Romney is not running for re-election because his brand/the GOP old brand of 'fusionism' has been shown to be a dead end compared to MAGA and the New Right, and he knows he doesn't fit the new GOP base/brand anymore.
Fusionism of the old GOP is done, and the fossils who tried to keep it alive are bowing out or dying off.
"Meyer argued that libertarianism — then often called 'individualism' — and traditionalism are the twin pillars of conservatism and, more broadly, of a just and free society. The chief obligation of the state is to protect individual liberty, but the chief obligation of the individual is to live virtuously. Coerced virtue is tyrannical: Virtue not freely chosen is not virtuous. Or as Meyer himself put it: 'Truth withers when freedom dies, however righteous the authority that kills it; and free individualism uninformed by moral value rots at its core and soon brings about conditions that pave the way for surrender to tyranny.'"
I'd only heard of it because of @S'task went after me at one point for not knowing what it was, yet daring to have an option on the GOP.First I've ever heard of this particular political philosophy; but maybe if they had actually adhered to any of its tenants, as opposed to simply bending over backwards to accommodate the regressive left at every possible opportunity, perhaps people wouldn't be rejecting them now.
Romney is not nor ever been a Fusionist. He's always been a Liberal Republican / Rockefellers Republican and they staunchly opposed Fusionist from the very beginning.Romney is not running for re-election because his brand/the GOP old brand of 'fusionism' has been shown to be a dead end compared to MAGA and the New Right, and he knows he doesn't fit the new GOP base/brand anymore.
Fusionism of the old GOP is done, and the fossils who tried to keep it alive are bowing out or dying off.
That just sounds like fusionism trying to claim credit for everything about the modern GOP, except MAGA not being willing to worship 'the free market' and put corpo desires above the average US worker.Romney is not nor ever been a Fusionist. He's always been a Liberal Republican / Rockefellers Republican and they staunchly opposed Fusionist from the very beginning.
In point of fact, very few Republicans have ACTUALLY been Fusionists, even though ideologically Fusionists were basically who wrote the Republican Party platform going back decades. The only Republican President who actually was Fusionist was Reagan.
Fusionists =/= Neocons. Fusionists =/= Libertarians. Fusionists =/= Rockefellers or Liberal Republicans.
The reason most people don't know about Fusionist is because Fusionists were so successful philosophically that the base Fusionist tenants are better known as basic "Conservatism" in the US. Small government, social conservative, pro-gun, low taxes and regulation Conservatism is Fusionism. I'm a Fusionist. National Review (which has long had gripes with Romney due to him not being an actual conservative on many issues) is ideologically Fusionist. William F Buckley was basically the guy who really synthesized the ideas.
The Tea Party was also ideologically Fusionist. Much of what MAGA claims to want is also founded in Fusionism, the biggest departure between Fusionism and MAGA is debates concerning Free Trade (and Fusionism is not STRICTLY Free Trade historically, though it is more open to it under the ideal of low government regulation on things).
This idea that Fusionism is what Republicans have been operating under for decades is stupid. They've consistently failed to actually embrace Fusionism. Fusionism was what George W. Bush was rejecting with his calls for "Compassionate Conservatism", and Romney is just a liberal Neocon at best.
. . .That just sounds like fusionism trying to claim credit for everything about the modern GOP, except MAGA not being willing to worship 'the free market' and put corpo desires above the average US worker.
Which is why I call it 'establishment/corpo conservatism', because the corporations who bought the pre-Trump GOP and kept it from embracing protectionism till Trump, very much put the desires of their corpo donors above their base and their nation.
And I'd argue that there is plenty of fusionist/neo-con overlap, particularly during Bush Jr's days.
I'm not seeing anything mentioning a comparison to Fusionism in that article or the links in it.. . .
Did you even read what I wrote. I explicitly pointed out that W. Bush rejected Fusionism, that's what he was rejecting/replacing with his much pushed "Compassionate Conservatism". FFS even WIKIPEDIA lists it as a separate strain of thought of Conservatism from Fusionism, as is likewise Neoconservatism which WAS the exact thing you're calling Corporate/Establishment "conservatism".
...it really just sounds like you are trying to slap the 'fusionist' label on anything not explicitly neo-con or MAGA created, which...feels like a cop-out and maybe trying to give fusionism more credit than it's due.Further you're misunderstanding what I was stating. Fusionists were the dominate intellectual class behind the Republicans from the 1980s onwards. They were the policy wonks in most areas OUTSIDE of foreign affairs (which was dominated by the Neocons). This means they wrote things like the party platform and also means that intellectually their ideas are what most people associate with what it means to be a "conservative" in the US as they often were the people writing opinion peices in newspapers and magazines. HOWEVER, just because they wrote the platform or defined what it meant to be conservative ideologically doesn't mean that the Republican party actually governed according to those principles. They didn't. Republicans, as you noted, tended to either favor the Neocons when it came to foreign affairs or corporate interests when it came to some domestic affairs. Fusionists have, for instance, been calling to abolish the Department of Education at the Federal level since it was established under Carter... no Republican has actually done that.
