alternet--2020-10-25--'An insult': Doctors furious as Trump peddles baseless claim they are inflating COVID death count fo

'An insult': Doctors furious as Trump peddles baseless claim they are inflating COVID death count for profit

Medical professionals responded with outrage late Saturday after President Donald Trump pushed the baseless claim that doctors and hospitals are intentionally inflating coronavirus death counts because they have a financial `` incentive '' to do so , a narrative that has been circulating for months in right-wing media circles and among some Republican lawmakers .
During a campaign rally in Waukesha , Wisconsin Saturday night , the president said `` doctors get more money and hospitals get more money '' if they attribute to Covid-19 deaths that , according to Trump , should have been primarily attributed to comorbidities .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ been spreading on Facebook and Twitter since the early stages of the pandemic , such as one viral post asserting that `` hospitals get $ 750 if you die from the flu , and $ 17,500 if you died from Covid-19 . ''
Deeming the claim false , PolitiFact noted : `` Under the CARES Act , the largest of the three federal stimulus laws enacted in response to the coronavirus , Medicare pays hospitals a 20 % 'add on ' to its regular payment for Covid-19 patients .
But there is no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ having Covid-19 for the sake of padding their revenue .
If anything , evidence suggests the illness is being underdiagnosed . ''
`` Medicare pays hospitals based on a diagnosis ; whether a patient dies does not affect the amount , '' PolitiFact pointed out .
`` And even then , the same diagnosis might trigger one reimbursement amount at one hospital , and a different payment at a hospital in another location . ''
Experts have also rejected Trump 's insistence that people with comorbidities who die after falling ill with Covid-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fatality .
Justin Lessler , an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health , told Scientific American last week that `` when we ask if Covid killed somebody , it means 'Did they die sooner than they would have if they did n't have the virus ? ''
While preexisting conditions make people more vulnerable to coronavirus , Lessler said , `` the fact is : they 're not dying from that preexisting condition . ''
Trump 's comments—which came as the U.S. coronavirus death toll approached 225,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with immediate condemnation by physicians and other medical professionals .
`` As a doctor , this is such an insult , '' said Rob Davidson , an emergency room physician and executive director of the Committee to Protect Medicare .
`` We report deaths how they occur .
If you did your damn job we would n't be reporting so many Covid-19 deaths .
About 130,000 fewer according to a Columbia University study . ''
Dr. Nahid Bhadelia , an infectious disease doctor and an associate professor at Boston University School of Medicine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are an affront `` to the almost quarter of a million people who have died of this disease . ''
`` In people with comorbidities , Covid , like any major insult to the system , serves to worsen the outcome , '' Bhadelia continued .
`` The virus is still absolutely the reason that person died .
The comorbidities were their vulnerabilities that the virus took advantage of . ''
`` This speech by the person who should supposedly be leading us through this crisis—it breaks me , '' wrote Bhadelia .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ from reality of the pain of this pandemic while the country spirals into what might be our worst surge yet—we can not let this cruelty continue . ''

Medical professionals responded with outrage late Saturday after President Donald Trump pushed the baseless claim that doctors and hospitals are intentionally inflating coronavirus death counts because they have a financial "incentive" to do so, a narrative that has been circulating for months in right-wing media circles and among some Republican lawmakers.
During a campaign rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin Saturday night, the president said "doctors get more money and hospitals get more money" if they attribute to Covid-19 deaths that, according to Trump, should have been primarily attributed to comorbidities.
Trump's claim resembles falsehoods that have been spreading on Facebook and Twitter since the early stages of the pandemic, such as one viral post asserting that "hospitals get $750 if you die from the flu, and $17,500 if you died from Covid-19."
Deeming the claim false, PolitiFactnoted: "Under the CARES Act, the largest of the three federal stimulus laws enacted in response to the coronavirus, Medicare pays hospitals a 20% 'add on' to its regular payment for Covid-19 patients. But there is no indication that hospitals are over-identifying patients as having Covid-19 for the sake of padding their revenue. If anything, evidence suggests the illness is being underdiagnosed."
"Medicare pays hospitals based on a diagnosis; whether a patient dies does not affect the amount," PolitiFact pointed out. "And even then, the same diagnosis might trigger one reimbursement amount at one hospital, and a different payment at a hospital in another location."
Experts have also rejected Trump's insistence that people with comorbidities who die after falling ill with Covid-19 should not be counted as a coronavirus fatality. Justin Lessler, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, toldScientific American last week that "when we ask if Covid killed somebody, it means 'Did they die sooner than they would have if they didn't have the virus?"
While preexisting conditions make people more vulnerable to coronavirus, Lessler said, "the fact is: they're not dying from that preexisting condition."
Trump's comments—which came as the U.S. coronavirus death toll approached 225,000, the highest in the world—were met with immediate condemnation by physicians and other medical professionals.
"As a doctor, this is such an insult," said Rob Davidson, an emergency room physician and executive director of the Committee to Protect Medicare. "We report deaths how they occur. If you did your damn job we wouldn't be reporting so many Covid-19 deaths. About 130,000 fewer according to a Columbia University study."
Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, an infectious disease doctor and an associate professor at Boston University School of Medicine, tweeted that the president's claims are an affront "to the almost quarter of a million people who have died of this disease."
"In people with comorbidities, Covid, like any major insult to the system, serves to worsen the outcome," Bhadelia continued. "The virus is still absolutely the reason that person died. The comorbidities were their vulnerabilities that the virus took advantage of."
"This speech by the person who should supposedly be leading us through this crisis—it breaks me," wrote Bhadelia. "This apathy, utter willful disconnect from reality of the pain of this pandemic while the country spirals into what might be our worst surge yet—we cannot let this cruelty continue."


alternet--2020-10-25--Susan Collins 'grateful' for endorsement from anti-choice group pushing harmful conversion therapy

Sen. Susan Collins , R-Maine , a self-avowed supporter of abortion rights and gay marriage , said she was `` truly grateful '' to receive an endorsement from a Christian group that opposes abortion and pushes the discredited and harmful practice of `` conversion therapy '' for LGBTQ people .
Collins , one of the most vulnerable Republican senators facing re-election next month , drew the backing of the Christian Civic League of Maine , a group that opposes abortion and has a decades-long history of opposing LGBTQ rights , according to the Maine Beacon .
The group said in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump that it backed `` candidates we believe will defend the unborn , religious freedom and parental rights . ''
The term `` parental rights '' is `` essentially a euphemism for conversion therapy , '' HuffPost noted , adding that the group 's website warns against `` biology-deniers '' passing laws that would ban `` any discussion between your child and a licensed therapist that affirms your child 's biological reality . ''
Carroll Conley , the group 's executive director , told Collins during an interview last week that the endorsement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one .
`` We want you to know that our endorsement of Susan Collins is an enthusiastic endorsement , '' Conley said .
`` Let me thank you so much for the endorsement and tell you how truly grateful I am for your support , for the league 's support , '' Collins responded .
The Christian Civic League has an ugly history of anti-gay campaigns .
The group successfully pushed referendums in 1998 and 2000 to deny anti-discrimination protections to the LGBTQ community before losing a similar referendum just five years later @ @ @ @ @ @ @ group asked for `` tips , rumors , speculation and facts '' about the sexual orientation of lawmakers in an apparent effort to out gay officials in 2004 .
It also pushed anti-gay marriage referendums in 2009 and 2013 .
`` More recently , the League has targeted transgender children , launching online campaigns against school districts who put in place protections against discrimination in line with a 2014 court ruling protecting the rights of transgender Mainers , '' The Beacon reported .
The group has also actively opposed abortion protections , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the report .
Collins , who has voted to confirm dozens of anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ judges nominated by Trump , has already lost the endorsements of advocacy groups this cycle .
`` Embracing an extremist anti-LGBTQ group 's endorsement is nothing less than opportunistic in the waning days of this campaign , '' Lucas Acosta , a spokesperson for the LGBTQ rights group Human Rights Campaign , said in a statement .
`` After years of being an independent voice for Mainers and advocating for the LGBTQ community , Collins has again @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than stand by the principles she professed for years . ''
The LGBTQ advocacy group EqualityMaine said on Twitter that Collins `` is n't even pretending to be a moderate anymore . ''
`` Susan Collins took the endorsement of the Christian Civic League , an organization that thinks it 's ok to torture LGBTQ children in misguided attempts to 'fix ' them , '' the group added .
The Planned Parenthood Action Fund , which has endorsed Collins in the past , has also thrown its support behind Democratic challenger Sara Gideon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to all of us that Senator Collins has changed and she 's not the senator she once was , '' Amy Cookson , the Maine spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Votes , told The Beacon , adding that Collins had voted with Trump 90 % of the time .
`` Despite what [ Collins ] says , her actions make it very clear that she ca n't be trusted to protect our health and rights , including safe legal abortion , '' Cookson said .

