Trump's odd remarks on the Civil War

[Belsnickel]

(05-02-2017, 10:45 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Also well stated.  I find it interesting how some people look on W with an odd form of nostalgia when, in many, if not most, ways his politics are at least as conservative as Trump's.  I think the only area in which Trump exceeds Bush is in immigration enforcement.  Bush is certainly a more "pro-life" person than Trump.  I suppose that Trump's extreme behavior has provoked extreme reactions.  It is interesting that Trump's opponents have, in many ways, succumbed to the exact same behavior that they claim to abhor in Trump.

I have a hard time with looking at conservative values between those two. The reason is that, quite frankly, neither is very conservative. Sure, they have some of the ideological stances that we associate with the word, but overall when we look at their positions one would be hard pressed to call either one a conservative.

I think we are too often conflating Republican and conservative, the same for Democrat and liberal. These things are not the same. Both parties have very big tents as far as ideological stances, it's the nature of the two-party system we have. I think the issue is that while Bush II had some things that weren't conservative, they were still seen as very traditional Republican ideals. What I find interesting with Trump is that some of his positions are just anti-Republican as well (his trade issues, for example).

Regardless of all of that, it's hard to apply labels anyway. I posted a comic that made this statement, and every day I see it as more and more true. Almost no one really has a political ideology, we all just hold ad-hoc opinions that can change depending on what we see as most beneficial for us at the time.