No Rules

 Reading this report, it's tricky to put people into tidy boxes. On the one hand: Trump supporting Floridians basically threaten to fire teachers who get vaccinated. That's...not an exaggeration, and it's very much in keeping with the current trajectory of American "Conservatism."

Then you get this passage:

The Centner Academy opened in 2019 for students in prekindergarten through eighth grade, promoting itself as a “happiness school” focused on children’s mindfulness and emotional intelligence. The school prominently advertises on its website support for “medical freedom from mandated vaccines.”

Ms. Centner founded the school with her husband, David Centner, a technology and electronic highway tolling entrepreneur. 

So we have anti-vaxxers and a tech-bro entrepreneur both somehow married to a school mission that sounds like it would fit perfectly into a Berkeley neighborhood. So I'm reading this "Uh huh. Anti-vaxxers...got it...Trumpists...sure...tech-bro embracing regressive fees...got it...mindfulness and emotional intelligence? What?"

As a school, we are looking at reducing some of our more punitive measures, including at-home suspensions and how we address late penalties on academic work. When I brought it up with my students, their response was that it wasn't punitive enough. Basically, young people do secretly crave structure, even as they rebel against it...maybe SO they can rebel against it.

"Structure" used to be a hallmark of Conservatism. My eldest son introduced me to the hilarious show Letterkenny recently, and it's a fascinating mixture of fart and sex jokes combined with dizzying word play and a really sweet sensibility. The main character is an Ontario "hick" farmer who lives by a code - structure - that we would normally associate with good old conservative values. "When a friend asks for help, you help him." "When your partner cheats, you don't go back." Wayne relishes a good donnybrook and isn't afraid to get in a scuffle. Yet, many of the characters are queer, including his sister and he's fine with that. He's oddly compassionate while also being rather rule bound.

In short, very Canadian.

American Conservatism is no longer interested in rules and structure. They are interested in power and authority, which are not the same thing. This yahoo in Florida who wants to basically fire teachers who  get vaccinated is simultaneously celebrating a lack of rules and reveling in their authority. In fact, mandatory vaccinations is a good rule, a structure, to allow for better public health. "When a friend asks for help, you help him" only writ over an entire society. I got vaccinated for myself, but also my family and my students and to reach herd immunity. This school isn't interested in rules and structures for its students, it's interested in power over its faculty and students.

The current "Conservative" movement as still defined by Trump isn't interested in rules and structures the way a "Burkean Conservative" would be, which is why it's not right to call it conservative but rather "Conservative." If the main impetus for Republican actions today is "own the libtards" then this is again understood best as a movement fundamentally about power (and the perceived loss of power and status of white men). There is no governing philosophy beyond servicing great wealth through tax cuts and deregulation that really doesn't energize those resentful white men and women. 

For Republicans, winning is the point. Maybe this is why they can't concede that they lost in November. For Democrats, winning is a means to an end. Biden's governing agenda is largely popular. This has been true of Democratic policy for decades. Majorities want higher taxes on the rich, reasonable gun safety measures, climate action, more public goods like childcare and eldercare, infrastructure improvements and reproductive freedom. Republicans don't have a comparable set of agenda items - they have opposition to the Democratic agenda. No wonder they didn't need a platform for the past election beyond supporting Trump - Trump's entire appeal was that he hated Obama and would do the opposite of Obama.

This is why negotiating with a party that is beholden to the 33% of the population that is wedded to the Republican Cult of Owning the Libs is pointless. 

I don't know how long the culture of grievance can persist as a potent force in electoral politics. At some point they will reach an inflection point of despair. They will give up in the face of overwhelming odds. 

Can't happen soon enough.

UPDATE: Jon Chait looks at how some "conservative" commentators are doubling down on the PWN THE LIBTARDS.