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a self-avowed supporter of abortion rights and gay marriage, said she was "truly grateful" to receive an endorsement from a Christian group that opposes abortion and pushes the discredited and harmful practice of "conversion therapy" for LGBTQ people.
Collins, one of the most vulnerable Republican senators facing re-election next month, drew the backing of the Christian Civic League of Maine, a group that opposes abortion and has a decades-long history of opposing LGBTQ rights, according to the Maine Beacon.
The group said in its endorsement of Collins and President Donald Trump that it backed "candidates we believe will defend the unborn, religious freedom and parental rights." The term "parental rights" is "essentially a euphemism for conversion therapy," HuffPost noted, adding that the group's website warns against "biology-deniers" passing laws that would ban "any discussion between your child and a licensed therapist that affirms your child's biological reality."
Carroll Conley, the group's executive director, told Collins during an interview last week that the endorsement of was not a "casual" one.
"We want you to know that our endorsement of Susan Collins is an enthusiastic endorsement," Conley said.
"Let me thank you so much for the endorsement and tell you how truly grateful I am for your support, for the league's support," Collins responded.
2020 Interview with Susan Collins youtu.be
The Christian Civic League has an ugly history of anti-gay campaigns. The group successfully pushed referendums in 1998 and 2000 to deny anti-discrimination protections to the LGBTQ community before losing a similar referendum just five years later, according to The Beacon.
The group asked for "tips, rumors, speculation and facts" about the sexual orientation of lawmakers in an apparent effort to out gay officials in 2004. It also pushed anti-gay marriage referendums in 2009 and 2013.
"More recently, the League has targeted transgender children, launching online campaigns against school districts who put in place protections against discrimination in line with a 2014 court ruling protecting the rights of transgender Mainers," The Beacon reported.
The group has also actively opposed abortion protections, as well as mandatory childhood vaccines, according to the report.
Collins, who has voted to confirm dozens of anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ judges nominated by Trump, has already lost the endorsements of advocacy groups this cycle.
"Embracing an extremist anti-LGBTQ group's endorsement is nothing less than opportunistic in the waning days of this campaign," Lucas Acosta, a spokesperson for the LGBTQ rights group Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement. "After years of being an independent voice for Mainers and advocating for the LGBTQ community, Collins has again chosen to pander to the far-right rather than stand by the principles she professed for years."
The LGBTQ advocacy group EqualityMaine said on Twitter that Collins "isn't even pretending to be a moderate anymore."
"Susan Collins took the endorsement of the Christian Civic League, an organization that thinks it's ok to torture LGBTQ children in misguided attempts to 'fix' them," the group added.
The Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which has endorsed Collins in the past, has also thrown its support behind Democratic challenger Sara Gideon.
"I think it's clear to all of us that Senator Collins has changed and she's not the senator she once was," Amy Cookson, the Maine spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Votes, told The Beacon, adding that Collins had voted with Trump 90% of the time.
"Despite what [Collins] says, her actions make it very clear that she can't be trusted to protect our health and rights, including safe legal abortion," Cookson said.


alternet--2020-10-25--Trump Organization renewed the domain name for its proposed Moscow development — this year

The Trump Organization reregistered the domain name TrumpTowerMoscow.com this June , internet records show , suggesting that contrary to President Trump 's claims , the company has not necessarily abandoned its pursuit of the lucrative real estate deal that figured prominently in multiple investigations into his connections with Russia .
The Trump Organization has re-upped the domain every year of his presidency .
This year it renewed its ownership on June 9 , under a company called DTTM Operations , which Trump 's financial disclosures show manages more than 100 company trademarks .
DTTM Operations appears now to have registered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , according to a whois search , including renewals for TrumpRussia.com , TrumpTowerLondon.com and DonaldTrumpSucks.com — 2,000 more than reported in 2017 .
The domain was first registered in 2008 , according to internet `` whois '' lookups , but the Trump Organization was not the first buyer .
Longtime Trump associate Felix Sater , a Russian-born businessman whose efforts to build the Moscow tower date back to the early 2000s , told Salon that he turned ownership of the domain over to the Trump Organization in 2015 , when Trump signed a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The domain was first reported in early July 2017 , about two months before the Washington Post 's bombshell report that during the 2016 presidential campaign , the Trump Organization had tried to strike a deal with Russian developers to build the luxury hotel and condo tower .
A series of BuzzFeed News reports starting the next year illustrated the significant progress the project had made and the extent of Donald Trump 's involvement .
Initially envisioned as the tallest building in Europe , Trump Tower Moscow was spearheaded on the Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michael Cohen , and included the personal involvement of Ivanka Trump .
But even with a Russian developer on board , the project needed the blessing of government officials to get off the ground , a responsibility that fell to Cohen .
At one point the company proposed awarding Russian President Vladimir Putin the $ 50 million penthouse suite for free , a quid pro quo for the green light to break ground , and which had Trump 's approval .
While Trump repeatedly denied having any `` deals '' with Russia , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the design phase .
That proposal became a focal point of special counsel Robert Mueller 's investigation , which eventually charged Cohen with lying to Congress , largely to minimize the extent of Trump 's involvement in the deal .
( Cohen says he was encouraged in this by one of Trump 's attorneys , and Ivanka Trump reportedly reviewed his testimony in advance . )
Trump has insisted throughout his term that the Russia probe was a `` witch hunt , '' but the continuing annual domain purchases indicate that his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ each year of his presidency .
`` He 's as bad a liar as he is a president , '' Cohen told Salon .
`` How stupid can someone be who refutes over and over again the continuation of a real estate project , while simultaneously paying to keep the domain name active ?
What 's more , they 're not even bothering to anonymize it , but slapping the Trump brand on it .
Hence why I use the term stupid : His arrogance translates into idiocy .
Does Trump really believe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ignorant ? ''
`` It would be comical , '' Cohen said , `` if it were n't really happening . ''
The annual domain registries , and especially the 2015 handoff to the Trump Organization with Trump 's commitment to the project , are new dots in a constellation of redemption for Cohen , who , after pleading guilty to lying , has since launched a campaign to tell the truth about his former boss — claims that to date have led directly to at least two government investigations into the president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , moored by corroborating documents , have even pulled Trump a few steps closer to the truth .
`` We were thinking about building a building , '' Trump admitted to White House reporters in November 2018 , after years of denials and months after Cohen 's perjurious testimony to protect him .
`` I decided ultimately not to do it .
There would have been nothing wrong if I did do it , '' Trump said .
He repeated three times something he had denied throughout his campaign : `` Everybody knew @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about it .
It was written about in newspapers .
It was a well-known project , '' Trump said , none of which is true .
`` It was during the early part of '16 and , I guess , even before that .
It lasted a short period of time . ''
According to Cohen , Trump wanted to visit Russia during the 2016 campaign in order to personally meet Putin and jump-start the tower negotiations — a plan Sater confirmed to Salon in a phone call .
`` Make it happen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
However , Trump and his associates in the U.S. and Russia kept a lid on the story through the election and beyond .
( Russia granted Trump six trademarks in 2016 , including four on Election Day . )
`` I have no dealings with Russia , '' Trump said shortly before his inauguration in 2017 .
`` I have no deals that could happen in Russia , because we 've stayed away . ''
This week the New York Times reported that Trump 's tax returns show that the president maintains @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which according to a company spokesperson was opened `` to explore the potential for hotel deals in Asia '' and which has incurred nearly $ 200,000 in local taxes .
`` Though the bank account remains open , it has never been used for any other purpose , '' the spokesperson claimed .
Asked whether the domain renewals , amid years of fending off allegations of improper ties with Russia , suggest that Trump was keeping his post-presidency options open , Cohen dismissed the idea .
`` The business does not survive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
`` There 's too much scrutiny , and too much knowledge . ''

