I was reading THIS article from 538 on where most republican voters get their news from and somehow I started to ruminate of the decline of conservatism which has accelerated startlingly sine trump became President.
When I was growing up it was conservatives who were leading intellectuals not the 'left wing'. Now it appears to be the complete opposite.
Whether it be fox news ( and bear in mind what the article says) in the USA or here alleged conservatives are quite anti-intellectual. They almost take pride in being astionstonishinly ignorant on any topic.Indeed they can be incoherent on topics. Climate change and the pandemic being obvious topics.
In Australia it is depressing and it appears to be worse in the USA. Whether it be the Murdoch press, Sky after dark or Catallaxy. It matters not. In the end they are cheerleaders for the Liberal National party most of the time and fiercely anti Labor. Any arguments can be easily dismissed by a simpleton like myself which says a lot.
Why is this so? Murdoch discovered that right wing uneducated rednecks will pay to hear mostly angry old men say at best highly distorted information and at worst outright lies. This was occurring before Trump however Trump exacerbated this trend. Although Trump boasted about his intelligence most punters knew he was a dill just like them. He was not one of the 'elites'. Here in lies the irony. Almost every person I hear decry the 'elites' is an elite ( usually) himself. take Alan Jones as a good example here.
We in Australia are fortunate that our 'conservative' parties have not yet become contaminated like the republicans in the USA. Two examples there for show.
Lynn Cheney whose conservative credentials are impeccable (unlike Trump) is being hounded out of the Republican party merely because she does not believe the lies of Trump about the election and believes he should take the consequences of his action for January 6. Those republicans who are conservatives and have an intellect are part of the Lincoln project. formed to put Trump out of office because he is no conservative for reasons I have written about many times.
Republicans are so confident of their position they are on a wholesale restriction on voting rights!
These 'conservatives' world wide are populists with authoritarian tendencies. Administratively they are usually incompetent which is usually the case if your main aim is to reverse grievance that have little evidence to support them.
Will 'conservatives revert back to where they were previously or is this a permanent trend. I do not know hope it is not the case.
I should have added this is bad for both 'right wing ' and 'left wing' thought. A decline in right wing thought leads to flabby left wing thought and vica versa.
i have written about many times,
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