1. These debates about "real conservatives" have same problem of essentialism as issues of real Christians, Muslims, socialists, etc
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Replying to @HeerJeet
2. There's tendency to want to say that Trump isn't a "real conservative." Or ISIS isn't "real Islam" or abortion bombers not "real Xians"
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Replying to @HeerJeet
3. This inevitably calls to mind the "no true Scotsman" fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman …
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Replying to @HeerJeet
4. One way around this is to adopt a kind of indulgent nominalism. A conservative is anyone who calls himself/herself a conservative
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Replying to @HeerJeet
5. But maybe another way around it is not so much nominalism as acknowledgement of social reality that creates terms.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
6. The phrase "actually existing" (used in old Marxist debates) is useful here. Trump is actually existing conservatism.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
7. Conservatism might historically include Burke, D'Israeli, Oakeshott & those other dudes, but as a social reality it is Trumpism.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
8. Or: conservatism has never been a carved in stone doctrine, it's always a shifting discourse of resentment in the service of privilege
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Replying to @HeerJeet
9. If see conservatism as shifting discourse of resentment in defence of privilege, we can understand why Trumpism flourishes on the right
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10. The privilege Trump is defending is particular one: the white privilege displaced by changing demographics & social norms (PC)
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Replying to @HeerJeet
11. Because Trump's defence of white privilege encompasses white working class (who are genuinely distressed) it has claims to be populist
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Replying to @HeerJeet
12. Animating every conservatism is a vision of a Paradise Lost, an Eden destroyed. For Burke: the Versailles of Marie Antoinette
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