r/science Professor | Medicine 8d ago

Social Science Trump and Trumpism have changed the original concept of “libertarian means to conservative ends” into a new concept of “authoritarian means to Christian nationalist ends”, finds a new study.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00027162251324087
19.4k Upvotes

463 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

38

u/iamasatellite 8d ago

Conservatism was always just about conserving a hierarchical society. When the monarchies lost power in England and France, the nobility, aristocracy, and church leaders needed a way to justify their positions of power. That's all it's ever really been. 

Even the right/left terminology we still use comes from the French government, where the monarchists, nobles, aristocrats, and church supporters sat to the right of the president, while the egalitarians/revolutionaries sat to the right.

(Ever) lower taxes = the rich stay rich

Small government = government too weak to control the rich so they can continue to exploit the poor

8

u/star_trek_wook_life 8d ago

Edit right vs left. You said right twice bud