Right = Wrong

Conservatives on the Wrong Side of History on Mandela, Most Other Things

We've known it for years.

When has the American right ever — ever — been on the right side of history?

The answer is almost never.
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Consider the great political earthquakes throughout history and imagine the contemporaneous—not retrospective, as we are seeing in these phony paeans to Mandela, but in-the-moment—conservative posture. The conservative position was wrong nearly every time — not just wrong, but often morally shocking from our later perspective.
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Do you support the American Revolution? I should hope so. You would not have, however, had you been a conservative in 1785. American Loyalists, perhaps 20 percent of the white population of the day, were devoted to king and crown for mostly the usual reasons: They were older, better established, had more money, were scared of change.

How about the abolition of slavery? I reckon you’re on board with that. Well, Lord knows you wouldn’t have been if you’d been among the 1860 conservatives who started a war over it (and whose apologists today insist the Civil War was not about slavery).

In terms of domestic politics, few polemical tasks are easier than demonstrating how wrong conservatism has been about pretty much everything in all of American history.

Sadly, a tradition that continues. Much more. Read on.