What's The Difference Between A Conservative And A Reactionary Or A Fascist?

19th century American poet, essayist and champion of individual freedoms, Ralph Waldo Emerson, had a pretty good definition of what it means to be a conservative in his The Conduct of Life: "All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position of nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive." Sounds about right to me, although the mass media they own sure doesn't paint them so, not in the 21st century.

In fact, reading the Beltway-centric media about politics can only leave the uninitiated utterly confused about what a conservative is. The Beltway media never-- never, never, never-- describes political conservatives as reactionaries, fanatics, fascists or even authoritarians. Conservative Democrats and mainstream conservative Republicans are routinely dubbed "moderates" and virulent racists and certifiably insane right-wing extremists are often contrasted with actual GOP conservatives by implying they are more conservative, whatever that's supposed to mean.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines conservatism as "a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change" and "the tendency to prefer an existing or traditional situation to change." They don't even offer a cohesive definition of a reactionary or reactionarism, although they suggest synonyms like "archconservative, brassbound, button-down (or buttoned-down), die-hard, hidebound, mossbacked, old-fashioned, old-line, old-school, orthodox, paleoconservative, conservative, standpat, traditional, traditionalistic, ultraconservative, and unprogressive" and antonyms like "broad-minded, large-minded, liberal, nonconservative, nonconventional, nonorthodox, nontraditional, open-minded, progressive, unconventional, and unorthodox."

Fascism is defined as "a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition."

For now, we'll leave out a different definition implicit in the results of a just released Bloomberg poll that found, by a large margin (55-34%), that Americans believe Republicans are acting “more out of antagonism towards Obama” than out of a "deep belief in their vision for the country." (By contrast, Americans believe by 54-36% that Obama is more driven by his vision than by antagonism towards Republicans.) Because what we're talking about here is the Republican Party civil war and the media's refusal to even recognize a language to explain it coherently.

Monday evening Henry Decker as the National Memo tried distinguishing from the conservative Establishment and the fascist-oriented extremists by referring to the latter as true conservatives.

For years, GOP activists have insisted that their party can only return to the White House by anointing a “true conservative” as the party’s standard bearer.

But a new Bloomberg Politics Poll turns that Republican precept, and a few other pieces of conventional wisdom, on its head.

The poll, released Monday, tested former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chances against five Republicans-- former Florida governor Jeb Bush, New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Texas senator Ted Cruz, Kentucky senator Rand Paul, and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney-- in hypothetical 2016 presidential matchups. It found that Clinton holds solid leads over all five, which is hardly a surprise considering her overwhelming name recogntion advantage (94 percent of voters have formed an opinion of Clinton-- 52 percent view her favorably and 42 percent view her unfavorably-- while less than 80 percent have an opinion on each of the Republicans aside from the well-known Romney).

But the underlying data should give Republicans pause as they consider their options in what is sure to be a contentious presidential primary. Although the right constantly preaches that only one of their own can win the White House, the poll finds the more moderate Republicans running much closer to Clinton than the Tea Party-aligned candidates. Clinton leads Bush, Christie, and Romney by 6 percent each in head-to-head matchups. Meanwhile, she holds an 8 percent lead over Paul, and a 13 percent edge over Cruz.

Cruz and Paul’s right-wing reputations appear to be hurting them with voters. When asked which candidate better shares their values, Clinton leads Bush and Romney by just 6 and 3 percentage points, respectively. By contrast, she leads Paul on that measure by 13 points, and Cruz by 15. Christie lags behind Clinton by 14 points on this measure, perhaps illustrating some residual damage from his George Washington Bridge scandal. In any case, it seems clear that voters are not identifying with the most conservative Republicans in the field.

Over on the right, there is less reluctance to differentiate between the extremists, racists and fanatics and the rest of the conservatives. Yesterday The Federalist was railing against the big GOP donors who are trying to side-line the 2016 far right contenders.

Although the specifics are still hazy, the New York Times reports that a group of deep-pocketed Republican donors and bundlers have hatched a plan to clear the GOP field of all insurgents to make room for a favored “establishment” candidate-- preferably Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, or Mitt Romney. But there can only be one.

This strikes me as a dubious strategy for a number of reasons. But the main point of the Times piece is to inform everyone that Republican powerbrokers intend to get ahead of the intraparty squabbling that accompanies the long primary season because, in the end, all of that ugliness only helps elect Hillary Clinton.

