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- Waadl Cartoonist
- Oct 28, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 12, 2024
Drawn on October 28, 2024 | Published from Miami |
“There is no little enemy.” [1]
— Benjamin Franklin citing an Italian adage in a letter to D. Hartley, Philadelphia, October 3, 1775.
Voting Republican is no substitute for voting conservatively. Conservatism is a vast spectrum comprised of many cultural and fiscal ingredients. However, due to America's polarized political model, it is often mistaken as purely derivative of right-wing ventures. Considering the misguided belief that 'conservatives cannot be Democrats,' many from the former have therefore historically felt compelled to vote Republican. Furthermore, the case for pluralistic applications of conservatism is not particularly compelling when, in its extreme form, this disposition drifts mechanically toward xenophobia, accumulating increasingly concentrated characteristics of fascism — a socially retarding method of violently policing freedoms regarded as inherent to humankind. Over the years, Republicanism has trended toward MAGA*, a movement publicly emulating a well-established fascist climax [more here].
This misunderstanding, paired with a long American tradition of 'party loyalty,' has naturally drawn many conservatives into supporting the MAGA doctrine without much forethought.
Disillusioned libertarians, typically on the left end of conservatism, are curiously not exempted from this rule, given their natural propensity to value individual freedom above collective governance. Ironically, this emphasis on personal liberty has, for some, aligned with MAGA's ‘anti-establishment’ rhetoric, despite Donald Trump’s authoritarian alternative. In seeking to oppose perceived governmental overreach, many libertarians thus find themselves paradoxically supporting a movement that increasingly prioritizes centralized, charismatic leadership over the decentralized freedom they originally championed [more here].
Conservative values don’t guarantee moral bankruptcy; but should these principles undermine the humanity of others, the risk of rendering democracy insolvent then alarmingly surfaces.
The 2024 Harris-Walz campaign’s ability to expose this incredible phenomenon — a mathematical proof [2] worth at least a Nobel Peace Prize and at most a Fields Medal — appears to have jolted life-long Republicans into rationally voting against the fascist trend. And although MAGA converts can be a little more boisterous than the Democrat crowd, their motivation is a welcome contribution to the democratic experiment all the same!
So, vote conservative, not Republican!
*MAGA: "Make America Great Again" is a political slogan of the Trump Republican campaigns. (2016)
[1] Founders online: From Benjamin Franklin to David Hartley, 3 October 1775: Extract (2002) National Archives and Records Administration. Available at: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-22-02-0136 (Accessed: 28 October 2024).
[2] To illustrate this ideological landscape:
