January 6, 2021: The Day That Dramatically Revealed What It Is Conservatives Conserve!

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My definition of conservatism as the “ideology of selfishness” and pinpointing that what conservatives “conserve” is their own advantage, privilege and power — nothing else — has drawn pushback from friends and family, on BOTH sides of the political spectrum. In stereo I am lectured, “Oh, that’s just your own confirmation bias; that’s what you want to believe.”

Well, they are wrong in two ways. First, I certainly DON’T want to believe it. It has been a very painful experience to arrive at — and accept — this realization. These are my people. I was born and raised in a conservative family in a conservative city in a conservative state. Many of my friends are conservative. I don’t hate anyone. I wish no harm to anyone. I don’t think these are inherently “bad people.” So, if there were any “bias” at work, it would be struggling to head in the opposite direction. It would be tempting to ignore the facts and embrace the feel-good side of the equation if I were not more committed to knowing the real truth of the matter.

Second, what brought me to this realization was, plain and simply, a MOUNTAIN of evidence. ALL of American history, in fact! With few exceptions. It is flabbergasting to me that so few Americans, including so-called experts, writers, commentators, even historians, are deaf, dumb and blind to connecting the dots of the actual historical record, which can be discerned in every history book (except, perhaps, the puffiest of propaganda… but even in those the truth is in between the sentences).

So, it would appear that it’s not me who has the confirmation bias; it is those who believe, like conservatives, that they are the true and rightful patriots, and, many liberals with their impulse to ever bend over backward to see the other side as operating in “good faith” toward the benefit of “balancing” the ideologies in our two-party system. Both sides of the spectrum holding such views are very confused. Yet this mutual confusion often ends up benefitting the conservative side, as liberal magnanimity often serves only to allow conservatives to drag the “balance” ever rightward. Today, conservatives, by and large, are keenly aware that they are in a cultural war that must be won lest their “way of life” be destroyed, while liberals are still fruitlessly groping for compromise and bipartisanship with those who have no intention, whatsoever, of giving it. It is a recipe for victories, small and large, by the ideology of selfishness.

America is at a crucial crossroad, right now. Conservatives are churning with disinformation and diabolical intent… from making it legal to steal elections, to rolling back hard-won rights. to doing nothing whatsoever about gun violence, to gunning the nation into the worst possible Global Warming calamity. Pseudo-conservatives, “moderates” and liberals just may let them get away with it. If they do, it will be because they don’t yet fully comprehend the danger of conservatism itself.

The January 6 Insurrection Congressional Inquiry on your TV set currently is, appropriately enough, a harbinger of how serious Americans are about the plague of conservatism. It is, itself, a test of confirmation bias. The House Committee is, rightfully, responsibly, seeking the full truth of that stunning event and its cause. Republicans do not want this truth to emerge. So conservatives — as so often — are anti-truth; they prefer myths. And, are not conservatives of the ideology that claims to believe in the Constitution, in “tradition,” in “institutions,” in “virtue,” in “law and order,” and slavishly worships the police — no matter how badly they may act?

What we witnessed on January 6, 2021 is certainly not any of that. It is the exact opposite… an effort to overthrow the Constitution, tradition, institutions, virtue, law and order, all while cursing and beating the hell out of (even killing) policemen in charge of defending the sacred center of our nation — the Capitol — and ALL of the Congress, plus the Vice-President inside. There has NEVER been a more ominous and vile attack upon the very beating heart of American democracy than what happened that day. The mob of traitors planned to not just stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election but also drag Mike Pence (and who knows who else) out to hang at a gallows they had erected nearby. What transpired that day was not perpetrated by believers in the Constitution or law and order or any kind of virtue. Nor were they operating in any kind of “good faith” or “balancing” concern. They were busy doing what conservatives ALWAYS do… they were “conserving” their own advantage, privilege and power! This, and only this, provided them with the rationale and emotional outrage — based solely upon the totally unverified propaganda of their political heroes (Trump foremost) — to be foot soldiers in an organized (at the highest levels) attempt to overthrow the government of the United States of America. Six Americans would die that day, and several others would commit suicide shortly thereafter. Anti-American terrorists around the world watched in abject glee and envy.

