blood youtubers whose voices sound filtered or like AI narration and it's always funny when they're in the comments pointing people to proof of life! 'No, that's just me! Look, go to my channel to see me in a video that's been up since 2007!'

it’s a youtube editing technique. they edit out basically all the dead air, and many of them can’t speak clearly without a mistake for a long time, and to do as few takes as possible, they edit pieces together sometimes in the middle of sentences. it often looks/sounds like a bunch of jump cuts

 

[dann]

L i l y on bsky, June 15, 2026

 

[dudalb]

It's almost as though the labels "conservative" and "liberal" are completely without practical utility.

I guess that some of us refuse to follow a party line is hard to understand.