There are genuinely intellectual conservatives but the oligarchic media intentionally prop up pseudointellectuals to further dumb down the population. And I guess it is working.

[+] ameancow@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

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[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think you're assuming that Russia is being led by super geniuses that are able to manipulate every possible narrative.

Russians aren't super geniuses. Trump is certainly not a super genius either. And we saw Putin make the completely stupid move of invading Ukraine.

Not saying the US will definitely do something like invade Canada. But when a country is run by idiots, we can't really predict anything they might do.

[–] JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

USA has no actual intention of taking over countries like Canada and Panama, they just want to make some huge distraction and sensational story, so that when they change interest rates or deregulate some banking laws, nobody will notice.

Under almost any other administration, I’d agree with you, but Trump either isn’t thinking rationally or seriously misunderstands reality; his behavior repeatedly goes against his own interests.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

There are genuinely intellectual conservatives

There are not.

Conservatism is ingroup loyalty as a theory-of-everything. They'll invent whatever pretense is necessary to promote the hierarchy of their guys over our guys, because they think that's all there is to reality, let alone all there is to argument. To be a conservative is to be in this form of tribe.

The smarter ones invent better bullshit. That bullshit tricks people who are not doing performative loyalty. Some of us argue against it, like the answer would change who they're loyal to - some of us argue for it, because 'what the loyalists really mean' is desirable, regardless of the unrelated awful shit they keep doing instead.

You're describing people who bought and defended the bullshit. Actual conservatives now call them communist traitors. They don't fucking care what they said yesterday. They don't understand why you do.

Conservatives will abandon any idea, in favor of loyalty. They do not believe ideas. They believe people. If their top guy says the sky is green, you better fucking agree with him, and make up some bullshit to explain why - or you're saying he doesn't belong on top. Disagreement and disloyalty are the same thing, in conservatism. Nothing they do makes sense until you understand this.