Still, to many Americans — many of whom have the attention span of a stoned cat — this is all a “meh!” issue, ancient history that they only vaguely paid attention to when it actually happened. They are easy prey for the conservative spin that it was nothing to worry about, at worst just a bunch of rowdies being silly.

Sorry, but, as the committee is determined to prove, conservatives cannot be allowed to pin this on a “tiny group” of overly zealous but misguided fans of Donald Trump. This mob and its intent were fomented by the President of the United States and a cadre of political advisors, including Trump’s son, chief of staff Mark Meadows, extremist advisors such as Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, the famed Rudy Giuliani and a smarmy group of seditious lawyers around the country, a select number of members of the U.S. Congress, and a smattering of state officials scattered in the red and purple states. Their scheme hinged, completely, on a lie: that the 2020 was stolen by Democrats; that Donald Trump had actually won the election and should remain in power. Even before the election, Trump and other Republicans were suggesting that the vote count might be rigged — especially with the increase in mail-in voting due to the Covid pandemic. Such fears were an echo of exactly what Trump had said in 2016 when he believed he would probably lose that election. When Trump did, indeed, lose in November of 2020, he and operatives immediately cried foul, insisted that there was widespread fraud, and (to this day) Trump has refused to concede. Such an outrageous claim demands overwhelming evidence. Yet they brought none, nothing, zero, nada… from their 2016 “investigation” into Trump’s insistence that there was rampant voting fraud in that election… nor from any place, anywhere in the 2020 election. Their court challenges were thrown out of every court, including those presided by appointees of Donald Trump, himself. Furthermore, while initially condemning, in no uncertain terms, the mob’s attack on the Capitol, threatening their own lives, almost ALL Republican members of Congress have since fallen in line with the Republican Party’s insistent that the whole affair is old news, not worth remembering. Oh really? An attack upon the Capitol is not worth remembering? An effort to overturn a lawfully conducted election is not worth remembering?

Indeed, this is the official stance of the Republican Party. Some months after the insurrection, the Republican national committee released an official statement (which put the permanent kibosh to the “Antifa” scapegoating) that the storming of the Capitol was “legitimate political discourse.” In so doing, the party patently took full responsibility for the insurrection and its guiding falsity… that the 2020 election was stolen. With the exception of a few lonely, outcast voices from within, the entire Republican Party shares blame for the original Big Lie, subsequent belief in that lie by literally millions of conservatives and the chaos that ensued on January 6, 2021. The Big Lie is still swirling — virtually unabated — in Republican circles. Currently, a year and half later, over 60 percent of Republicans STILL believe the election was stolen and do not accept Joe Biden as the rightful president.

EVERYTHING about this incident reinforces the definition of conservatism as the “ideology of selfishness,” and stipulates “advantage, privilege and power” as the sole things that conservatives conserve, nothing else! Conversely, it refutes — nay rebukes! — any other interpretations… including the ridiculous notion that conservatives — of all political stripes — are the original and true patriots in a country founded upon radical liberal ideals, as well as those well-meaning but hopelessly naive and self-harming emotions of liberals desperate to think that the “other side of the aisle” has some wholesome store of integrity and good faith.

Sure, the storming of the Capitol is most certainly an outsized, dramatic (not to mention shocking) data point… but it is bolstered by the ENTIRE rest of American history… from the Puritans and Jamestown and their dalliance with America’s twin “original sins” (slavery and purge of Native Americans) to the Tories to the Confederates to the Jim Crow segregationists to the Robber Barons to the anti-Unionists to the Isolationists during both World Wars to the extremist McCarthyites to the anti-regulations crowd to the misogynists and xenophobes and homophobes and transphobes and anti-environment and anti-science and wacked conspiracy theorists that continue to plague the conservative movement overall.

