Why does it seem that alleged conservatives — whether they’re Supreme Court justices, Senators, or even Popes — become more liberal, while alleged liberals rarely become more conservative? <\/p>\n
In the case of people caught up in Washington, D.C., I think D.C. culture is partly to blame. As successful, ambitious people, our alleged conservatives want to go to all the nice parties and meet other powerful people, which means they have to cozy up to the dominant culture, which is decidedly and aggressively liberal. These weak conservatives find that when they do the liberals’ bidding, they get praise from all these powerful, glittery people. It goes to their heads. <\/p>\n
Just think how much Washington loved John McCain every time he bucked the conservative agenda. <\/p>\n
That phenomenon isn’t limited to local cultures. People who want to “be somebody” know they need to make the right friends, and the right friends are part of the dominant culture, which at this point in history is liberal. (I suspect that the dominant culture — among the elites — is usually liberal, but I don’t know that for sure.) <\/p>\n
… accommodation appeals to those who seek a seat at the table among \u00adsociety\u2019s elite. (From The Failure of Evangelical Elites<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In my early teen years, my brother was part of a university club that re-enacted Medieval battles. I’d go along, because (1) it was really cool, (2) it was a chance to hang out with college kids (including college girls), and (3) sometimes there was beer. But this necessarily included going out in public — or maybe into a McDonald’s — while wearing a costume, which was weird. People would stare. Some people would laugh. <\/p>\n
You had to develop a thick skin and get over it. <\/p>\n
That is not (usually) in the nature of people who try to win public approval to get elected for office, or, generally speaking, in people who are very ambitious. Their M.O. is to fit in. To win friends in the right places. The idea of sticking out in a weird, unconventional way is horrifying to them. <\/p>\n
If you want to be a conservative in today’s world, you need to accept that the glitterati aren’t going to like you. If you don’t have the courage to do something that will make the cheerleaders not want to be seen with you, you have no chance. <\/p>\n
There’s a line here, of course. You have to care what other people think to a certain extent, or else you’re a psychopath. But if you’re not willing to be weird, not willing to be an outcast, not willing to stand on your own, you will cave to the elites. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why does it seem that alleged conservatives — whether they’re Supreme Court justices, Senators, or even Popes — become more liberal, while alleged liberals rarely become more conservative? In the case of people caught up in Washington, D.C., I think D.C. culture is partly to blame. As successful, ambitious people, our alleged conservatives want to … Continue reading “Don’t trust a conservative who won’t do anything weird”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1758,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757\/revisions\/1758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}