A foreign friend - an authentic conservative - criticizes me for using the term only in relation to pro-Russian, pro-Trumpist and, in short, prostituquo persons in Bulgarian politics.
And to some extent he is right. Modern conservatism itself is in ideological crisis with someone like Trump at the helm of the Republican Party. The so-called Social conservatism is quite a departure from that of Reagan and Thatcher.
This commented on "Facebook" Yevgeny Kanev.
First in economics - where the concept of the free market was replaced by protectionism in the American market
with higher rates and bilateral deals according to interests. Doubled with huge government spending and deficits - which left nothing of the conservative concept of the “small state”.
Second - in personal and social life. The concept of communities, traditions and Christian virtues to unite the nation has been replaced by a culture war through the language of hatred of the different, and anti-identity policies are driven from the position of restoring the dominant positions of the white heterosexual male. There is, of course, reason to be resistant to too much left-wing pandering to these policies - especially when claims for specific group rights of individual communities begin to emerge. But rejecting science and wallowing in conspiracy theories has nothing to do with authentic conservatism.
This culture war has been studied in detail by the Kremlin hybrids, and they are waging a far more successful war against democracies in the media than on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Basic understanding?
The mixing of a propaganda cocktail of old conservative values -
Faith in Christ, traditions, family - with the aim of instrumentalizing them as the antithesis of democratic values - freedom of speech, human rights and the rule of law. Under the general name ”liberal/global elites” - the main enemy and cause of the decline of humanity.
Because at an abstract level, democratic values cannot be rejected easily - individual cases are used with the rights and freedoms of people from separate racial, ethnic and, most recently, sexual communities, which are presented as “group” in the West (ie they are not related to human rights), but in our country as “non-traditional” and must be legally limited.
The end result of hybrid warfare is a deepening of division in democracies
and strengthening the positions of “social conservatives”. Ostensibly in defense of traditions, but in reality at the expense of the rights and freedoms of all citizens. The goal is a convergence of Western democracies and Eastern autocracies based on common interests of the ultra-rich elites and their vassals in countries like Bulgaria.
And in our country there are almost no authentic conservatives, because there are almost no politicians who are true believers in Christ; because the BOC is an instrument of geopolitical influence of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin; because in their private lives these politicians can rarely be an example of a “Christian family”. But mostly because in our country there are no authentic (and not propagandistically formed) communities around the Church, as in the West.
And of the Bulgarian conservatism in the Kingdom of Bulgaria, only … Bai Gagno.