How to become a traditionalist in one easy lesson

In the recent entry Michael Novak: Americans love belonging to a real, concrete nation, commenter Smith/Wesson wrote that the Republican party currently contains an "unholy combination of Evangelicals, neocons, and corporate interests," which sparked me to comment on how liberal corporations are.

I thought this bore repeating in a separate post because to my mind, it brings to light the crucial realization that brings one out of mainstream conservatism and into traditionalism. In our world, mainstream conservatives and Republicans are always using liberal arguments to advance what are seen as conservative policies. For example, conservative columnists will argue against affirmative action on the basis that it keeps black people down and is therefore racist. George Bush pushes tax cuts, saying that they will stimulate the economy and create jobs, thereby helping poor people. Now, the standard view on the left is that these people don't really mean what they are saying: conservatives really hate black people and want to oppress them; that is their real reason for opposing affirmative action, but they know that argument won't hold water in modern society, so they make up a phony excuse about how it hurts black people. George Bush really hates poor people and just wants to pass tax cuts to help his rich buddies get richer off the backs of the poor; but he knows he couldn't get away with it if he admitted that, so he makes up the bit about how tax cuts will stimulate the economy and create jobs for poor people. And the standard view of the rank-and-file mainstream right is similar: conservatives oppose affirmative action because it is unjust, George Bush supports tax cuts because such a progressive tax system is unjust, but the left is crazy and won't listen to these arguments so they make up some phony liberal arguments to appease the left.

The realization that these standard views are wrong, the realization that the reason conservative columnists say they oppose affirmative action because it hurts black people, or that George Bush says he supports tax cuts because they will create jobs for the poor, or that corporations say they love diversity and create executive-level Chief Diversity Officer positions, is that those people really believe those things--is the realization that mainstream conservatism itself has become liberal. And that was the key realization, the epiphany, that brought me out of mainstream conservatism and into traditionalism.