The Trump Organization reregistered the domain name TrumpTowerMoscow.com this June, internet records show, suggesting that contrary to President Trump's claims, the company has not necessarily abandoned its pursuit of the lucrative real estate deal that figured prominently in multiple investigations into his connections with Russia.
The Trump Organization has re-upped the domain every year of his presidency. This year it renewed its ownership on June 9, under a company called DTTM Operations, which Trump's financial disclosures show manages more than 100 company trademarks. DTTM Operations appears now to have registered a total of more than 3,000 domains, according to a whois search, including renewals for TrumpRussia.com, TrumpTowerLondon.com and DonaldTrumpSucks.com — 2,000 more than reported in 2017.
The domain was first registered in 2008, according to internet "whois" lookups, but the Trump Organization was not the first buyer. Longtime Trump associate Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman whose efforts to build the Moscow tower date back to the early 2000s, told Salon that he turned ownership of the domain over to the Trump Organization in 2015, when Trump signed a letter of intent to develop the project.
The domain was first reported in early July 2017, about two months before the Washington Post's bombshell report that during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Trump Organization had tried to strike a deal with Russian developers to build the luxury hotel and condo tower. A series of BuzzFeed News reports starting the next year illustrated the significant progress the project had made and the extent of Donald Trump's involvement.
Initially envisioned as the tallest building in Europe, Trump Tower Moscow was spearheaded on the Trump side by Sater and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, and included the personal involvement of Ivanka Trump. But even with a Russian developer on board, the project needed the blessing of government officials to get off the ground, a responsibility that fell to Cohen.
At one point the company proposed awarding Russian President Vladimir Putin the $50 million penthouse suite for free, a quid pro quo for the green light to break ground, and which had Trump's approval.
While Trump repeatedly denied having any "deals" with Russia, documents show that tower plans progressed well into the design phase. That proposal became a focal point of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, which eventually charged Cohen with lying to Congress, largely to minimize the extent of Trump's involvement in the deal. (Cohen says he was encouraged in this by one of Trump's attorneys, and Ivanka Trump reportedly reviewed his testimony in advance.)
Trump has insisted throughout his term that the Russia probe was a "witch hunt," but the continuing annual domain purchases indicate that his company has put money into the idea each year of his presidency.
"He's as bad a liar as he is a president," Cohen told Salon. "How stupid can someone be who refutes over and over again the continuation of a real estate project, while simultaneously paying to keep the domain name active? What's more, they're not even bothering to anonymize it, but slapping the Trump brand on it. Hence why I use the term stupid: His arrogance translates into idiocy. Does Trump really believe that the people of this country are ignorant?"
"It would be comical," Cohen said, "if it weren't really happening."
The annual domain registries, and especially the 2015 handoff to the Trump Organization with Trump's commitment to the project, are new dots in a constellation of redemption for Cohen, who, after pleading guilty to lying, has since launched a campaign to tell the truth about his former boss — claims that to date have led directly to at least two government investigations into the president's business dealings.
Cohen's confessions, moored by corroborating documents, have even pulled Trump a few steps closer to the truth.
"We were thinking about building a building," Trump admitted to White House reporters in November 2018, after years of denials and months after Cohen's perjurious testimony to protect him.
"I decided ultimately not to do it. There would have been nothing wrong if I did do it," Trump said. He repeated three times something he had denied throughout his campaign: "Everybody knew about it."
"Everybody knew about it. It was written about in newspapers. It was a well-known project," Trump said, none of which is true. "It was during the early part of '16 and, I guess, even before that. It lasted a short period of time."
According to Cohen, Trump wanted to visit Russia during the 2016 campaign in order to personally meet Putin and jump-start the tower negotiations — a plan Sater confirmed to Salon in a phone call.
"Make it happen," Cohen said Trump told him.
However, Trump and his associates in the U.S. and Russia kept a lid on the story through the election and beyond. (Russia granted Trump six trademarks in 2016, including four on Election Day.)
"I have no dealings with Russia," Trump said shortly before his inauguration in 2017. "I have no deals that could happen in Russia, because we've stayed away."
This week the New York Times reported that Trump's tax returns show that the president maintains a previously unknown bank account in China, which according to a company spokesperson was opened "to explore the potential for hotel deals in Asia" and which has incurred nearly $200,000 in local taxes.
"Though the bank account remains open, it has never been used for any other purpose," the spokesperson claimed.
Asked whether the domain renewals, amid years of fending off allegations of improper ties with Russia, suggest that Trump was keeping his post-presidency options open, Cohen dismissed the idea.
"The business does not survive" after Trump leaves office, he said. "There's too much scrutiny, and too much knowledge."


alternet--2020-10-25--It sure seems like Trump is gearing up to blame McConnell for for blocking a new stimulus

In Thursday night 's debate , President Trump skirted Joe Biden 's observation that it 's Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican Senators — not House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who are blocking the `` go big '' stimulus package that Trump recently decided to promote before the election .
Trump kept on blaming Pelosi .
But suppose that , with Nov. 3 in sight but unable to see beyond his immediate self-interest , he shoots himself in the foot by lambasting the Republican senators for blocking the stimulus he wants , thereby prompting some of his base @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polls , very possibly helping to hand the Senate to Democrats .
Although that would be a self-defeating strategy for Trump , it might not be bad for hundreds of thousands of his followers who are small businesspeople or self-employed in other ways and who , along with their customers and clients , need the stimulus as desperately as Trump does , albeit for `` gut '' economic reasons , not his narrow political ones .
A Democratic Senate would probably join with the House ( and a President Biden ) to pass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whatever Pelosi and Mnuchin find possible .
Trump 's self-absorption and opportunism have spotlighted not only philosophical divisions between Senate Republican hawks who ca n't stomach a $ 2 trillion stimulus and the office-holders who want only to hold on to their offices ; Trump 's pro-stimulus move also spotlights the economic canyon that yawns between our high-rolling con man of a president and millions of hard-working people whom his Republican Party has betrayed .
McConnell , currently in his own re-election fight , assumes that enough Kentucky voters are anti-government ideologues who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foot by backing him and other Senate Republicans in blocking a stimulus .
( Recent polling has him leading his challenger Amy McGrath statewide across income brackets and education levels . )
He may be right to believe he can count on the support of the slice of Kentucky voters who believe `` a wildly misleading image of recipients of public aid as thieves bleeding taxpayers dry , '' as New York Times economics columnist Eduardo Porter put it in his book `` American Poison : How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise '' @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racial stereotypes peddled over the years by the political foes of redistribution… convinced white Americans that people of color are undeserving moochers from the public purse , '' Porter writes .
`` White voters marginalized by the same economic forces … could not figure out that they were shooting themselves in the foot '' by cutting programs they imagined were serving only non-whites .
Thus many of McConnell 's supporters have embraced `` welfare reform '' and Medicaid rules that culled 100,000 people from the rolls in recent years , even as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the most cancer deaths in the nation , and the most preventable hospitalizations '' and is near the top in its death rate from diabetes .
( Kentucky 's Medicaid program has been a rollercoaster over the last several years ; one of Democratic Gov .
Andy Beshear 's first orders of business last December was to roll back the work requirements his Republican predecessor Matt Bevin put on Medicaid recipients in an effort to derail the expansion enacted under the Affordable Care Act . )
A Kentucky friend of mine shared with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ describe the mixture of `` low self-esteem and fierce pride , independence , and a sense of honor , '' as she puts it , which some conservative white working-class Southern voters have long carried with them into the booth .
But the pandemic has up-ended much in their lives , and a parsimonious response could put McConnell on thinner ice with GOP reliables whose incomes have shriveled due to the virus .
Perhaps McConnell has n't yet heard the concerns of Republican voters like the Corbin truck driver who told the Washington @ @ @ @ @ @ @ `` scared to death of losing everything '' and angry at GOP leaders for failing to authorize another round of stimulus payments .
Or perhaps McConnell is hoping that party-line voters who are hurting economically will give him a pass , especially in the rural parts of his state , or at least let him ride Trump 's coattails as the President rails against `` Democrat-led cities '' and other dog whistles in his rallies and tweets .
McConnell knows that whites ' anger and resentment can shift easily , with a little @ @ @ @ @ @ @ minorities for the many little increments of humiliation and loss that have accumulated in their own lives .
The more obvious it becomes that their racism is hurting not only Black people but also themselves , the more furiously some people deny it , like philosopher George Santayana 's fanatic , who redoubles his energy when he has forgotten his aim .
Trump 's demagoguery channels their hurts into cravings for scapegoats — not only Black people , but also the `` elites '' — and for revenge .
We have to hope @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of priorities and calculations home to Trump 's and McConnell 's bases .
The state 's recent election of Beshear may signal the beginning of a slow shift in that direction ( though recent polls suggest that approval of Beshear is n't necessarily boosting McGrath 's chances in her race against McConnell , and Trump is projected to win Kentucky handily , if by a slimmer margin than 2016 ) .
Opportunist that Trump is , he seems poised to seize on a shift in the wind if he deems it advantageous .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ he might have too much invested in his own image as the power-broker and conservator of right-wing ideals to switch lanes now .
With or without a big pre-election stimulus announcement , we 'll see soon enough how much of the national Republican base is shifting and fragmenting as COVID cases rise and economic destitution sets in , and how much of it still resembles Santayana 's fanatics after this election .