A friend — whip smart — recently tried to explain to me how conservatives apply the “brakes” to liberal “excesses.” I asked for some modern examples. He struggled to provide a single one. I asked for any example from American history. Again, he fumbled. I asked for any example from world history. He couldn’t say. So I offered to help him out. I reminded him of William F. Buckley Jr’s definition of a conservative. The crown prince of 1960–70s era conservative “intellectualism” claimed “A conservative is someone standing astride history and yelling, “Stop!”

See, I told my friend, there’s your “brakes” idea. “Stop” is putting on the “brakes” full bore. And surely we can see conservatives perennially applying the “brakes” as culture struggled to evolve and progress. In world history, they applied the “brakes” to such as Socrates, Jesus, Copernicus, Galileo, Bruno, each attempting to liberate humanity from ignorance and selfishness. They applied the “brakes” to the brave female warrior Joan of Arc when she wouldn’t stop wearing men’s clothing. Turning to American history, they applied the “brakes” to Indians weirdly thinking they should have some claim over the land they had occupied for 10,000 years. They applied the “brakes” to Africans thinking they should have freedom, or at least some dignity. They applied the “brakes” to the lives of “witches” they deemed doing the Devil’s work. They applied the “brakes” to the outrageous idea of the “radical liberals” that America should become its own nation, independent of crown and church back in Britain. They applied the “brakes” to the idea of public education. They applied the “brakes” to the idea of abolishing slavery. They applied the “brakes” to the nonsensical idea that women should be able to vote. They applied the “brakes” to notions that workers should have any “rights” at all. They applied the “brakes” to America’s involvement in either World War. They applied the “brakes” to such “socialist” ideas as Social Security, Medicare, welfare and food stamps. They applied the “brakes” to higher quality, lower cost healthcare for all citizens. They applied the “brakes” to the growing realization that the Vietnam War was a colossal mistake. They applied the “brakes” to any meaningful regulation of industry, finance and business. They applied the “brakes” to meaningful protections of workers, consumers or the environment. They applied the “brakes” to Christianity being force-fed to school children. They applied the “brakes” to the silly liberal economics that had propelled the expansion of the American middle class from the late 1930s through the 1970s, replacing it with conservative economics which favor the rich and the largest corporations. They applied the “brakes” to the crazy idea that people of different races should be able to marry. They applied the “brakes” to homosexual citizens daring to come out of the closet. They applied the “brakes” to equal pay for equal work for women. They applied the “brakes” to gay marriage. They applied the “brakes” to any meaningful gun control. They are now gleefully applying the “brakes” in order to erase transgender people from American culture. Worst of all, they are now applying the “brakes” on truth itself, perfectly able and willing to murder it and replace it with an evil imposter.

Thankfully, the conservative “brakes” eventually failed in almost all of these instances… and liberal “excesses” became the laws and customs of the land — to everyone’s benefit. Except conservatives. Well, at least in their mind… if not in reality. This “progress” to such a vast swath of Americans was to them “regress.” Why? Aren’t we all better off with a fair playing field and a sense of taking care of one another? Not according to conservatives. Why not? Because they do not want a “fair” playing field. They don’t believe in equality (the most American of America’s founding ideals). The very goal of their conservatism is advantage, privilege and power… at least over most within a dominator hierarchy. “Fairness,” justice FOR ALL, is incongruent with this “way of life.” The “chain of subordination” is an age-old conservative tenet, in which all conservatives essentially agree. Some people are simply inherently superior. This, of course, violently clashes with true American ideals. That hasn’t stopped conservatives from proclaiming that they are the true and rightful American patriots, while the opposing party — the libs — are socialist traitors.

Alas, truth is never on their side. Conservatism is not just selfish; it is forever wrong. January 6, 2021 will live in infamy. And its most important lesson is the unvarnished unveiling of what conservatives really conserve. It’s not America. It’s not truth. It’s not virtue. It’s not liberty, or law and order, or tradition or custom or institution. It’s not even their own religious beliefs (which, like their uber-Americanism, is a total sham). It’s their own advantage, privilege and power.

Whether conservative or liberal, if you still don’t accept this as rock-solid fact, start digging. You have a mountain of evidence to overcome. But, please hurry to figure out how wrong you are. Conservatives will, if they can, destroy your world… January 6th was just a preview.