They are NOT Conservatives

The studied boring qualities of the “Great Gray Times” is starting to get to me. With painful objectivity they reported on the truly bizarre grilling of Hillary by “conservative” members of the Benghazi Select Committee. With equally vapid language they reviewed the weird assault on the Republican leaders by the “conservatives” in the absurdly name Freedom Caucus.

I guess I can live with their studied efforts to report events without slathering them with editorial tilt but I would like to make one simple suggestion to the Times editors and to all the media.

Stop calling these people “conservatives.” They are anything but. They have no interest in “conserving” anything. They have no overlap with the values of American conservatism. They are right wing radicals and their platform is utterly removed from what conservatives in America have traditionally stood for.

They are, in fact, Fascists. They embrace authoritarianism and reject any form of communitarianism. They are nativistic, aggressively militaristic, xenophobic and would rule by fear and intimidation.  

Their goal is to reduce government to only those functions that involve policing, the criminal justice system and the military. And “policing” would cover all aspects of life that they determine to be unacceptable including the language used in the schools (see Ben Carson’s astonishing claim that he would eliminate “political correctness” in colleges and universities by banning certain forms of speech) and a woman’s right to make medical decisions about her own body (the House formed another special committee to investigate Planned Parenthood).

All other operations currently within the purview of government would be privatized and handled by corporate interests. All of these oligarchic entities would self-regulate.

Quite a vision, and not one that a Bob Dole, Nelson Rockefeller or even a William F. Buckley, generally regarded as the intellectual father of modern American Conservatism, would embrace.

The radical right-wingers are hiding behind a respected label that is totally inappropriate. They are pretending to be the standard bearers of a political perspective that they lack even the most remote interest in and this linguistic subterfuge is allowing them to be seen as holding a legitimate position that they themselves eschew.

It’s time for the media to stop calling these extreme radicals Conservatives. They’re Fascists. A lexicographical adjustment in reporting is needed.