In Thursday night's debate, President Trump skirted Joe Biden's observation that it's Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican Senators — not House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who are blocking the "go big" stimulus package that Trump recently decided to promote before the election.
Trump kept on blaming Pelosi. But suppose that, with Nov. 3 in sight but unable to see beyond his immediate self-interest, he shoots himself in the foot by lambasting the Republican senators for blocking the stimulus he wants, thereby prompting some of his base to "punish" them at the polls, very possibly helping to hand the Senate to Democrats.
Although that would be a self-defeating strategy for Trump, it might not be bad for hundreds of thousands of his followers who are small businesspeople or self-employed in other ways and who, along with their customers and clients, need the stimulus as desperately as Trump does, albeit for "gut" economic reasons, not his narrow political ones. A Democratic Senate would probably join with the House (and a President Biden) to pass a stimulus package even more ambitious than whatever Pelosi and Mnuchin find possible.
Trump's self-absorption and opportunism have spotlighted not only philosophical divisions between Senate Republican hawks who can't stomach a $2 trillion stimulus and the office-holders who want only to hold on to their offices; Trump's pro-stimulus move also spotlights the economic canyon that yawns between our high-rolling con man of a president and millions of hard-working people whom his Republican Party has betrayed.
McConnell, currently in his own re-election fight, assumes that enough Kentucky voters are anti-government ideologues who will keep on shooting themselves in the foot by backing him and other Senate Republicans in blocking a stimulus. (Recent polling has him leading his challenger Amy McGrath statewide across income brackets and education levels.) He may be right to believe he can count on the support of the slice of Kentucky voters who believe "a wildly misleading image of recipients of public aid as thieves bleeding taxpayers dry," as New York Times economics columnist Eduardo Porter put it in his book "American Poison: How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise":
"'Welfare queens' and other racial stereotypes peddled over the years by the political foes of redistribution… convinced white Americans that people of color are undeserving moochers from the public purse," Porter writes. "White voters marginalized by the same economic forces … could not figure out that they were shooting themselves in the foot" by cutting programs they imagined were serving only non-whites.
Thus many of McConnell's supporters have embraced "welfare reform" and Medicaid rules that culled 100,000 people from the rolls in recent years, even as the state, Porter writes, has "the most cancer deaths in the nation, and the most preventable hospitalizations" and is near the top in its death rate from diabetes. (Kentucky's Medicaid program has been a rollercoaster over the last several years; one of Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear's first orders of business last December was to roll back the work requirements his Republican predecessor Matt Bevin put on Medicaid recipients in an effort to derail the expansion enacted under the Affordable Care Act.)
A Kentucky friend of mine shared with me the phrase "shame-natured" to describe the mixture of "low self-esteem and fierce pride, independence, and a sense of honor," as she puts it, which some conservative white working-class Southern voters have long carried with them into the booth. But the pandemic has up-ended much in their lives, and a parsimonious response could put McConnell on thinner ice with GOP reliables whose incomes have shriveled due to the virus. Perhaps McConnell hasn't yet heard the concerns of Republican voters like the Corbin truck driver who told the Washington Post back in August that he's "scared to death of losing everything" and angry at GOP leaders for failing to authorize another round of stimulus payments.
Or perhaps McConnell is hoping that party-line voters who are hurting economically will give him a pass, especially in the rural parts of his state, or at least let him ride Trump's coattails as the President rails against "Democrat-led cities" and other dog whistles in his rallies and tweets. McConnell knows that whites' anger and resentment can shift easily, with a little prompting from the right, into blaming minorities for the many little increments of humiliation and loss that have accumulated in their own lives. The more obvious it becomes that their racism is hurting not only Black people but also themselves, the more furiously some people deny it, like philosopher George Santayana's fanatic, who redoubles his energy when he has forgotten his aim. Trump's demagoguery channels their hurts into cravings for scapegoats — not only Black people, but also the "elites" — and for revenge.
We have to hope that COVID is bringing a different set of priorities and calculations home to Trump's and McConnell's bases. The state's recent election of Beshear may signal the beginning of a slow shift in that direction (though recent polls suggest that approval of Beshear isn't necessarily boosting McGrath's chances in her race against McConnell, and Trump is projected to win Kentucky handily, if by a slimmer margin than 2016).
Opportunist that Trump is, he seems poised to seize on a shift in the wind if he deems it advantageous. McConnell may not sense it, or he might have too much invested in his own image as the power-broker and conservator of right-wing ideals to switch lanes now. With or without a big pre-election stimulus announcement, we'll see soon enough how much of the national Republican base is shifting and fragmenting as COVID cases rise and economic destitution sets in, and how much of it still resembles Santayana's fanatics after this election.


alternet--2020-10-25--Author reveals how the 'hard right' — and the conflict within conservatism — led to the Trump calami

Author reveals how the 'hard right' — and the conflict within conservatism — led to the Trump calamity

