This article openly implies something that I wish moderates and liberals would understand and internalise.
Conservatives do not care about the rules. They do not value the process. It is only a means to an end for them, if the means does not lead to their desired end, they will abandon it.
That is not how moderates and liberals tend to conceptualise politics, where the rules and the process are of the utmost importance, even when you lose. Where the means matter more than the ends.
It explains so much of why conservatives seem to get things done with any scrap of power, but liberals and progressives need larger majorities to accomplish similar changes.
Hmm, I like how you explicitly identify this, though I disagree with the implication that liberals should abandon the rules. I think we need significantly stronger enforcement of the rules, not a lack of them. Because what did it cost McConnell to block Garland, and then nominate A. C. Barrett? Nothing. Nothing at all.
In a bad-faith political environment where the incentives to follow rules are based merely on good-faith, give the rules teeth and make them sharp.
Conservatives identify the ends that they desire and then steamroll forward to enact those ends, with indifference to the rules and the process. The ends are what matters.
Ideally, the means would determine the ends all on their own. The rules and process exist in order to ensure that whatever ends are achieved are fair and just. Fairness and justice are what matters, not any specific end.
This article openly implies something that I wish moderates and liberals would understand and internalise.
Conservatives do not care about the rules. They do not value the process. It is only a means to an end for them, if the means does not lead to their desired end, they will abandon it.
That is not how moderates and liberals tend to conceptualise politics, where the rules and the process are of the utmost importance, even when you lose. Where the means matter more than the ends.
It explains so much of why conservatives seem to get things done with any scrap of power, but liberals and progressives need larger majorities to accomplish similar changes.
Hmm, I like how you explicitly identify this, though I disagree with the implication that liberals should abandon the rules. I think we need significantly stronger enforcement of the rules, not a lack of them. Because what did it cost McConnell to block Garland, and then nominate A. C. Barrett? Nothing. Nothing at all.
In a bad-faith political environment where the incentives to follow rules are based merely on good-faith, give the rules teeth and make them sharp.
Conservatives identify the ends that they desire and then steamroll forward to enact those ends, with indifference to the rules and the process. The ends are what matters.
Ideally, the means would determine the ends all on their own. The rules and process exist in order to ensure that whatever ends are achieved are fair and just. Fairness and justice are what matters, not any specific end.
More succinctly, the only thing that matters to these people is power. They do not care what they have to do to get it.