Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Campaign 2016 Worst Case Scenario

These guys remind them of a time in the past that never actually existed, when everybody all agreed on their conservative ideas.

The truth is that our entire history is filled with revolutionaries, progressives, radicals, etc. You know, at the end of the American Revolution lots of conservatives (Tories) actually moved to Canada so they could remain loyal subjects of The King.

From an unscientific and somewhat casual research in family migration patterns, it appears to me conservatives are metaphorically rooted to land in a real sense. Remember the Constitutional Convention? it was the Southern conservatives who insisted on all manner of provisions to guarantee individual and state (local) government "rights". These same people pushed the limits of states rights into a war. For the most part conservatives occupy the same southern lands, have the same values their ancestors had, and continue the war against the Constitution.

While some Tories moved to Canada and some escaped my ancestors hanging trees in SC, the descendants are alive and well in the South. Irrational fear of tyrantism as embodied in the federal government fuels their cause with the aid of right wing media pounding the message home.

Great post rporter!!

In 1776, The South consisted of Maryland to South Carolina along the east coast. Most of the new South was just Native American, French, and Mexican. Some probably moved westward into what is now Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia but they were not in the US and very much at risk from attack by natives or general lawlessness.

They would be moving from established farmland or towns into wilderness. Not the kind of thing for conservative subject-of-the-king types. Besides the US expanded quickly into those areas soon after, so their flight would have been useless.

But I'm sure that the further you got from Philadelphia the more people there were who resented Philadelphia telling them what to do, who to trade with, who to enslave, etc.

PIA nailed it when he said that Southern conservatives are "subject of the king" types. That IS the FUNDAMENTAL difference between the Southern mentality and the rest of the country.
Southern conservatives believe in concepts like the nobility, brass buttoned strongmen, cult of personality, rule by men instead of rule by law, spoken decrees, blood oaths, blood libel and blood atonement.

Sharing this piece of wisdom, with your moniker credited, of course.

I never said that. My point was that most of what we consider The South wasn't settled and wasn't in America at the time of the Revolutionary War. So Tories either sucked it up and kept their politics to themselves after the war or moved to English Canada.

In the decades that followed the end of the war, the modern South grew quickly. The growth of the new South was lead by more Americans than immigrants and by the time of the Civil war they allied themselves with England simply because they were at war with the US. They were not loyal to the King of England. The loyalists had been in Canada for generations.

Sorry PIA but the people who are fond of The Old South are INDEED "subject of the king" types, where "King" happens to be the distinguished gent who owns the plantation. Everything else is the same. The same pecking order, the same conviction that the land belongs to nobility, and that education is not something peasants should be trusted with, the same paternal misogyny toward "the fair sex", the same demands for religious conformity, the same caste system and the same hidebound ignorance found in "the little folk."

While there are some that fit that description, Jeff, I think that we'll work ourselves into a trap by accepting that stereotype as valid across the board. The problems are far more expansive than just the South. There is certainly a vast swath of what are conservative/Republican voters who prefer the simplicity of a "Strongman" leader, despite protestations of wanting "independence" - but there are other issues that cause unease. There has been a decades-long propaganda campaign that they have fallen for, and now they are afraid of their shadows (but, ironically, not Russia).

The "trap" is to say ALL of X are Y. While it is true some have been supportive on idiot-ological grounds, I fear a rather sizeable chunk have been incited with the brash in your face style of Mr Trump, but at the same time it may be irrelevant what Mr Trump say, which includes a large number of people who are bigoted (see daily reports of bigotry in action and seemingly all justify their beliefs as based on the election of Mr Trump ... Mr Trump was elected therefore I can publicly be a bigot and no one can do anything about it).

I suspect the campaign simply enhanced a long held belief of many conservatives who suffer from an irrational fear the federal government is the enemy. This belief can be traced from the time of the Constitutional Convention to almost anything hard right politicians say.

They hated England and the resulting creation, the federal government, thus as Russia is not their irrational fear, they can deal with it as an intangible fear, which may be easily addressed (or colluded with).

Every surreal portrait of the Trump administration may apply.

They were the smart ones.
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