What is it to be conservative? averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values. (in a political context) favouring free enterprise, private ownership, and socially traditional ideas.
What is it to be illiberal? opposed to liberal principles; restricting freedom of thought or behaviour. narrow-minded; prejudiced; bigoted; intolerant. not generous; mean.
How does one distinguish between holding socially traditional ideas and restricting freedom of thought or behaviour? The notion of tradition means that there is a dominant group: based on a way of thinking, behaving, or doing something that has been used by the people in a particular group, family, society, etc., for a long time.
I got to wondering whether there is a slide into political illiberalism from conservatism? And the answer from Wikipedia on the topic of illiberal democracy is this: According to a 2020 study by the V-Dem Institute, the Republican Party has become more illiberal and populist in the last decade with a large increase under the leadership of Donald Trump.
I guess I am a few years behind in this trend: the Guardian headline from 2021 is The Republican party is now an explicitly illiberal party. The Economist says that at the Republican party has lurched towards populism and illiberalism. That was in 2020. There are many headlines and opinion pieces on this topic starting in 2020. Time Magazine says: First, we need to understand the urgency of the problem. By international standards, the current Republican Party is an illiberal anti-democratic nativist global outlier, with positions more extreme than France’s National Rally, and in line with the Germany’s AfD, Hungary’s Fidesz, Turkey’s AKP and Poland’s PiS, according to the widely respected V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Institute. That was in 2021.
That's my brief politics 101 seminar for a January Sunday morning.