Because if fusionism was actually something mainstream US politics considered as being meaningful, you would not have been the first person I ever heard the term from, and the only person I've run into who seems to think fusionism is the foundation of the modern GOP.
Except the very first time I'd heard of fusionism was S'task lecturing me about 'how I don't know the GOP internal history' a while back.Except he's not the only person saying that, more or less everyone with any grasp of history says it.
Because what you think of basic bitch political capital-C Conservatism in US politics IS Fusionism. Every time people talked about "Conservatism" without any other modifier (Neo-, Paleo-, Compassionate, etc.) they were talking about Fusionism.Except the very first time I'd heard of fusionism was S'task lecturing me about 'how I don't know the GOP internal history' a while back.
I mean it when I say I had not heard of fusionism before that point, nor does it seem to show up in any mainstream political debates or rhetoric.
The description of fusionism vs other things like the neo-cons, the Evangelical Right/'Compassionate conservatism', and the establishment make it feel very much like the only real differences are how much they suck off the concept of 'free market' vs protectionisms, whether they pay attention/deal with foreign affairs intelligently, and how much they try to use either corpo or evangelical reasoning to buttress their arguments.
Because right now fusionism seems like a giant nothingburger trying to claim credit for a lot of other groups power/ideology/actions.
...see, exactly what I said, you claim fusionism is the base of modern conservatism and everything else is a change from it.Because what you think of basic bitch political capital-C Conservatism in US politics IS Fusionism. Every time people talked about "Conservatism" without any other modifier (Neo-, Paleo-, Compassionate, etc.) they were talking about Fusionism.
When people talk about the Conservatism of National Review, they're talking about Fusionism.
Basically, Fusionism was so successful that in many respects it disappeared as a separate thing because it became the core foundation of the US Conservative movement and everything else is defined in how it VARIES from Fusionism.
Except the very first time I'd heard of fusionism was S'task lecturing me about 'how I don't know the GOP internal history' a while back.
I'd argue that the fact I never heard about before you mentioned it,
According to KSL-TV, Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs (R) & UT House of Representatives Speaker Brad Wilson (R) are likely candidates for Romney's US Senate seat.They can find a better Mormon then him
Yes, amazingly when I started supporting the populist Right that is/was MAGA and Trump I didn't much care for 'basic bitch conservatism' or what it's adherents believed it is responsible for.Because you don't look for shit:
We Need a New Fusionism
Conservatism is almost as divided as America, split between divergent brands that range from traditional and social conservatism to libertarian and constitutional conservatism. But there is no reason to despair—conservatives have never marched in lockstep. Just as they oppose centralized...www.heritage.orgKnow Your Enemy: Frank Meyer, the Father of Fusionism - Dissent Magazine
A deep dive into the life and work of Frank S. Meyer, the longtime senior editor at National Review who became most famous for his theory of "fusionism," which combined the traditional and libertarian strains of the conservative movement.www.dissentmagazine.orgIs There a Future for Fusionism?
There's a well-worn tale about modern American conservatism: It says that the movement as we know it came into being…reason.comFusionism - South Carolina Encyclopedia
A phenomenon of the Reconstruction period, “fusionism” describes the awkward and short-lived political alliance between moderate wings of the South’s Democratic and Republican Parties. With newly enfranchised blacks entering the political arena as Republicans, white Democrats (mostly former...www.scencyclopedia.orgThe Conservative Consensus: Frank Meyer, Barry Goldwater, and the Politics of Fusionism
Conservatives have always been a disputatious lot. Their disputes are passionate and often personal precisely because they revolve around the most important thing in politics -- ideas. Far from being signs of a crackup or a breakdown, intense uninhibited debate among conservatives is an...www.heritage.org
Yes, amazingly when I started supporting the populist Right that is/was MAGA and Trump I didn't much care for 'basic bitch conservatism' or what it's adherents believed it is responsible for.
It wasn't 'basic bitch conservatism' that brought people to Trump, MAGA, or the current GOP, so why should most of the people Trump pealed off from the Dems/center care what specific title the old guard called themselves.
Basic bitch Conservatism/fusionism isn't what is bringing young people to the GOP or Right, and as I said, before S'task bitched at me for not knowing what it, I had no idea 'fusionism' was something supposedly distinct from the establishment/corpo GOP.
I do research shit that matters to me; what 'basic bitch conservatives' call themselves and what their internal propaganda says was not high on my list of concerns regarding politics.Because. You. Do. Not. Research. Shit.
I do research shit that matters to me; what 'basic bitch conservatives' call themselves and what their internal propaganda says was not high on my list of concerns regarding politics.
No, I am saying that whatever 'fusionists' think of themselves, outside their choir/echochambers, most of the public has ziltch idea the term even exists.You said you'd never heard of it and that it never mattered.
You're wrong, outright, and now you're just screaming "NO NO NO DOESN'T MATTER FUCK YOU".