Coherent ? Huh ?!?!

Matthew Yglesias writes of the US left in contrast to the US right

"I think it would actually be beyond the intellectual powers of any one person to work all the sacred cows of all the different factions of the movement into a seamless and coherent whole."

I comment

Evidently, you think the US conservative world view is a seemless and coherent whole. Odd, coherent isn't the word that comes to my mind (or Sanchez's).

I am quite serious. It seems to me that the different ideologies of US conservatives are radically inconsistent, while disagreements on the left are comprehensible as different priorities with agreement on what things are good and disagreement on which is most important.

On the right, we have tea partiers who denounce Obama as the bankers' friend and the bankers. Religious fundamentalists and Randians. An Openent of government handouts who received on average $200,000 in farm subsidies per year. People who fear for our freedoms and think the constitution is under threat and think that Bush had the authority to lock Padilla up indefinitely without trial. People who are upset that everything sacred is profaned, all that is solid melts into air and who love creative destruction.

I'd say that US conservatism is completely incoherent. There is no logical way that one can be a pro-business populist or a pro-market traditionalist or a hawk oposed to government spending.

I think that once upon a time there was a coherent link between the radically different US conservative ideologies -- anti communism. The Communists were atheist anti business anti market super-power adversaries. The US right defined itself in opposition to them. Now they are mostly Chinese atheist pro-business financers of our budget deficit.

I'd say the loopiness of the US right is based on the extreme congnitive dissonance of building one's world view on opposition to something which no longer exists.