I think this discussion has been missing a global and historical perspective and almost all the discussion in here has been very specifically talking about the modern American conservative movement.

I don't know if it travels worldwide. One of the most depressing books I have read is The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence by Martin Meredith and its depressing because its story after story of "left wing" revolutionaries who otherthrow an oppressive government just to turn into an oppressive government themselves.

I don't know much about the history of Nigeria but when I think of left wing versus right wing I mainly think about it in cold war terms in regard to who backed their revolution. If its the USSR, its left wing. If its right wing, its the USA. I think the capitalist versus socialist leaning of the government would somewhat line up with which superpower backed them, but whether they were repressive and totalitarian did not.

Anyway, I will read up on Nigeria now.





>Ya it's definitely way easier to characterize conservative
>*policy* than conservative *values* lol
>
>I agree with what you and others allude to... what seems to
>guide a lot of conservative policies/proposals is thinly
>veiled (if veiled at all lol) loathing for women, minorities
>(whether racial, ethnic, sexual and gender, etc), the poor,
>immigrants, etc.
>
>On an individual level, even *if* a person isn't socially
>conservative (and as such likely harboring racist, sexist,
>and/or heteronormative/lgbtq+ antagonistic sentiments)... like
>others have said I also find their common thread is craven
>selfishness and greed. These are the people cool with even the
>most hard right government so long as their family's tax
>exposure is minimized and they're not directly impacted by any
>state violence. They could care less about population health
>and safety, genocide, mass corruption, etc. The only White
>male conservatives I've met have been of this
>non-socially-conservative variety (and were also either
>wealthy or from a wealthy background). Most of the Black
>(African) male conservatives I've known have been more
>socially conservative (and are unionized working class but
>consistently vote against the pro-labor left-wing party in
>their jurisdiction to support the conservative party off the
>strength of this conservative values bs). The few female
>conservatives/conservative voters I've met, whether White or
>Black, have stated they vote conservative or have always voted
>conservative because it was expected in their
>(hetero-)marriage and/or upbringing (which I think speaks to
>another conversation we could be having about the extent to
>which patriarchy shapes political values up and down the
>'left-right' spectrum).
>
>For me personally, it helps a lot to think about things from a
>comparative/international angle too tho. For example, a lot of
>African and Middle Eastern countries lean further right than
>what's considered an acceptable level of conservatism in the
>West (eg. countries where being lgbtq+ is still punishable by
>stoning to death https://www.bbc.com/news/world-45434583),
>just like some European countries might lean further left. To
>me, differences between political parties become a lot more
>subtle when almost every party espouses just the one flavor of
>the one section of the political spectrum (which I guess isn't
>always a bad thing and can at times make governing more
>collaborative eg. Angela Merkel's center-right CDU party's
>grand coalition with the center-left SPD). In some contexts
>tho things even seem to flip, like a supposed 'left-wing'
>party taking its interventionism so far it approaches fascism,
>or the neoliberalism of a supposed 'right-wing' party actually
>resulting in a country's most progressive
>policies/programmes.
>
>For example in Nigeria, it's the 'right-wing' party (People's
>Democratic Party, or PDP) that introduced a national health
>insurance scheme for the population
>(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples_Democratic_Party_(Nigeria)#Political_ideology),
>ended the government's fuel subsidy
>(https://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/12/fuel-subsidy-removal-how-okonjo-iweala-convinced-jonathansambo-ministers/),
>and implemented a public-private financing scheme for
>affordable lending/mortgages to expand
>homeownership/homebuilding
>(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria_Mortgage_Refinance_Company).
>In contrast, it's Nigeria's 'left-wing' party (All
>Progressives Congress, or APC) that ordered security forces to
>gun down protesters mobilizing against police brutality last
>fall
>(https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/11/17/lekki-toll-gate-shooting-army-police-lon-orig-mkd.cnn),
>and also froze bank accounts of organizers
>(https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/11/13/nigeria-punitive-financial-moves-against-protesters),
>floated legislation to ban social media and institute the
>*death penalty* for dissent/what the gov considers 'hate
>speech'
>(https://www.theafricareport.com/51915/nigeria-social-media-bill-threatens-death-penalty-for-hate-speech/),
>and just banned cryptocurrencies
>(https://qz.com/africa/1970446/nigerias-central-bank-takes-aim-at-cryptocurrency-again/,
>https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/how-nigerians-are-reacting-to-the-cryptocurrency-ban-2021-02-15).
>In fact even when attempting to engage in left-wing policy,
>like Nigeria's N-Power program which is basically a kind of
>federal job guarantee program for youth, the APC-led
>government plays the kind of games you'd expect from an
>anti-labor fatcat corporation (eg.
>https://www.naijanews.com/2020/02/21/n-power-reveals-when-beneficiaries-will-receive-january-stipend-2/,
>http://saharareporters.com/2020/04/23/ministry-humanitarian-affairs-accused-converting-n-power-beneficiaries’-salaries-covid-19).
>And in the end, both these dominant political parties are
>socially conservative... so for marginalized people in Nigeria
>such as sexual and gender minorities, they're a long way from
>having any representation in government to look out for
>them/voice their issues.
>
>I feel like for clusterfucks like Nigeria, focusing on the
>'values' landscape is almost *all* we can do to make sense of
>the country's politics... because the beacons we typically use
>in the West to identify who or what is conservative like
>political party, policy, labels/slogans, gender imbalance,
>lack of diversity, etc are a lot more ambiguous. In fact
>what's probably *least* ambiguous is the gaping divide between
>the values of the more modernized, tolerant, tech-enabled
>youth of that country v. the values of the aging, tribalistic,
>militaristic, authoritarian hyperpatriarchal political class.
>Nigeria's currentpolitical class is dominated by an elderly
>superminority wielding authoritarian, conservative, and
>frankly unrepresentative control over a population of which
>90% is younger than 55yo lol
>(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Nigeria#Age_structure).
> Personally, I don't think change can/will happen in Nigeria
>until the current political class and its 'values' (regardless
>of political party) is replaced with officials who instead
>share the youth's values and/or are members of the younger
>generations themselves.
>
>So ya. I guess where I'm at is their 'values' seem
>basic/primitive at first, but in some ways might illuminate
>interesting synergies we wouldnt detect otherwise using our
>usual markers. But for sure tho it's complete disregard for
>women, minorities, the poor, immigrants, and potent
>selfishness/anti-collectivism that seems to animate
>conservative people/policies most consistently, whether we're
>talking at the level of the individual or subnational,
>national, regional, global, etc.


**********
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"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"