Signs are increasing that Donald Trump is headed toward the devastating electoral loss that experts expected four years ago .
But even if they 're right this time , what does that tell us about what 's ahead ?
And what if they 're wrong yet again ?
Either way , Trumpism wo n't be going away on its own , nor will any of the other illiberal eruptions across the West and around the world , which have left conservatives as bewildered as anybody else .
With Election Day looming , you probably do n't have time for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how we got here .
But when it comes to making sense of things afterward , when there 's time for deeper reflection , Edmund Fawcett 's new book , `` Conservatism : The Fight for a Tradition , '' plays a vital , invaluable role .
This new book is a follow-up to Fawcett 's 2014 book , `` Liberalism : The Life of an Idea , '' and the contrast in the subtitles is telling .
Fawcett is a British political journalist who spent 30 years at the Economist , including @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Paris and Berlin and as the magazine 's European and literary editor .
The idea of liberalism he describes as `` a search for an ethically acceptable order of human progress among civic equals without recourse to undue power . ''
But fights , by their very nature , are a much messier matter , and all too often involve `` undue power . ''
Indeed , there 's not just one fight involved within the conservative tradition , but a seemingly endless number .
Still , there 's one overarching battle between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fawcett calls the `` hard right '' — and those seeking accommodation , whom he calls `` liberal conservatives . ''
Dealing with both politics and ideas in four countries — the U.S. , Britain , Germany and France — Fawcett traces the story through four phases , from an initial period of `` frontal resistance to liberal modernity '' in the 19th century to the period since 1980 when the success of liberal conservatism , symbolized by the rise of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher opened the door to the rise of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a certain American president .
This interview has been edited for clarity and length .
Your book is titled `` Conservatism : The Fight for a Tradition '' But as you lay it out , it 's actually a multitude of fights , both internal and external .
Let 's start with the external fights against the modern world itself — the world of market and the Industrial Revolution — and the forces of liberalism and democracy .
What was at stake in those fights ?
What is it that conservatism is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did it think it was resisting in liberal modernity ?
That 's a prime question .
What conservatives reckon they 're resisting has changed as modern liberal life has changed .
So let 's start with history .
There 's no conservatism before the early 19th century .
It 's essentially a political movement of old , established elites who were used to ruling and are now confronting an utterly new , unimagined condition of society , dominated by modern capitalism and great social fluidity , great social mobility and growing discredit of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very soon , pressures arise not just for liberal demands — freedom for citizens , economic liberty and cultural freedom from old kinds of tutorial government and moral interference — not just that , but conservatives very quickly ( as do liberals ) face demands from democracy that those liberal promises of modern life be extended to everybody , whoever they are .
So that 's the 19th-century challenge that conservatives faced .
They 're all different in different countries , each has its own particular history , but that is a common @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and now , that contest has changed .
Conservatives at the end of the 19th century and early in the 20th century learned how to dominate this new condition of society .
They were the defenders of property , defenders of the social order .
What did that mean from , say , 1900 to 1950 ?
That meant , above all , defending the capitalist order , putting food in the shops and wages in the pockets .
But capitalism is this fantastic engine of great social change , turning everything upside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conservatives have always faced two ways : They 've been resisters of liberal modernity , of innovation , of moral change , but on the other hand they 've been the great defenders of its driver , namely capitalist innovation .
So this is a tension inside conservatism that runs right through it , and I think explains a great deal of where conservatives are today , fighting against each other .
The internal fights can be divided into three kinds that overlap or interpenetrate : There 's the broadest fight between hard-right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ specific factions at any one time , and medium-scope fights over how to define what conservatism is , how to order things .
The resister/accommodator divide can be symbolized by the twin figures of Joseph de Maistre and Edmund Burke , each of them anti-modern , anti-Enlightenment and anti-rationalist , but in very different ways .
How can we best understand them as illuminating the conservative tradition , at least in its origins and its primordial outlook ?
If we could take the third sort first : In talking about all these things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political decisions .
Those always involve the government , voters and parties .
To understand conservatism , you need to keep your eye on that .
But at the same time , there are what you could call the thinkers of conservatism , people who pore over these rather subtle questions and ask `` What is conservatism ?
Who is the true conservative ? ''
Burke and Maistre were that second kind of person .
Take Burke as a good example .
Burke actually was more or less ignored during the 19th century @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He was rediscovered , indeed sort of invented , at the end of the 19th century as a philosopher of conservatism , for a political movement that , successful though it was , did n't really have a philosophy .
Indeed , the best it could do , if asked , was , `` Well , we do n't believe in ideas . ''
One of the reasons conservatives have been able to say that — `` We do n't believe in ideas .
We do n't need a philosophy '' — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ classes or they were the descendants of the upper classes , people whose job was to rule by their nature .
They were used to ruling .
They were n't used to having to explain why they should rule , or what they were ruling for .
So it took quite a long time to figure out that they needed political ideas , political philosophy , something called conservatism .
And indeed Burke was a very , very late invention .
There 's an 1886 `` History of Toryism '' which barely mentions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was much too crazy and outrageous .
He was a brilliant writer , but he was much too angry in his opposition to modern life to make him a good intellectual flag-bearer for conservatives in democratic times .
To finish up on the topic of who is and who is not a conservative , it shows itself very strongly in the United States , where you have three strong traditions since the middle of the last century .
You have the kind of modern Burkeans , people like Russell Kirk , who dug @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him in an American context .
That has always been rather a kind of hothouse conservatism that does n't really fit into modern American life .
And the other two were the economic liberals — the people who want the market and business to do whatever they want , on the theory that would make things work out best — and then there 's a much more sort of moral thread , with the neoconservatives who were interested in the texture of social life , and I suppose you could throw in there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So those were three or four very strong threads in American Intellectual conservatism , And they 're still there .
Your book traces the history of conservatism across two centuries , divided into four periods , in the U.K. , France , Germany and the U.S .
The first you describe as `` frontal resistance to liberal modernity , '' from 1830 to 1880 , with chapters titled `` A Right Without Authority , '' dealing with politics and `` Turning Reason Against Liberalism , '' dealing with ideas .
How do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The first is the political movement as I described it , of old elites , established powers , who suddenly find themselves under challenge from new contestants .
You saw it in the United States with Whigs and Democrats , you saw that in Britain with Tories and Liberals , you saw it in Germany and France .
The intellectual counterpart of that struggle was , on one side , people like Burke and Maistre , who said , as it were , `` Tradition , belief , unreason , these will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forward into the future . ''
On the other hand , there were conservatives who I mention in the chapter you just described who said , `` Not at all .
We have to use reason , we have to use the lessons of the Enlightenment in a conservative and orderly cause . ''
These were people like James Madison , an American example , and Friedrich Gentz , a German .
You have here this opening conflict within conservative thought between the traditionalists and the romantics , on the one hand , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You write : `` In the 1830s , the right 's primary choice was either to resist or to compromise with liberal modernity .
By the 1880s , it faced the further question of how far to accept democratic modernity . ''
How did these two choices differ , in terms of what was at stake ?
What options existed , and how did the right respond ?
Good question !
Liberalism and democracy need to be distinguished .
Liberalism , as it were , lays out the feast .
Democracy draws up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — it does n't always deliver , but it promises people a number of good things : protections from arbitrary power , social progress , civil rights .
It promises many freedoms .
Democracy is quite different .
Democracy promises those things to everybody , whoever they are .
And there 's a big difference .
You can have a club of very equal people , where there 's no ranking , where everybody respects everybody else .
But the club itself can be extremely exclusive .
It sounds almost banal to stress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to understanding liberal democracy .
Historically , by the end of the 19th century , both conservatives and liberals were facing a demand that the liberal promises of modern life be extended to every last person .
When you think about this , that promise was n't even delivered on paper until the middle of the 20th century , and in many respects is still not delivered successfully to everybody .
So , the second period you describe as `` adaptation , compromise and catastrophe , '' that 's from 1880 to 1945 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and compromise ?
What are some illustrative examples ?
If you take the period as a whole , and look at the main conservative parties in Europe and the United States over that period , all of them , broadly speaking , accepted a degree of the welfare state , accepted a degree of big government .
They accepted the New Deal in the United States , and in Europe they accepted the welfare state .
They accepted , in other words , a very tempered capitalism in which government played a large @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got into trouble and propping up people when they got into trouble , with social safety nets and so on .
That broad consensus , hard-fought and very spotty , was by and large the consensus that mainstream conservatives accepted by the middle of the 20th century .
That was so with Eisenhower , with Nixon and even to a limited degree with Reagan .
So what do you mean by `` catastrophe '' ?
In any story of the political right , one ca n't escape the disaster of the rise of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggesting that conservatism was directly to blame for these things .
That would be wrong .
But the conservative classes found themselves in 1945 , for a variety of reasons , at a zero point from which they had to reinvent themselves .
That leads right into the third period you describe as `` political command and intellectual recovery , '' from the end of World War II to 1980 .
How did conservatism recover during that period ?
In the 1945 to 1980 period on the right , in a funny way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ came to drive politics .
It 's a fascinating period , intellectually , for the right in the United States .
There were a number of intriguing thinkers .
They were ignored at the time , but they were working away quietly for what became the Reagan revolution , both in terms of economic policy and , to a larger extent , in terms of social and ethical questions .
They were broadly derided or ignored , but they came into their own in the 1980s , and they 've been in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compare with what was happening elsewhere ?
