[SimianSci]

Conservatism has largely been unpopular outside of rural townships, and the nation continues to undergo a process of urbanization as young people continue to move to cities. Normally, a healthy response to this would be to realign and target a more popular set of messaging and policy objectives. Instead the American Right has decided instead that this popularity (and the reflection in media) is a threat to its ability to continue serving a shrinking pool of wealthy benefactors.

It should come as no surprise that the moment they were handed the power, they began to push the boundaries of what is acceptable when it comes to censoring media they see as a threat. Republicanism doesnt work for anyone but the wealthy, it will do everything in its power here.

[bitshiftfaced]

People who responded as "very conservative/conservative" was 36% in 1992 and 37% in 2024. https://news.gallup.com/poll/655190/political-parties-histor...

"Very liberal/liberal" has increased though (at the expense of moderates).

[xscott]

Language changes over time, and I remember recent memes where a cute girl says something like "claiming you're moderate means you know conservatives don't get laid" (presumably because of abortion politics). It makes me wonder if the moderates actually became liberal or if they just don't want to use that word any more.

After all the polarism in "reality show politics", my diehard liberal friends seem less liberal to me, but they'll state which team they're on more fervently than ever.

[snowwrestler]

> It should come as no surprise that the moment they were handed the power, they began to push the boundaries of what is acceptable when it comes to censoring media they see as a threat.

To be clear, they were “handed power” by decisively winning a national election, which sort of undercuts your opening statement about how unpopular they are.

[atoav]

Well the problem I see with this is that the population means very little in terms of national politics in comparison to most modern democratic nations.

So you can be California which in terms of population and GDP will surpass most of central America combined and it still just gets two representatives. Now I get that the idea here was to avoid a dictatorship of the majority that can just ignore smaller states, but the way it is now it is a dictatorship of the minority, even if you ignore all the blatant ways of voter disenfranchisement.

Sorry to all Republicans on here, but if your party needs to prevent people from voting to win, that also hurts you. Ideally you'd want a party to have to listen to their voters. Gerrymandering, predicting voter behavior and throwing out the ones who might not vote for you are all the shameful behavior of traitors to democracy.

This has to be stopped and punished on every political level, as long as you still have a say.

[jjtheblunt]

> Sorry to all Republicans on here, but if your party needs to prevent people from voting to win, that also hurts you.

Isn't their main assertion that only citizens should vote?

(something like 80% of people claiming allegiance to both parties said the same, last i saw, but numbers surely fluctuate from poll to poll)

[CGMthrowaway]

>you can be California which in terms of population and GDP will surpass most of central America combined and it still just gets two representatives

Doesn't California have 54 reps, out of 485? And 90 out of ~800 Article III judges (lifetime appointment). It also collects $858 billion a year in state and local taxes that it gets to do mostly what it wants with

[sejje]

Well, it's two days later now, and it turns out Colbert just lied. He didn't want to abide by the 95-year-old law about equal time, and didn't extend an offer to Jasmine Crockett.

Then he lied about it and the network corrected him.

But okay, yeah they pushed the boundaries and all that bullshit.

[hn_acker]

> Well, it's two days later now, and it turns out Colbert just lied. He didn't want to abide by the 95-year-old law about equal time, and didn't extend an offer to Jasmine Crockett.

How did Colbert lie? And do you have a source for the supposed lie? The equal-time rule does not obligate proactive actions from the broadcaster such as invitations or "extend[ing]" an offer. The equal-time rule requires an equal opportunity for political opponents to use a broadcast station, and it is up to each political opponent to reach out and assert their intent to use the equal-time rule. Jasmine Crockett did not request to be on Stephen Colbert's show, much less was denied such a request.

> Then he lied about it and the network corrected him.

No, CBS lied about what the equal-time rule requires.

> He didn't want to abide by the 95-year-old law about equal time

Don't pretend that the "law about equal time" is the same in 2026 as it was in the 95 previous years [1]:

> Late-night and daytime talk show interviews were long considered to be bona fide news segments until FCC chair Brendan Carr issued new guidance in 2026 signaling that these types of shows would no longer be automatically granted the bona fide news exemption.

[break to avoid mixing quotes from different parties]

> He didn't want to abide by the 95-year-old law about equal time

Could you explain how you reached the number 95? I don't get 95+-1 from 2026-1927 or 2026-1934 [1].

> and didn't extend an offer to Jasmine Crockett.

CBS didn't want to air the Talarico interview because CBS didn't want to be forced to provide equal time in case Jasmine Crockett would have used the equal-time rule to get her own interview. Colbert did not oppose and has not opposed having Crockett on in relation to the equal-time rule.

I get the feeling that you're pretending to be angry on Jasmine Crockett's behalf. What's more, it seems like you want to be angry at Colbert and are projecting your feelings onto Jasmine Crockett. But why does Jasmine Crockett seem to have no issue with Colbert's actions [2]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule#Details

[2] https://www.thewrap.com/media-platforms/politics/jasmine-cro...

[numbers_guy]

Conservatism is a set of political principles and values, which somebody like Trump overtly does not possess, and never did. The whole Republican party feels like a country wide gaslighting operation at this point. They claim to be conservative and Christian, but are clearly neither.

[meowface]

While I agree with much of what you say, there are a lot of urban, educated, socially left, economically right people (including myself) who complicate some of this analysis. Many economically right-wing people believe a free market is the most effective and helpful path to improve the standard of living for the working class and the poor. ("Progressive neoliberal social democracy", one might call it.)

The issues with Republicans right now go far, far, far beyond "they care more about the wealthy than the poor" (though that is definitely one of their core problems). They're basically destroying the rule of law, the country's internal and international reputation and credibility, all of our most important institutions, our ability to discern what is true, our sense of decency, our civil liberties, our basic respect of human rights... The class stuff is secondary or tertiary to the bigger issues, in my opinion.

[nullocator]

Is it? Citizens in Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota have ~3x the voting power as citizens of California, seems pretty easy to win many of the things you mentioned on rural townships.