JF

I keep being told (and want to believe) that whether people are culturally liberal or conservative is irrelevant, but then I actively hear pushing socially conservative messaging is the way forward. Why concede that social conservatism has a monopoly on non-market relationships?

Socially conservative messaging? Like, specifically Christian?

In any case one intuitive reason to suggest 'socially conservative' messaging is that social conservatism has failed on the market. Another is that social liberalism marks all areas around its border as socially conservative.

The first one makes more sense if you draw it out, but never precludes other possibilities. The second is precisely the definitional problem - if conservative just means "non-Left" and we can't control what "left" actually is, then by definition we're left with conservatism.

Why doesn't the definitional problem hold for (or does it?) for Marxism? I guess I just don't get why we need to concede this point, to me it seems like a Faustian bargain, which didn't work for the left when recruiting liberals.