Source: The Atlantic
by Eliot A Cohen
“Labels matter in politics. They can also lose their meaning. There is, for example, nothing ‘conservative’ about the MAGA movement, which is, in large part, reactionary, looking for a return to an idealized past, when it is not merely a cult of personality. … To call those made politically homeless by the rise of Donald Trump ‘conservatives’ no longer makes sense. To be a conservative is to want to slow down or stop change and preserve institutions and practices as they are, or to enable them to evolve slowly. But in recent decades, so much damage has been inflicted on norms of public speech and conduct that it is not enough to slow the progress of political decay. To the extent that the plain meaning of the word conservatism is indeed a commitment to preservation, that battle has been lost, and on multiple fronts.” (11/26/24)