Not only do they not care, they actually relish destroying anything they consider to be "woke", like science.

It's unfortunate, but modern American conservatism is now defined by hating everything that liberals love.

This is a pity, because there should be a balance between "progress" and "government restraint" -- and that is no longer possible.

> modern American conservatism is now defined by hating everything that liberals love

Please stop giving this movement a disguise by continuing to call it conservatism. I know that word has had negative connotations to a large segment of liberals/progressives, but conservatism actually has a bunch of worthwhile values - despite being harmful when taken to the extreme, like everything.

What we're dealing with now is better described as populist reactionary fascism. There is nothing conservative about it beyond that the people supporting it used to align with conservatism but then got really angry because their fundamentalist mantras didn't pan out. The current home of actual conservatism is the Democratic party, who still have values like believing in American institutions and America being a force for good in the world.

> conservatism actually has some worthwhile values

Did you read the whole of my comment?

As to who to ascribe as "conservatives", the GOP and its voters are a not entirely unreasonable association.

If you have public communicators for "modern conservatism" that you'd care to share I would be happy to check them out as I'm interested in broadening my understanding of the world.

Yes, I did. We are coming from places that are mostly in agreement - I'm not trying to thump some slightly-different no-true-Scotsman version of conservatism here. I am a libertarian, and I was unaligned and came to see the wisdom and failings of both tribes.

My first point is that the people calling themselves conservatives are nowhere close to those values - the people who remain truer to conservatism get called "RINOs" and pushed out of the party (part of the large trend of othering).

My main point is that this distinction is important because calling this movement "conservatism" ends up supporting it - it gives them cover as if they are merely advocating for some measured stick-with-traditions cautious reform and reverting recent developments, while they are actually actively lighting the better part of a century's American institutions on fire and dancing around the blazes - NASA, universities, scientific research, relationships with our allies, foreign outreach, USD as a reserve currency, etc. Never mind their rejection of much older American freedoms like freedom of assembly, right to keep and bear arms, etc.

this point of view is so utterly lacking self-critical thought about "extreme social views, we demand you accept it or you are haters" .. its just a thought-blocker and dead-end. Endless polarization.

I've no shortage of self-critical thought, and your quote is perplexing because you seem to have inserted some preconception into your reading of my comment.

The topic is extremely polarizing by design, and is impossible to discuss without heated emotions, and therefore is never properly explored.

I have no political party allegiance (partisan politics is a toxic waste dump); I try to work from "first principles", and am more than happy to adjust my understandings when compelling evidence is presented.

To circle back to the OP: these program cuts are being made in the name of efficiency, but they're curiously only applied to programs that the admin is ideologically opposed to and applied in a manner meant to kill rather than trim. I find it interesting that the Military Industrial Complex -- a paragon of pork, fraud, and waste -- will not only be untouched but given even more money then before.

Recent polls of Trump supporter show that they expect Trump’s policies to hurt them personally, but they support the policies anyway because they think they will hurt liberals more.

It is difficult to reconcile that viewpoint with any path to a functioning democracy.

At least with tariffs you can understand there will be short term economic pain for presumed long term economic gain Polling of Biden voters seem to suggest they didn't expect the 20% inflation that happened between Biden entering office and Biden leaving office. They didn't think it would hurt Republicans more, they just had experts denying that anything was happening, like the head of the Fed saying inflation was transitory. That situation impedes on the function of democracy in a different way

As a Biden voter, I definitely expected inflation. Trump’s economic policies in the first term were incredibly inflationary, even before covid.

NPR was routinely sounding the alarm back in 2017-18. Inflation typically runs on a ~3-5 year delay vs executive policies.

The crazy thing with the tariffs is that they’re killing investment in domestic production in the US. Check out this graph of private money going to building factories:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/C307RC1Q027SBEA

Any manufacturing job gains over the next few years will clearly be due to Biden’s efforts. (Note that factory construction spending is somehow down slightly for 2025: the deceleration of the investment trend is unprecedented.)

Owning the libs is a thing. Owning the conservatives is not a thing.

In a thread here a few months back, I said that one good thing about a new social media platform was that it was full of scientists and journalists.

Someone asked, ~"what is about those two groups that you like?"

I had to think about it for a minute, but the reply was ~"neither group is perfect, but it's their actual job to find and present the truth."

I have no idea why it took me so long to realize that this is why authoritarians hate both groups so much.

>~"neither group is perfect, but it's their actual job to find and present the truth."

And let me guess, the cops' job is to protect and serve?

The situation is both more simple and less simple than that.

Journalists and scientists effective top priority is to serve their employers. Sure they want to report the news and shape truth in the same way that cops want to catch real criminals but all of these people are employed by organizations that have other priorities that take precedence.

Authoritarians hate these groups because they're effectively a competing power center. It's as simple as that. You see the same adversarial relationship between secular authoritarians and the clergy in countries with religious populations. It has nothing to do with truth and everything to do with power. Media, religious, and educational institutions power comes from shaping what people believe, truth in your words.

you're mistaking journalists for propagandists. It's an easy mistake to do though, true journalists are rare in the world.

Scientists are a problem to authoritarians simply because they are educated and will likely refute the bs of politicians, let alone authoritarians.

Who would you say was a real journalist as opposed to a propagandist during the COVID 19 era? I am not asking this as a gimme but out of curiosity of who you thought was a true journalist during a time where many journalists were acting as mouth pieces for the powerful

Propagandists aren't the problem. The entire incentive structure of the journalism and consumer media industry (and others too, it's not just them) is the problem. These aren't people problems. These are institutional architecture and incentive problems. Look at the entire western world. We are in way deeper shit than just one political movement or one or a few leaders.

The hubris in the second half of your second sentence is chuckle worthy though.