There was a similar revival elsewhere , but it was slower , and it was n't so well paid for .
In the United States , there were many big philanthropic donors , right-wing think tanks that supported particular intellectuals like Richard Weaver or Friedrich Hayek .
It was a big , very well executed campaign of intellectual renewal .
It was less organized in Europe , but it existed there as well .
The fourth period you describe as `` the contest for supremacy between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' starting in 1980 .
Say a bit more about these two terms , both what they mean generally , and specifically in this time period .
It 's difficult when writing about politics , for one has to be given at least five seconds to get the canoe into the water .
All these labels are very slippery , particularly the labels `` liberal conservatism '' — that sounds like a contradiction in terms — and the term `` hard right , '' which many conservatives particularly dislike because they feel it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But let 's say `` liberal conservatism , '' with all those provisos , is a good label for the kind of conservatism I was describing earlier , the kind of mainstream conservatism running from Eisenhower to Nixon and even to a certain extent some of the Reagan years .
That 's an OK label for the kind of mainstream conservatism that I was describing , by and large , in government .
However much they turned up the gas on the campaign trail , Eisenhower , Nixon and even Reagan were within @ @ @ @ @ @ @ liberal in economic matters , for the free market , very business-friendly , but also liberal to an extent in the social and ethical sense .
Nixon was n't a great moral or ethical campaigner .
Reagan , I do n't think , believed it himself personally .
He threw bones to the moral right , but it was n't his thing .
So that 's liberal conservatism .
It has a counterpart in Europe .
The hard right , I think , is a different thing .
It 's what liberal conservatives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ look at the present Republican Party , I would call that a hard-right party .
What is the hard right ?
Well , it combines two elements .
It 's a strange combination , on the one hand , of ultra-marketeers , who would let business do what it chooses and will do what business wants , but on the other hand of politicians speaking loudly for the forgotten man , for disaffected voters in the name of the people .
The hard right is curiously for global free markets and at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this odd combination across Europe and in the United States .
Although there are local differences , that 's the hard right .
Conservatives get quite upset when you say , `` You conservatives have a fight on your hand between the liberal strain of conservatism and the hard right . ''
Why ?
Because , particularly in Europe , in France and Germany , the hard right is associated with old neofascist parties but it is by no means any longer limited to those .
Indeed , it 's gone way beyond @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it 's now called in France , and the Alternative for Germany have both the elements I 've mentioned : rowdy popular elements and a free-market elite element .
One of the leaders of the German hard right worked , I think , for Goldman Sachs .
That gives you an idea of the hard right as an elite and popular combination .
You see the same in the United States with the Republican Party .
Partly because of his outsized personality , people have over-focused on Trump as if somehow he invented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at all .
The hard right invented him .
You could say the same thing about Boris Johnson , the Brexiteer in Britain .
He did n't invent Brexit or UKIP [ the anti-EU U.K .
Independence Party ] or the new Tory party .
It chose him .
Here in America , Trump is presented as a figure who came out of nowhere .
You show that he 's part of a hard right that 's been growing for decades , before gaining ground with his election and Brexit happening close together @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a part of the hard right ?
What characteristics does he share that would make him a part of it ?
If you 'd like , perhaps say something about how today 's hard right echoes characteristics that have been there in the past .
In a way , he 's a kind of gifted improviser .
I do n't think he has or has ever had a lot of aims or principles .
In that , he rather resembles Boris Johnson in our country — gifted campaigners with a fantastic sort @ @ @ @ @ @ @ look for a consistency of aim or opinion , it 's very hard to find .
If you wanted a word for Trump , I think it would be opportunist .
He saw a moment to move into politics , and he succeeded very well .
But , the party he took over had been moving to the hard right for a long time without him .
One of the figures to whom the American hard right at the moment owes an enormous amount is Pat Buchanan .
He was writing the kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 1970s .
If `` Trump '' were a movie , Trump would be the star , but Pat Buchanan would get the screenwriting credit .
To answer the other part of your question , the hard right does have historical precedent .
There has always been in conservatism , as it has adapted , as it has become more liberal and mainstream , as it has appealed to more and more democratic voters — democratic with a small D — there 's always been a resistant fringe of those who say , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' There 's a quick caution needed here in that when talking about the hard right , it 's very easy to be misheard and have people say , `` Ah !
Fawcett 's out of his mind , the hard right is n't fascist . ''
I 'm not saying for a moment that the hard right is fascist .
There are many , many ways in which a conservative can become less liberal or less democratic without becoming fascist .
Fascism in the 1920s and '30s was something specific .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Europe , after a disastrous war in which Germany was defeated .
History does n't repeat in that way .
Fascism is not the right parallel .
Nor indeed is populism quite the right label for the hard right .
Populism in the American context meant something quite specific , it was a movement flanking progressivism at the end of the 19th century .
It had wide working-class and farm support .
Populism as it 's kicked around nowadays is a very loose idea .
In fact , populism in connection with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The hard right is not the people fighting the elite .
The hard right in the United States and Europe is one elite , namely the hard right , a very conservative elite , fighting another , a more liberal elite .
Hence the subtitle of my book : `` The Fight for a Tradition . ''
I guess you would say that 's true in other countries as well ?
Yes .
As for early hard-right politicians , you have Pat Buchanan .
In Britain , there was a politician who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but is very well-known in Britain , Enoch Powell .
He was a Tory politician , a ferociously clever person who ran himself out of politics in the 1960s by racialist outbursts which discredited him .
His contribution to Tory politics is a bit like Pat Buchanan 's contribution to Republicanism in the United States .
Powell 's contribution was , first , anti-European — get Britain out of the European Union — and nationalistic , to go it alone and not count on foreign friends , not even on the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the economic sense .
This strange cocktail , you see , was present in Enoch Powell — that same cocktail that I earlier described as hard right .
In opposition to that , you talk several times about successful conservative leaders .
In one place you say `` Like [ Benjamin ] Disraeli , or Margaret Thatcher , Churchill seemed to resolve in one capacious personality the [ Conservative ] party 's inner conflicts . ''
There are several other places where you make comments like that about how successful political leaders of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ passed from the scene , seemed to spill out all over the place .
Could you say something about the importance of such figures ?
I 'd also like to ask about Reagan as one such figure , because after him came the unraveling , as you mentioned before .
Reagan belongs in that category of conservative politician .
It includes Thatcher and Angela Merkel today , the chancellor of Germany .
They managed to keep their parties together , although like every successful party , each has a tremendous internal dynamic and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ party together , you have to give something to each side , and arguably both Reagan and Thatcher gave much too much to the market liberals , those who say `` Markets will solve everything ; government is always the problem . ''
We 're still living , I think , both in Europe and the United States , with the limitations of that policy .
You can say that they gave too much in terms of the cost to society .
However , in party terms , they were quite successful in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in conservatism , the rise of the hard right and the rout of the old liberal Republicans , did n't begin until after Reagan and Thatcher were gone .
So what problems opened the door to the hard right after Reagan and Thatcher ?
There were three levels .
There was a historic internal change in society and economy , connected with the collapse of old industries , the collapse of unions .
If you look back to our society and economy in the 1960s and '70s , out of which Reagan and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So that 's one thing , a huge , huge change .
Second , the end of the Cold War , in 1989 and 1990 .
That was a convenient , if dangerous , framework for thinking about the world and other countries .
That 's now gone .
Those two changes together — huge social and economic change inside , great global change outside — have meant that an old framework of ideas in which conservative politicians argued with each other is gone , and needs replacing .
Good as they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neither Thatcher nor Reagan handed on any kind of replacement .
Into that vacuum has come the hard right .
It 's not a program , it 's not a long-term solution to anything .
It 's actually intellectually incoherent .
It promises global free markets on the one hand , and a kind of self-reliant , protective nation on the other .
It does n't add up .
However , it 's politically extremely appealing .
In your coda you discuss the choices facing conservatives .
But in your preface , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in comradely spirit with a question for the left : if we 're so smart , how come we 're not in charge ? ''
I hope we will die on the left , but I sometimes think also we will die of the left .
I do n't expect a quick answer , because then why write the book ?
But I wonder if you might have a tentative answer to offer , that points to a direction for further discussion and inquiry ?
What is the answer to the question , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
The answer is that we may have the answers , we may be the virtuous ones , but we have never , in 200 years , persuaded a majority of our fellow citizens that we are the way to go .
That seems to me too deep a pattern for there not to be lessons drawn from that .
What is the lesson ?
In essence , a boring , dull and unpopular lesson on the left : That is that we have to cooperate with liberal-minded right-wing people at the center @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into government and govern , as opposed to being the party of criticism or a movement of protest , however necessary and legitimate .
To throw in a further thought , the condition of the left is part of a larger explanation of the political hole that we 're in .
It 's not just that on the right , a hard right is dominant at present , and liberal conservatives are dispirited and in retreat .
On the left , there is n't a really persuasive , strong and responsible alternative .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the mess we 're in politically .
Think of the three times the 21st century arrived : First 9/11 , a horrendous event for which it would take decades for the consequences to work themselves out .
Then the 2003 Iraq war , necessary or not , which broke the liberal Republicans and broke the center-minded Labour Party in Britain .
And third , the crash of 2008 , which more or less finished the idea that markets look after themselves .
You had these three hammer-blows which were , in their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neither the left or the right , has really digested any of that .
Finally , what 's most important question I did n't ask ?
And what 's the answer ?
`` Is the fight on the right going to go on after Nov .
3 ? ''
And do you know what the answer is ?
Not only .
We are thinking in parallel here .
I liked the piece you wrote , `` It 's not just about Trump . ''
I completely agree .
Of the fight on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It 's not even about Trump . ''
So my answer to the question you did n't ask is , yes , the fight on the right will go on .

