I think it always was a "my team" thing. It is just that the "conservative team" of the past had "anti-authoritarianism" as one of the team virtues, even if it was hypocritical at times. There is a still a vague notion of freedom, but there is not an intellectual anchor for what that means relative to other objectives, like some Buckley-esque defense of free-enterprise vs the USSR.

The principled intellectual wing of the US conservative movement has virtually disappeared. Even those who disagreed with their positions should lament this as a net loss for society as a whole.

>The principled intellectual wing of the US conservative movement has virtually disappeared.

I see similar on the left. You see a lot of people who had good things to say marginalized because they pushed back against the current populism or people who should know better embracing it so save their own hide (my senator being one of the latter).

Anti-intellectualism is part of populism, I would guess, and currently the Republican Party has been overrun with populists. There are certainly never trumpers talking about the older conservative values, but they are in the minority.

Things will change. They always do.

I too see rich people with fascist streak in them, if not a full on fascination with fascism. But those I group as rich idiots, vs angry idiots which which are actually dangerous, and will go and do NSDAP 2.0 once they can.

Second to it, is the reality on the ground is that the latter outnumber the former tens of times over.