Would America still be America is what Americans have in common ceased to be common and were replace with something fundamentally different. The question and implication of that commonality or lack thereof is discussed below, quoted in full below due to the limitations of Twitter’s/X’s embeds.
This is an interesting insight into politics in general, but also the schism that now exists in right-wing social media between conservatism and postliberalism…and the reason there is such a conservative backlash against JD Vance
This post basically says that while The West Wing was unabashedly liberal, the show still portrayed certain shared values that no long exists today and which conservatives also long for:
“America is fundamentally good.
Public service can be honorable.
Competence matters.
Patriotism belongs to everyone.”Many of us older conservatives remember that this was normal not that long ago, and that most people still want that version of America because we’re tired of all the outrage, all the time nature of politics. We recognize that social media is not real life and that the culture wars don’t define our day to day existence. Still, we feel it’s worth fighting because values still matter and if we lose the culture then the country will eventually slip towards something worse…but not imminently
The post-liberals seem to believe THAT America is gone. Many are younger and don’t remember what normal was, and why it was better. They think the world is what they see on social media, rather than anecdotal evidence of the worst that exists on both sides. To them it’s a 5 alarm fire, so they view politics as an existential struggle for power. They are good and virtuous and must defeat the evil on the other side. Things like the Constitution, values and precedents are for “losers”
But that’s not reality. I will be the first to admit that liberalism has flaws which make it vulnerable to things like influx of immigrants who don’t share our values.
What conservatives wanted when we put our support behind Trump was that we need to make changes because liberalism has vulnerabilities that threaten Western Civilization…but that these changes need to come within the confines of our existing system of a Constitutional Republic (not a Democracy) built on an underlying system of liberalism. In other words, let’s improve the system because it’s a system worth preserving