Signs are increasing that Donald Trump is headed toward the devastating electoral loss that experts expected four years ago. But even if they're right this time, what does that tell us about what's ahead? And what if they're wrong yet again? Either way, Trumpism won't be going away on its own, nor will any of the other illiberal eruptions across the West and around the world, which have left conservatives as bewildered as anybody else.
With Election Day looming, you probably don't have time for a 500-page book to help make sense of how we got here. But when it comes to making sense of things afterward, when there's time for deeper reflection, Edmund Fawcett's new book, "Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition," plays a vital, invaluable role. This new book is a follow-up to Fawcett's 2014 book, "Liberalism: The Life of an Idea," and the contrast in the subtitles is telling. Fawcett is a British political journalist who spent 30 years at the Economist, including stints as chief correspondent in Washington, Paris and Berlin and as the magazine's European and literary editor.
The idea of liberalism he describes as "a search for an ethically acceptable order of human progress among civic equals without recourse to undue power." But fights, by their very nature, are a much messier matter, and all too often involve "undue power." Indeed, there's not just one fight involved within the conservative tradition, but a seemingly endless number. Still, there's one overarching battle between hardcore resisters of liberal modernity — those Fawcett calls the "hard right" — and those seeking accommodation, whom he calls "liberal conservatives."
Dealing with both politics and ideas in four countries — the U.S., Britain, Germany and France — Fawcett traces the story through four phases, from an initial period of "frontal resistance to liberal modernity" in the 19th century to the period since 1980 when the success of liberal conservatism, symbolized by the rise of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher opened the door to the rise of the hard right, including the election of a certain American president. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Your book is titled "Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition" But as you lay it out, it's actually a multitude of fights, both internal and external. Let's start with the external fights against the modern world itself — the world of market and the Industrial Revolution — and the forces of liberalism and democracy. What was at stake in those fights?
What is it that conservatism is against, as it were? What did it think it was resisting in liberal modernity? That's a prime question. What conservatives reckon they're resisting has changed as modern liberal life has changed. So let's start with history. There's no conservatism before the early 19th century. It's essentially a political movement of old, established elites who were used to ruling and are now confronting an utterly new, unimagined condition of society, dominated by modern capitalism and great social fluidity, great social mobility and growing discredit of elites.
At the same time, very soon, pressures arise not just for liberal demands — freedom for citizens, economic liberty and cultural freedom from old kinds of tutorial government and moral interference — not just that, but conservatives very quickly (as do liberals) face demands from democracy that those liberal promises of modern life be extended to everybody, whoever they are. So that's the 19th-century challenge that conservatives faced. They're all different in different countries, each has its own particular history, but that is a common thread.
In the 20th century, and now, that contest has changed. Conservatives at the end of the 19th century and early in the 20th century learned how to dominate this new condition of society. They were the defenders of property, defenders of the social order. What did that mean from, say, 1900 to 1950? That meant, above all, defending the capitalist order, putting food in the shops and wages in the pockets. But capitalism is this fantastic engine of great social change, turning everything upside down. So in our lifetime, conservatives have always faced two ways: They've been resisters of liberal modernity, of innovation, of moral change, but on the other hand they've been the great defenders of its driver, namely capitalist innovation. So this is a tension inside conservatism that runs right through it, and I think explains a great deal of where conservatives are today, fighting against each other.
The internal fights can be divided into three kinds that overlap or interpenetrate: There's the broadest fight between hard-right resisters and accommodators, narrow fights among specific factions at any one time, and medium-scope fights over how to define what conservatism is, how to order things. The resister/accommodator divide can be symbolized by the twin figures of Joseph de Maistre and Edmund Burke, each of them anti-modern, anti-Enlightenment and anti-rationalist, but in very different ways. How can we best understand them as illuminating the conservative tradition, at least in its origins and its primordial outlook?
If we could take the third sort first: In talking about all these things I think there is politics first, political decisions. Those always involve the government, voters and parties. To understand conservatism, you need to keep your eye on that. But at the same time, there are what you could call the thinkers of conservatism, people who pore over these rather subtle questions and ask "What is conservatism? Who is the true conservative?" Burke and Maistre were that second kind of person.
Take Burke as a good example. Burke actually was more or less ignored during the 19th century by most people calling themselves political conservatives. He was rediscovered, indeed sort of invented, at the end of the 19th century as a philosopher of conservatism, for a political movement that, successful though it was, didn't really have a philosophy. Indeed, the best it could do, if asked, was, "Well, we don't believe in ideas." One of the reasons conservatives have been able to say that — "We don't believe in ideas. We don't need a philosophy" — is that either they were the upper classes or they were the descendants of the upper classes, people whose job was to rule by their nature. They were used to ruling. They weren't used to having to explain why they should rule, or what they were ruling for.
So it took quite a long time to figure out that they needed political ideas, political philosophy, something called conservatism. And indeed Burke was a very, very late invention. There's an 1886 "History of Toryism" which barely mentions Burke. As for Maistre, he was much too crazy and outrageous. He was a brilliant writer, but he was much too angry in his opposition to modern life to make him a good intellectual flag-bearer for conservatives in democratic times.
To finish up on the topic of who is and who is not a conservative, it shows itself very strongly in the United States, where you have three strong traditions since the middle of the last century. You have the kind of modern Burkeans, people like Russell Kirk, who dug up his ghost and tried to reinvent him in an American context. That has always been rather a kind of hothouse conservatism that doesn't really fit into modern American life. And the other two were the economic liberals — the people who want the market and business to do whatever they want, on the theory that would make things work out best — and then there's a much more sort of moral thread, with the neoconservatives who were interested in the texture of social life, and I suppose you could throw in there the religious right with their moral concerns. So those were three or four very strong threads in American Intellectual conservatism, And they're still there.
Your book traces the history of conservatism across two centuries, divided into four periods, in the U.K., France, Germany and the U.S. The first you describe as "frontal resistance to liberal modernity," from 1830 to 1880, with chapters titled "A Right Without Authority," dealing with politics and "Turning Reason Against Liberalism," dealing with ideas. How do these two relate to one another?
The first is the political movement as I described it, of old elites, established powers, who suddenly find themselves under challenge from new contestants. You saw it in the United States with Whigs and Democrats, you saw that in Britain with Tories and Liberals, you saw it in Germany and France. The intellectual counterpart of that struggle was, on one side, people like Burke and Maistre, who said, as it were, "Tradition, belief, unreason, these will be the flags with which we will go forward into the future."
On the other hand, there were conservatives who I mention in the chapter you just described who said, "Not at all. We have to use reason, we have to use the lessons of the Enlightenment in a conservative and orderly cause." These were people like James Madison, an American example, and Friedrich Gentz, a German. You have here this opening conflict within conservative thought between the traditionalists and the romantics, on the one hand, and the rationalists on the other.
You write: "In the 1830s, the right's primary choice was either to resist or to compromise with liberal modernity. By the 1880s, it faced the further question of how far to accept democratic modernity." How did these two choices differ, in terms of what was at stake? What options existed, and how did the right respond?
Good question! Liberalism and democracy need to be distinguished. Liberalism, as it were, lays out the feast. Democracy draws up the guest list. Liberalism promises people — it doesn't always deliver, but it promises people a number of good things: protections from arbitrary power, social progress, civil rights. It promises many freedoms. Democracy is quite different. Democracy promises those things to everybody, whoever they are. And there's a big difference. You can have a club of very equal people, where there's no ranking, where everybody respects everybody else. But the club itself can be extremely exclusive. It sounds almost banal to stress the difference, but that is vital to understanding liberal democracy. Historically, by the end of the 19th century, both conservatives and liberals were facing a demand that the liberal promises of modern life be extended to every last person. When you think about this, that promise wasn't even delivered on paper until the middle of the 20th century, and in many respects is still not delivered successfully to everybody.
So, the second period you describe as "adaptation, compromise and catastrophe," that's from 1880 to 1945. In what sense was there adaptation and compromise? What are some illustrative examples?
If you take the period as a whole, and look at the main conservative parties in Europe and the United States over that period, all of them, broadly speaking, accepted a degree of the welfare state, accepted a degree of big government. They accepted the New Deal in the United States, and in Europe they accepted the welfare state. They accepted, in other words, a very tempered capitalism in which government played a large role in propping up capitalism when it got into trouble and propping up people when they got into trouble, with social safety nets and so on. That broad consensus, hard-fought and very spotty, was by and large the consensus that mainstream conservatives accepted by the middle of the 20th century. That was so with Eisenhower, with Nixon and even to a limited degree with Reagan.
So what do you mean by "catastrophe"?
In any story of the political right, one can't escape the disaster of the rise of fascism and Nazism. I'm not suggesting that conservatism was directly to blame for these things. That would be wrong. But the conservative classes found themselves in 1945, for a variety of reasons, at a zero point from which they had to reinvent themselves.
That leads right into the third period you describe as "political command and intellectual recovery," from the end of World War II to 1980. How did conservatism recover during that period?
In the 1945 to 1980 period on the right, in a funny way, politics stopped driving intellectuals and intellectuals came to drive politics. It's a fascinating period, intellectually, for the right in the United States. There were a number of intriguing thinkers. They were ignored at the time, but they were working away quietly for what became the Reagan revolution, both in terms of economic policy and, to a larger extent, in terms of social and ethical questions. They were broadly derided or ignored, but they came into their own in the 1980s, and they've been in the saddle ever since.
