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Notes -
Your Victories are Temporary, Theirs are Permanent
The most important thing lesson reified by recent political events is that while conservatives can win by democratic means, they cannot rule by them.
This is the single absolute lesson of the last fifteen years of democratic populist conservatism, from Meloni to Orban, from Bolsonaro to Trump. Progressive victories are eternal and irreversible, conservative victories are limited and ephemeral.
Understanding why requires only a cursory glance at the underlying constitutional mechanics of every major Western or Western-adjacent democracy (the same also applies in large part to many non-Western democracies, like India, although they have their own local differences).
The 20th century saw the construction of a number of constitutionally protected edifices that make conservative governance effectively impossible. These include, but are not limited to, the ECHR and European Union and the integration of the first or both into the constitutional structures of pretty much all European countries, the CRA in the United States, the emergence of supremely powerful progressive Supreme Courts in Canada, Italy and elsewhere, forms of devolution that strip precisely the powers from national governments required to implement conservative policies, and the emergence of a vast legal sector - particularly in the Anglo countries - designed to stymie policy implementation by using much of the above.
For example, adding a new citizen requires only that a single administration (which probably didn’t win the support of an absolute majority of voters even once, depending on where we’re talking about) admit and naturalize - via work or family visa, refugee status, legalizing illegal migrants, whatever - a single individual. Stripping someone of citizenship almost always requires constitutional change, in some cases unambiguously (eg second gen birthright citizenship in the US) but in many other cases (many EU countries) practically, because appeals to the ECHR, constitutionally enshrined, will almost always be won by appealing parties except in - and sometimes even in - the most egregious cases. This is occasionally possible for actual terrorists but certainly not for large migrant groups. This inherent imbalance - progressives can easily add a million citizens, conservatives can never remove a million citizens - cannot be addressed by democratic means, because national-level extreme supermajorities are very unusual in democracies. It is coup-complete not because reactionaries can never get into power, but because they cannot exercise the power that their democratic majority should rightfully give them.
Even where legislation was passed by the regular process rather than constitutional amendment, the entire construct above allowed for the insertion (as in the CRA) of vast amounts of new and powerful law into the existing constitutional framework in a way that became impossible to reverse. Additionally, longstanding small-c conservative norms like the US senate filibuster, an unwillingness to repeal previous passed laws, the existence of ‘economic conservatives’ who don’t care about culture, crime or safety and so on, prevented the reversal in any case of radical laws passed during times of bizarre, panicked or propagandized national sentiment. Squeamish quasi-conservative politicians winnowed majorities into minorities on any possibly radical piece of legislation that even sought to temporarily or partially reverse anything.
This is the situation Western conservatives find themselves in now. The center-left have established a system where - because of the constitutional, legal and social systems and customs that they created or exploited in the 20th century - any conservative government or administration can play only in a small sandbox, limited in power and with the knowledge that anything they do can be washed away at the next election. Even lightly chipping away at one of the sandbox’s walls requires the legislative energy of an entire term, and all the while they can accomplish nothing else, must contend with moderates in their own faction, and any wider economic, geopolitical etc issues that any government has to manage, and then usually fail at repealing anything anyway.
Sometimes, in countries with systems in which the left has alienated a huge traditional voting bloc for religious-cultural reasons (Turkey and India) an ambitious leader can somewhat accomplish some things democratically, or quasi-democratically by preserving an absolute legislative majority for 10+ years, which is enough to finally hack away at the aforementioned. But the Anglo countries are not Turkey or India (yet anyway), populations are too fickle, they have longer democratic traditions, and the center and left are more powerful.
Future conservative movements must therefore consider very carefully what they can and must do, after winning power legitimately by democratic means, to ensure the neutering of non-compliant institutions and the ability to rapidly consolidate extraconstitutional power to effect significant change, by whatever means.
I think this is what Dennis Mangan used to call "Despair Porn." Yes, there's a ratcheting problem, but (1) there are other issues in play (differential birth rates; internal conflict; etc.); and (2) history shows that some progressive wins are temporary (e.g. prohibition and abortion)
I mean with abortion we have lost on it on most ballot measures. Minus a few states. I think there is some truth to what he is saying.
I'm not sure I understand your point here. I'm simply saying that in 1973, progressives had a huge win on abortion -- abortion was recognized as a right everywhere in the United States. After years of tireless effort and a good deal of luck, that right was recently rolled back, at least to some extent. This seems to go against the idea that the Left's victories are permanent.
They’re permanent as far as public opinion and culture goes. Just legal Overturning roe might be a short term gain, but if states restablish the right state by state via ballot. Your back to square one to a degree. I can’t see the public getting more conservative on any real issues.
Being pro-abortion up to the first 18 years for any reason by the mother is the conservative position. Anti-abortion is a reformer position (which is how you get 'bitter clinger' Christians in bed with modern men who find this unilateral privilege excessive for other reasons, but the former group is still all-in on other female privilege).
It makes more sense once you understand that the traditionalists aren't driving conservatism/the definition of privilege-based governance any more. The progressives are doing that now- that switched over about 2010, it was a whole thing.
The idea that traditional societies saw anything particularly special about the age of eighteen is farcical.
About as farcical as the notion that Christianity is a conservative position in 2026. Then again, I don't live in Texas.
I suggest conservatism is best defined like a late-'00s 'liberal' does (though they're just the latest to do that), which is "the socially accepted way to exercise one's genetic predisposition to be an obnoxious scold".
The early '10s were when the socially-accepted banner under which "being an obnoxious scold" was rewarded switched from the Christian flag to the Feminist flag (the one that was designed by them- the Pride flag, with chevron deference). Since actual youth tend not to be pundits, this isn't a paradigm most voters are operating in yet (which is why reform parties still call themselves "conservatives" and why conservative parties still call themselves "liberals"- it confuses the young, but not the Boomer, and the name is for the Boomer).
So right now, Christianity is very much not a conservative position; they honestly seem to be more evenly split, judging by the number of Progress flags associated with the more world-focused denominations. At least they've figured out the winning strategy is a reform one (simply create an institution whose government-provided resources disincentivizes abortion, then work at that), where waving angry flags from bridges tends to be a losing strategy simply because they're not where privilege lives any more (and if you read "abortion rights" as a specific instance of the general "concerned about a reduction in female privilege", polls and the gender divide start to make a lot more sense).
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