conservative

Archive link.

A ridiculous number of the recent posts to this sub are me trying to convince conservatives not to vote for Trump.

Anyway, here are this guy's reasons:

[The] Republican relationship to truth and knowledge has gone to hell. MAGA is a fever swamp of lies, conspiracy theories, and scorn for expertise. The Blue World, in contrast, is a place more amenable to disagreement, debate, and the energetic pursuit of truth.

I’ve come to appreciate the Democrats’ long-standing tradition of using a pragmatic imagination. I like being around people who know that it’s really hard to design policies that will help others but who have devoted their lives to doing it well [...] Over the past four years, I’ve watched the Biden administration use pragmatic imagination to funnel money to parts of America that have long been left behind.

Another set of qualities now drawing me toward the Democrats: patriotism and regular Americanness.

But ultimately what’s pulling me away from the Republican Party and toward the Democrats is one final quality of Blue World: its greater ability to self-correct. Democrats, I’ve concluded, are better at scrutinizing, and conquering, their own shortcomings than Republicans are.

I'm not a conservative myself, but I defy any conservative intending to vote for Donald Trump to read this comparison of Washington and Trump, and to honestly tell themselves afterwards that that they believe in America and its ideals.

Worth a watch. Good interviews with locals.

Some towns have gotten 50% bigger in less than 2 years as new people moved in. Schools and infrastructure were not prepared.

Why is this happening? And - as seen in the comments on this thread - why are you a racist if you ask about it?

To be clear: immigration is important, and necessary, but I had not heard or seen the impact that this huge surge of people have had on many small towns until I saw this.

If your reaction to someone asking this simple question is anger: that's a problem. Feel free to treat me like an idiot and back up your opinion with data. Otherwise, I don't understand why we should be obligated to treat this massive influx of people better than our own citizens. No other country does it.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/13549956

A conservative explaining why Trump and Vance's lies are indefensible.

Several prominent members of Donald Trump's MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement are urging the former president to cut ties with controversial activist Laura Loomer, with one ally in Congress accusing the former Florida House candidate of making "appalling and extremely racist" remarks.

The anger came after Loomer was pictured with Trump at two 9/11 memorial events on Wednesday after she posted a racially charged diatribe aimed at Vice President Kamala Harris on X, formerly Twitter.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/13261684

Notable points here:

Trump and his surrogates will blame [Harris] for the economic policies of the Biden administration, as well as the border crisis. Based on my experience, however, a vice president truly has little to no influence on economic policy. A vice president may provide input, but it is the president who is the ultimate decision-maker. That is part of the job of being the president. Further, Congress has as much, if not more, power to affect our economy through legislation. It is as much their failure as Biden’s that child care, housing, gasoline and groceries cost too much. And as for the border, Trump and his supporters in Congress assumed partial responsibility for the tough border situation when they killed bipartisan legislation in order to help Trump’s election chances.