Because none of you seem capable of receiving this message
"Grievance politics is a dead-end road"
Conservatives must stand up to those who peddle victimization.
President Donald Trump’s post-election circus of denial casts in bright relief the damage Trumpism has done to conservatism. The ease with which so many Republicans and supposedly conservative thought leaders have parroted his specious election fraud stories underscores a deeper problem: the all-out embrace of grievance politics, which is the rhetorical and epistemological cornerstone of Trumpism.
Victimization, the core of grievance politics, has captured much of the conservative mind, and in case anyone doubted that it could produce real destruction, the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 settled the matter. Trump’s populism has always been more about an aggrieved anti-elitism than bolstering the economic situation of the working class or whatever other worthy cause we have been told repeatedly he was elected to fulfill. By embracing Trumpism, his supporters have discarded the virtues of responsibility and prudence that have long characterized conservatism.
and this part is a POINT @JBear has actually made here:
"There is a famous Ronald Reagan quote that some Trumpists probably recited in their pre-Trump careers: “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.” Trumpists have proved willing to disregard and even break laws because they believe themselves to be the victims of a guilty society masterminded by activists and elites."
WORTH REPEATING THIS PART:
"Trumpists have proved willing to disregard and even break laws because they believe themselves to be the victims of a guilty society masterminded by activists and elites."
"THEY BELEIVE THEMSELVES TO BE THE VICTIMS OF A GUILTY SOCIETY MASTERMINDED BY ACTIVISTS AND ELITES"
the author continues:
"In a January 6 tweet, removed by Twitter before the president was permanently banned from the platform, Trump proclaimed after his supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!” (emphasis added).
This type of rhetoric—that violent protest is justified when the unjustly powerful take what is not theirs from the powerless—is familiar turf to the activist left, which conservatism has a proud history of opposing. Not anymore.
The signatories of the December 10 statement from the Conservative Action Project, an umbrella organization of conservative movement leaders dedicated to “constitutional conservatism based on first principles,” claimed that the “unlawful and invalid” election outcome was the result of “a coordinated pressure campaign by Democrats and allied groups.” Rudy Giuliani said in December that fear “of the elite reaction” was the one big obstacle to Republicans speaking up about election fraud. Evangelical Trump booster Eric Metaxas, who said he would be glad to die in the stolen-election fight, claimed in November that the alleged election fraud was “like holding a rusty knife to the throat of Lady Liberty.” Fox News host Tucker Carlson declared, “It’s not your fault; it’s their fault,” to the violent protesters the day after the insurrection. In their letter of support for the Texas lawsuit, 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives claimed that the “constitutional authority of state legislatures was simply usurped by various governors, state courts, state election officials, and others” (emphasis added).
These themes—abuse by elites, the end of America, conspiratorial usurpation—recur over and again among Trumpian purveyors of grievance politics. Their common feature is an implicit loss of faith in the virtues of civic duty and personal responsibility. Like children who blame others for problems they have caused themselves or who don’t have the patience to utilize proven solutions, peddlers of victimization in today’s political life have converted learned helplessness into a virtue. When progressives engage in this kind of behavior, conservatives call them childish. It is no less childish when conservatives do it, and it is no way to run a republic.
YOU CAN GOOGLE THE ARTICLE TO FIND THE REST . .
The author is Ryan Streeter. He works for AEI now , but used to be apart of the Sagamore Institute (founded by GOP Dan Coats) and used to run "ConservativeHome USA" and before that Special Advisor TO GEORGE BUSH
Kermit would call him a "liberal" lol
