I think there’s a bigger issue here that is being obscured by all the semantic and definitional arguments. It’s this: although I am personally a liberal, as is the majority on this board, I do not believe that only liberals have good ideas and that every single non-liberal idea is a terrible idea. In fact, I feel it can be healthy to have an opposition, a meaningful non-liberal force, to for example, ask things like “how ARE you going to pay for that?” (when the question is in good faith not a BS delay/deception tactic.) And there is a group of ideas that can be called “conservative” that it would in fact be healthy to have in our US political debate. For example, I think it is healthy to have people like Timex, Strollen, et. al., on this board, even though I routinely argue with them (particularly Timex, b/c he’s just so damn argu-able).
And if there was a legitimate opposition party based on ideas like those from Timex and Strollen et. al, I feel that would be a healthy counter-balance to liberal dominance. (I’m in favor of a liberal majority but I’ve also seen what unbalanced one-party rule can do, at least at the college level, and I think having at least some ballast is healthy.)
To put it another way, there is such a thing as a “reasonable good faith non-liberal” and even though I don’t agree with the non-liberal part, it would still be healthy to have such a party as a counterbalance.
The problem is, “reasonable good faith non-liberals” don’t have a party these days. And I don’t really count the Never-Trumpers who remain in the GOP: the GOP is so corrupt in so many senses of the term, that staying in that party erases any potential good faith. The GOP is so far gone that one cannot, IMO, be a reasonable good faith person and be in the GOP these days: if you want to keep your integrity, you have to leave the GOP. And if you are then unwilling to join the Democratic party, then right now in the US you have no meaningful party choice. I personally think the right thing to do is to join the Democratic party and argue for reasonable good faith non-liberal policies within that party; to provide the counterbalance right inside the party, for now at least. In theory if we survive our current crisis of democracy, that will necessarily entail the diminishment of the GOP to near-irrelevance, and possibly a split of the Democratic party into moderate and liberal wings down the road. So be it. I will be in the liberal wing.
We can argue labels all we want, but what it really boils down to is this: if you want to be a person who cares about politics and has integrity, you cannot be in the GOP. You don’t necessarily have to join the Dems, although I think that is the best choice.
What really needs to happen is the “Never Trumpers” needs to have the courage of their convictions, leave the GOP and then, given they are unwilling to join the Dems, form their own party. They can call it whatever they want, including the Conservative Party. But if they stay in the GOP, they can call themselves conservatives, or libertarians or Grand Poobahs of Awesome, they can call themselves Larry or Jerry or Bob, but what they are is Trump supporters, reality deniers, supporters of a party that does not believe in democracy or the rule of law or equality or fairness. I honestly don’t care what you call them if they continue to support Trump. Their political acts speak louder than their labels.
