Can anybody tell me the true meaniing of Conservative

[Burning Petard]

Wilh a debt of gratitude to Charlie Brown this season:

Just what is a conservative? The GOP is the party of Conservatives and Donald is the true prophet.

The prophet is ready to shut down the government

I thought the heart of conservative politics was fiscal conservativism. The only good federal deficit is no federal deficit.

Yet the GOP legislators take orders from this private citizen to remove the limits of federal debt.

By the way, any truth to the rumor that Elon Musk cannot get a security clearance because of his recreational (and maybe addiction) to regulated substances and his frequent contacts with international bad guys?

snailgate.

[Big RR]

I have known many true conservatives in my life, and they come in many varieties--fiscal conservatives who want minimal government spending, social/moral conservatives who want to bring back "traditional" values, even some who would rather have the market rule the country, but Trump is none of these--he is a rabble rouser who says what he thinks the public wants (or what some tell him the public wants) to get the power (really more the position) he wants. Indeed, it has changed a lot--I recall when many environmentalists were counted among the conservatives (remember Jim Buckley?) and some conservatives seeking to limit the power of governments were staunch civil libertarians (although neither conservatives nor liberals are all that strong on this front--they just oppose different civil liberties). I can also recall when the nominal left (the JFK administration followed by LBJ) got us mired in Vietnam, which the right then took up as a banner issue, while the left took the opposition. Indeed, maybe there is no real difference.

As for a security clearance for Musk, I have read he is having problems with concealing certain acts he is supposed to report, but I have no fear the Trump administration will sweep that away. However, I give Trump and Musk no more than a year before they split--they are both jerks, but Musk is a smart jerk who will soon tire of Trump's idiocy and go back to his commercial concerns. Right now I think he believes this connection will help his businesses, but from what I have read he doesn't put up with any differences of opinion and will walk away, maybe even to support the opposition (at least for a while).

[Sue U]

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” ― John Kenneth Galbraith

The GOP is the party of Conservatives and Donald is the true prophet.

The GOP is the party of Trumpists, not conservatives, and Trumpism is a particularly noxious strain of authoritarianism; the current practice of large corporations literally paying tribute to curry Trump's favor and fusing their interests to his indicates this country is going full-on fascist. Not to mention his cabinet choices of billionaires and rabid right-wing hatchet-men. And he hasn't even taken office yet.

[BoSoxGal]

We *must* be living in the worst possible timeline.

[Crackpot]

Not possible things can always get worse.

[Burning Petard]

Crackpot, you are expressing unreasonable optimism

snailgate.