The decline and failure of American conservatism

It’s not news that the GOP is becoming increasingly ineffectual against the left and has conceded on almost all significant cultural and economic issues, with the exception of abortion, guns, defense spending, and tax cuts, which are the last four holdouts for what is left of American conservatism.

Consider the issue of illegal immigration. Trump made stopping illegal immigration a central part of his campaign, but once in office put that on the back burner. As I predicted as far back as mid 2017, do not expect Trump to do much, if anything, about illegal immigration. The GOP is infatuated with legal immigration, Trump included. All conservatives can do is posture, as if to convey the outward appearance of being tough on illegal immigration, but are unwilling and or unable to do anything due to a combination of political inertia, judges, and other factors.

The right has in 15 years seen a dramatic shift from actively trying to impose its values, to now merely acting as an insufficient counterweight to the left, and capitulating on cultural issues such as gay marriage and drug legalization. The ’80s and ’90s (and even early ‘2000s) era of the god-fearing conservationism, is probably over, at least nationally. Conservatives who embrace a more secular or moral relativist ethos have seen immense gains in popularity in recent years. This reflects a trend of the ‘right’ becoming more socially libertarian/liberal.

Additionally, Trump’s win has caused a huge push-back from the left and heightened attention to issues pertaining to LGBT rights and immigration, much of it working in the left’s favor. During the Obama era there was hardly any talk of detention center conditions, but now it’s a focal issue, which only helps the left, given how conservatives will always backpedal at the first accusation by the left (or even other conservatives) of racism. Multinationals such as Disney, Nike, Target, and Starbucks have only ramped-up the ‘wokeness’ and indoctrination since Trump’s win. Social networks and payment processing platforms have gotten more aggressive about banning and de-platforming users and businesses that fall outside of a very narrows scope of permissible content. Similar to illegal immigration, conservatives are unwilling or unable to do anything about it. “Go woke, go broke” is more myth than reality. These multinationals are bigger and more profitable than ever in spite of wokeness. It’s mostly large, well-funded companies that are pushing this social justice agenda.

The right also falls it into  trap of resorting to false  dichotomies, reductionist narratives, and non-sequiturs, although the left is also guilty of this, such as  “either you’re with us or against us,” “socialism or capitalism,” or “criticism of Israel means you hate America,” and so on. Many on the right are content with ‘owning the libs’ and ‘exposing the hypocrisy of liberals’ as major wins (as if admonishing wealthy liberals for not ‘practicing what they preach,’  has ever changed anyone’s mind about anything), whereas the left is trying to fundamentally restructure society. The left does not care if you expose their hypocrisy or logical inconsistencies, because they are winning the long-game.