Quote:
Originally Posted by SackAttack
The thing I don't get is this trope that claims that if it's not a TRUE CONSERVATIVE candidate who ONLY FOCUSES ON THE TRUE CONSERVATIVES AND WHAT THEY WANT, conservatives will just stay home and let the OMG SOCIALIST get elected instead. That's not rational behavior by any standard.
You vote for the dude who aligns most closely with your values. If you stay home because the candidate isn't a 100% match, you forfeit any right to bitch about the guy (or gal, one of these days) who swears the oath.
And yet, that's what I hear every four years, is the drumbeat that if the candidate is insufficiently conservative, conservatives will just stay home and spend the next 4 years bitching about the guy they couldn't be bothered to get out and vote against.
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I think this also ties into why Trump's "I'm not a politician" rhetoric is winning right now, especially among conservatives who otherwise don't match well with his record.
The answer to your question is because conservatives have been holding their nose and voting for the guys who supposedly "most closely aligns with our values" for years, for decades. And those very bozos have actually done more harm to our issues than good! By wearing the false flag of conservativism or of the GOP (hence, the term RINO), they actually set the cause backwards.
Case in point: George W. Bush. His disastrous faux-conservative presidency gave endless fodder to the wave of progressivism we're awash with today.
On the flipside: Obama's sudden lurch to a neo-socialist, progressive agenda gave rise to the tea party and a surge in conservative engagement that has led to huge political gains in the legislature and in the states.
You could argue it's better to elect a conservative's worst nightmare than a phony conservative.
And in fact, I think many conservatives have come to that conclusion. Decades of RINOs have not only accomplished nothing, they've undermined both conservatives and the country as a whole. When many folks today say, "Look how f'd up the Republicans are. They're awful for this country," many conservatives have to reluctantly agree.
That's why they won't vote for Romney. They didn't vote for McCain. And they won't vote for Bush. If Bush wins the nom, and Trump is still viable at that point (big if), I wouldn't be surprised if Trump actually beats Bush in the general, because many conservatives hate the dishonest betrayal of their so-called "friends" in the GOP more than the honest opposition of the Dems.