How did that compare with what was happening elsewhere?
There was a similar revival elsewhere, but it was slower, and it wasn't so well paid for. In the United States, there were many big philanthropic donors, right-wing think tanks that supported particular intellectuals like Richard Weaver or Friedrich Hayek. It was a big, very well executed campaign of intellectual renewal. It was less organized in Europe, but it existed there as well.
The fourth period you describe as "the contest for supremacy between liberal conservatism and the hard right," starting in 1980. Say a bit more about these two terms, both what they mean generally, and specifically in this time period.
It's difficult when writing about politics, for one has to be given at least five seconds to get the canoe into the water. All these labels are very slippery, particularly the labels "liberal conservatism" — that sounds like a contradiction in terms — and the term "hard right," which many conservatives particularly dislike because they feel it's a slander or a slur. But let's say "liberal conservatism," with all those provisos, is a good label for the kind of conservatism I was describing earlier, the kind of mainstream conservatism running from Eisenhower to Nixon and even to a certain extent some of the Reagan years.
That's an OK label for the kind of mainstream conservatism that I was describing, by and large, in government. However much they turned up the gas on the campaign trail, Eisenhower, Nixon and even Reagan were within a recognizable band. It was particularly liberal in economic matters, for the free market, very business-friendly, but also liberal to an extent in the social and ethical sense. Nixon wasn't a great moral or ethical campaigner. Reagan, I don't think, believed it himself personally. He threw bones to the moral right, but it wasn't his thing.
So that's liberal conservatism. It has a counterpart in Europe. The hard right, I think, is a different thing. It's what liberal conservatives are in retreat from. If you look at the present Republican Party, I would call that a hard-right party.
What is the hard right? Well, it combines two elements. It's a strange combination, on the one hand, of ultra-marketeers, who would let business do what it chooses and will do what business wants, but on the other hand of politicians speaking loudly for the forgotten man, for disaffected voters in the name of the people. The hard right is curiously for global free markets and at the same time one-nation populist. You see this odd combination across Europe and in the United States. Although there are local differences, that's the hard right.
Conservatives get quite upset when you say, "You conservatives have a fight on your hand between the liberal strain of conservatism and the hard right." Why? Because, particularly in Europe, in France and Germany, the hard right is associated with old neofascist parties but it is by no means any longer limited to those. Indeed, it's gone way beyond them. The National Rally, as it's now called in France, and the Alternative for Germany have both the elements I've mentioned: rowdy popular elements and a free-market elite element. One of the leaders of the German hard right worked, I think, for Goldman Sachs. That gives you an idea of the hard right as an elite and popular combination.
You see the same in the United States with the Republican Party. Partly because of his outsized personality, people have over-focused on Trump as if somehow he invented the hard right. He didn't at all. The hard right invented him. You could say the same thing about Boris Johnson, the Brexiteer in Britain. He didn't invent Brexit or UKIP [the anti-EU U.K. Independence Party] or the new Tory party. It chose him.
Here in America, Trump is presented as a figure who came out of nowhere. You show that he's part of a hard right that's been growing for decades, before gaining ground with his election and Brexit happening close together. How specifically would you explain him as a part of the hard right? What characteristics does he share that would make him a part of it? If you'd like, perhaps say something about how today's hard right echoes characteristics that have been there in the past.
In a way, he's a kind of gifted improviser. I don't think he has or has ever had a lot of aims or principles. In that, he rather resembles Boris Johnson in our country — gifted campaigners with a fantastic sort of canny popular touch. If you look for a consistency of aim or opinion, it's very hard to find. If you wanted a word for Trump, I think it would be opportunist. He saw a moment to move into politics, and he succeeded very well. But, the party he took over had been moving to the hard right for a long time without him.
One of the figures to whom the American hard right at the moment owes an enormous amount is Pat Buchanan. He was writing the kind of lines that Trump delivers back in the 1970s. If "Trump" were a movie, Trump would be the star, but Pat Buchanan would get the screenwriting credit.
To answer the other part of your question, the hard right does have historical precedent. There has always been in conservatism, as it has adapted, as it has become more liberal and mainstream, as it has appealed to more and more democratic voters — democratic with a small D — there's always been a resistant fringe of those who say, "We're compromising too much."
There's a quick caution needed here in that when talking about the hard right, it's very easy to be misheard and have people say, "Ah! Fawcett's out of his mind, the hard right isn't fascist." I'm not saying for a moment that the hard right is fascist. There are many, many ways in which a conservative can become less liberal or less democratic without becoming fascist. Fascism in the 1920s and '30s was something specific. It came out of a particular historical context in Europe, after a disastrous war in which Germany was defeated. History doesn't repeat in that way. Fascism is not the right parallel.
Nor indeed is populism quite the right label for the hard right. Populism in the American context meant something quite specific, it was a movement flanking progressivism at the end of the 19th century. It had wide working-class and farm support. Populism as it's kicked around nowadays is a very loose idea. In fact, populism in connection with the hard right is an elite phenomenon. The hard right is not the people fighting the elite. The hard right in the United States and Europe is one elite, namely the hard right, a very conservative elite, fighting another, a more liberal elite. Hence the subtitle of my book: "The Fight for a Tradition."
I guess you would say that's true in other countries as well?
Yes. As for early hard-right politicians, you have Pat Buchanan. In Britain, there was a politician who may not be known to Americans, but is very well-known in Britain, Enoch Powell. He was a Tory politician, a ferociously clever person who ran himself out of politics in the 1960s by racialist outbursts which discredited him. His contribution to Tory politics is a bit like Pat Buchanan's contribution to Republicanism in the United States. Powell's contribution was, first, anti-European — get Britain out of the European Union — and nationalistic, to go it alone and not count on foreign friends, not even on the United States. Secondly, it was hyper-liberal in the economic sense. This strange cocktail, you see, was present in Enoch Powell — that same cocktail that I earlier described as hard right.
In opposition to that, you talk several times about successful conservative leaders. In one place you say "Like [Benjamin] Disraeli, or Margaret Thatcher, Churchill seemed to resolve in one capacious personality the [Conservative] party's inner conflicts." There are several other places where you make comments like that about how successful political leaders of conservatism resolved tensions that, once they passed from the scene, seemed to spill out all over the place. Could you say something about the importance of such figures? I'd also like to ask about Reagan as one such figure, because after him came the unraveling, as you mentioned before.
Reagan belongs in that category of conservative politician. It includes Thatcher and Angela Merkel today, the chancellor of Germany. They managed to keep their parties together, although like every successful party, each has a tremendous internal dynamic and conflict. In order to keep your party together, you have to give something to each side, and arguably both Reagan and Thatcher gave much too much to the market liberals, those who say "Markets will solve everything; government is always the problem." We're still living, I think, both in Europe and the United States, with the limitations of that policy. You can say that they gave too much in terms of the cost to society. However, in party terms, they were quite successful in keeping their parties together. The split in conservatism, the rise of the hard right and the rout of the old liberal Republicans, didn't begin until after Reagan and Thatcher were gone.
So what problems opened the door to the hard right after Reagan and Thatcher?
There were three levels. There was a historic internal change in society and economy, connected with the collapse of old industries, the collapse of unions. If you look back to our society and economy in the 1960s and '70s, out of which Reagan and Thatcher came, it's almost unrecognizable. So that's one thing, a huge, huge change. Second, the end of the Cold War, in 1989 and 1990. That was a convenient, if dangerous, framework for thinking about the world and other countries. That's now gone. Those two changes together — huge social and economic change inside, great global change outside — have meant that an old framework of ideas in which conservative politicians argued with each other is gone, and needs replacing. Good as they were at keeping their parties together, neither Thatcher nor Reagan handed on any kind of replacement.
Into that vacuum has come the hard right. It's not a program, it's not a long-term solution to anything. It's actually intellectually incoherent. It promises global free markets on the one hand, and a kind of self-reliant, protective nation on the other. It doesn't add up. However, it's politically extremely appealing.
In your coda you discuss the choices facing conservatives. But in your preface, you write that your book "is written in comradely spirit with a question for the left: if we're so smart, how come we're not in charge?"
I hope we will die on the left, but I sometimes think also we will die of the left.
I don't expect a quick answer, because then why write the book? But I wonder if you might have a tentative answer to offer, that points to a direction for further discussion and inquiry?
What is the answer to the question, if the left is honest with itself? The answer is that we may have the answers, we may be the virtuous ones, but we have never, in 200 years, persuaded a majority of our fellow citizens that we are the way to go. That seems to me too deep a pattern for there not to be lessons drawn from that. What is the lesson? In essence, a boring, dull and unpopular lesson on the left: That is that we have to cooperate with liberal-minded right-wing people at the center of politics if we want to get into government and govern, as opposed to being the party of criticism or a movement of protest, however necessary and legitimate.
To throw in a further thought, the condition of the left is part of a larger explanation of the political hole that we're in. It's not just that on the right, a hard right is dominant at present, and liberal conservatives are dispirited and in retreat. On the left, there isn't a really persuasive, strong and responsible alternative.
That said, contingency plays a part of the mess we're in politically. Think of the three times the 21st century arrived: First 9/11, a horrendous event for which it would take decades for the consequences to work themselves out. Then the 2003 Iraq war, necessary or not, which broke the liberal Republicans and broke the center-minded Labour Party in Britain. And third, the crash of 2008, which more or less finished the idea that markets look after themselves. You had these three hammer-blows which were, in their way, contingencies. Neither party, neither the left or the right, has really digested any of that.
Finally, what's most important question I didn't ask? And what's the answer?
"Is the fight on the right going to go on after Nov. 3?" And do you know what the answer is?
From reading your book?
Not only. We are thinking in parallel here. I liked the piece you wrote, "It's not just about Trump." I completely agree. Of the fight on the right, you could say, "It's not even about Trump." So my answer to the question you didn't ask is, yes, the fight on the right will go on.