...[T]here’s scant evidence that bypassing crowded primaries enhances a party’s chances of winning a national election. If you take a look at some of the “wide-open races” (ones without preordained vice presidential successors) over the past decades, you’ll find that plenty of candidates prevailed in the general after winning competitive-- and sometimes acrimonious-- party contests. Ronald Reagan in 1980. Bill Clinton in 1992. George W. Bush in 2000. Barack Obama in 2008. In some cases, it was the establishment that was won over in the process. All of these races determined the course of party politics for years.

These days, there is incessant whining about the slog of the primary and debate season from the media. This might just be a perfunctory complaint. But it’s also wrong. Politics has a ton of problems, but too much debate isn’t one of them.

We’ve all heard that primaries help hone a candidate’s skills or test the candidate’s organization or allow us to see how a candidate reacts to intense scrutiny. True. But sometimes a primary makes the candidate. A lot of people watched Obama beat Hillary-- and inevitability-- in 2008. The Obama mythos was secured before he ever had to repel a real GOP attack. By the general election, it was probably too late to stop his momentum. I bet Hillary wished there had been a compressed primary season that year.

And 2016 might be a bit different in other ways, as well. After seven years of functioning as the opposition, Republicans may actually have to sort out some substantive differences on policy. Coronations do not lend themselves to self-examination.

Jeb Bush recently told the Wall Street Journal that a Republican nominee should be willing to “lose the primary to win the general without violating your principles.” I imagine what he likely meant to say was that a principled candidate should be willing to make his case on Common Core or immigration reform, even if his positions are detested by most rank-and-file conservatives. Those are certainly debates worth having. And with the probable inclusion of Rand Paul in the mix, there will also likely be debates centered on foreign policy, domestic spying, criminal justice reform, and other issues that big donors would rather avoid.

Then again, if you’re interesting in generating recrimination and anger, there is no more effective strategy than having a complete disdain for your party’s democratic process. Attempting to crowd out competition with big dollars isn’t new. But let’s not forget that those designated kingmakers of the GOP in the Times piece have had a tendency to make appallingly bad political choices.

No one can deny which end of the GOP Texas crackpot Louie Gohmert is part of. He was the only co-sponsor of Yoho's forced deportation bill who voted against the bill because he claimed it was a trick not to deport enough people. And he opposed the defense funding bill for similar reasons.

The Hill is the perfect example of a Beltway operation unable to figure out what to call the radical right. Headline from Monday: Conservatives complain House GOP leaders ramming through spending bill. "Conservatives?" Meaning John Boehner and and his team aren't conservatives?

House conservatives are griping that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is putting the squeeze on them by rushing through a $1 trillion spending bill in Congress’s last week in session.

Appropriators are expected to roll out the legislation early next week, giving critics scant time to figure out what’s inside before they cast their votes by the end of the week. The government would shut down on Dec. 12 without a new funding bill.

“Here we are doing the appropriations bill the last couple days” before a government shutdown, conservative Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas) said in an interview this week. “That’s not to squeeze Harry Reid. That’s to squeeze us.”

Boehner critics say there’s no reason the Speaker couldn’t have brought the spending package to the floor this past week, giving the House more time to consider it.

But doing so would also give more time for the right to build a case against it.

...Boehner signaled it's unlikely he'll make any significant changes to the package’s framework, ignoring demands by immigration hard-liners to include language to de-fund the implementation of Obama’s immigration actions, which could give legal status to up to five million undocumented workers.

GOP leaders appear to have much of their conference behind them, though many conservatives are expected to vote no.

“I think the fix is in,” Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) told The Hill.

He wanted GOP leaders to bring the spending package to the floor this past week with stronger immigration language. That way, the House would have had time to respond to any changes the Senate made to the legislation.

Boehner instead called a vote Thursday on a messaging bill that rebukes Obama’s immigration move, a measure the Senate will not take up.

“I’ve implored them. I’ve begged them. I’ve spoken in various meetings so that we wouldn’t be up against some crisis… This is not the way it’s supposed to be done,” Salmon said.

Some conservatives acknowledge that they’ll have no chance of blocking the cromnibus if House Democrats decide to get on board. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warned Republicans Friday not to bog down the package with “destructive” riders, including proposals to roll back environmental regulations or halt a new law that legalizes marijuana in D.C.

But sources in both parties said they expect a good number of Democrats to cross the aisle and vote for the spending plan in the end. Especially since it’s based on months of work from House and Senate appropriators from both parties.