Print Column: ADHD, August Birthdays and Why I’m a Conservative
MINOT, N.D. — Ideology takes a back seat in modern politics, and that’s not a good thing.
People identifying themselves as “conservative” or “progressive” are associating themselves less with a school of thought than with the avatars representing those terms in our national political war.
I’m talking about the cults of personality around people like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
Call someone “ideological” today and it’s a pejorative. We aren’t supposed to care about the philosophical underpinnings of public policy. Modern politics is about an endless campaign to defeat and embarrass the other team.
I suppose I’m a bit old fashioned in thinking we should still care about why we support certain candidates, and certain political movements, and certain types of policy.
