Are there conservative socialists in the US?

Question

• By "conservative" I mean those who have traditional views on gender roles and sexuality, stand against immigration and cultural/ethnic mixing, value cultural norms and traditions etc.

• By "socialist" I mean those who support public transport, free education, free healthcare, social services, progressive taxation, public housing etc.

This stratum of the society seems to be entirely missing in the US. I have not been able to find any vloggers (or anybody for that matter) who fit this description. Is that so?

Answer 1

Do historical examples count or do they have to be current?

If historical examples do count, then I would argue that the bulk of white Southern Democrats from the 1930s to the 1960s fit your description, who supported the New Deal, but also racial segregation. You can read about it here in Wikipedia; unfortunately that article is not very thoroughly sourced, but here is a more respectable source (search for "Southern") that confirms this.

Answer 2

This is fairly close to the ideology of YouTube streamer Haz Al-Din of Infrared, who's been calling for "MAGA Communism". Another figure closely associated with him and with similar politics would be Jackson Hinkle. As you'll note from Hinkle's Twitter feed, they are also very big on isolationist foreign policy, frequently praising countries like Russia, China and Iran. Both of them show influence from the ideas of far-right figures including Lyndon LeRocuhe and Alexander Dugin.

I wouldn't say these ideas have any sort of mass base in the US. This is fringe stuff.

Answer 3

While not particularly vocal, the economic ideas of Henry George have some quasi-socialist language to them, especially related to ownership of "Real Property" and "Right of Way" which some of his works seem to indicate that he treated as rentals from the government by the property owner more than property ownership. His economic policies tend to be attractive to American libertarians, who ideologically tend to mix right and left wing politics (though the Libertarian party tends to be a center-right third party and tend to spoil more for Republicans than Democrats).

President Theodore Roosevelt has a lot of respect from both sides of the aisle as he his most famous policies were his "Big Stick" style diplomacy and his pro-environmental policies (even most anti-environmental politicians tend to agree with Roosevelt's reasoning that, as a well known big game hunter, Roosevelt felt it was important to preserve the environment because he might kill everything with out preservation rights. Its a bit of an exaggeration, but Roosevelt did not think it was sporting to hunt easy queries, like bear cubs.).

Although he's more famous for having the first scandal to use the -gate suffix, Richard Nixon opened up U.S. relations with Communist China and created the Environmental Protection Agency. While the Cold War was still a thing, the Nixon era was known for it's less aggressive stance towards communism, compared to the Kennedy-Johnson era or the Reagan/Bush year (Nixon could get away with this because he was a known hardliner against communism and it was impossible to accuse him of being soft on it.).

In modern American Politics, it's not uncommon to find conservatives who are not opposed to welfare systems, but rather, wish to institute policies to better close possible avenues of waste, fraud, and abuse (for example, they aren't opposed to unemployment benefits, but are opposed to when the benefits pay better than the jobs that the beneficiary would qualify for or giving benefits to people who test positive for recent drug use because the tax payer dollars shouldn't fund the consumption of illegal substances.). You also have some conservatives who favor the benefit of social services being run by private charity rather than publicly mandated funds (though this ignores that charity is vulnerable to periods when the economy is poor, since private funding of charities is often from excessive income).

Answer 4

I don't know whether those groups actually exist and would just offer some intuitions. Also that's the U.S. definition of "socialism" and the U.S. political mainstream tends to have a tendency to redefine political terminology with regards to history or it's usage anywhere else in the world. So not sure how appropriate the tag "socialism" is or whether you should pair it with "United States". Though for the sake of your question you defined your terminology so not complaining about that.

Now if you look at your list of conservative features and exaggerate them as "sexism, racism, xenophobia, nostalgia and a soft spot for inequality and social hierarchies" then it's ideologically difficult to marry that with an ideology that, at least in theory, argues for equality and attributes the same social and political agency and dignity to all people. So if the point of what you call "socialism" would be to make people more equal participants in society and to reduce the gap between people then that wouldn't really work with a conservatism that doesn't inherently sees this gap as a problem but rather as the natural order and something to preserve and protect or as "the job of the poor people to overcome that challenge, not theirs to avoid or get rid of the challenge".

Not to mention that "socialists" are more prone to describe themselves as progressive (whether that's always the case is a different issue), while conservatives (especially in the U.S.) wouldn't touch the label "socialist" with a stick. So it's unlikely that this would make much sense for an ideological point of view or that a label such as "socialist conservative" or "conservative socialist" would make much sense.

So it's unlikely to find a good faith political party to advocate for mutually exclusive goals. That being said as your description of "socialism" isn't really all that ideologically but more pragmatic, let's take this angle next.

And that wouldn't be unheard of. Like the first social security measures in Germany were also introduced by a staunch conservative, not because he liked the people, considered them equal or wanted to do something nice or whatnot, but simply because a) he needed to appease them and deter them from revolutions (he already tried brute force so it's not that this would have been his first move) and b) because that often actually works. It's pragmatic. Like even a slave owner who doesn't consider the slave as equal has an incentive to not let the slave die as a working slave makes more money than a dead one. So having the pool of working people be more healthy, flexible and better educated is not necessarily a bad thing, but an investment that might pay dividends. And while they probably would try to make poor people, rather than rich people, pay for that, the fact that taking away money from the poor would mitigate the success of those ideas as it would create other problems, might sooner or later convince them of the fact that it is pragmatic to have progressive taxation at least to an extend. So while the current conservative attitude apparently seems to be more along the lines of "if the poor can't afford a living than maybe they shouldn't live" and "I'm not going to pay for someone else's survival". It's not generally impossible to be a pragmatic conservative, though they would likely have different intention and goals by which they would measure "success" as opposed to a "socialist" advocating for the same measures.

Likewise on the other side individuals are not necessarily ideologically consistent and always children of their time. So as our understanding of the world improves so does our moral and ethical considerations, but that doesn't necessarily works for all individuals on all issues. Like it's frequent that things that "used to be ok, aren't anymore". However contrary to conservative believes that doesn't mean that they ever were ok in the first place it just means that in the past it didn't require individual malice to do them but it was just something that was part of the environment that you didn't pay attention to, while now we know what it is how it works and our own role in it and continue to do or not do it is no longer a neutral act, but a deliberate decision.

But as said it might be hard to keep up with the times so there are probably people who think of themselves as progressives or even socialists but who still harbor traditional values without reflecting them. So to say cultural blindspots. Not to mention that people are hypocrites and often think of themselves as better than they actually are, to a degree that is necessary to become the person you want to be, but it also means that talk and action might not overlap or that you've got ideological inconsistencies.

Though again it's unlikely that they would organize in a party under that banner as it isn't a coherent idea and it might have different forms for different people so it's more difficult to find a large enough base for a political party, but it's likely that those people exist.

Though it's more likely that they are older so the chances of them having vlogs is much more narrow.

Answer 5

It's a huge mistake to assume that the entire world is divided into Progressives and Conservatives who all think the same about everything.

It's a mistake that is however fostered in the US by the two-party system. In the US almost every politician (in the loosest sense) belongs to one party or another. This may not mean that actually agree with the party on all matters, but it means they tend not to speak out about the points where they disagree. There are also people in most organizations who make it their mission to try to throw people out of their organizations because they don't agree with them on everything, whether it's relevant to the aims of the organization itself. The terms "Progressive" and "Conservative" are massively over-general labels that tend to be applied to people without actually

To give an obvious example, there are plenty of Roman Catholic activists who campaign for poverty alleviation - better social services, healthcare, housing and progressive taxation, but don't agree with the "Progressive" stance on abortion. Likewise you will find Libertarians who would be totally fine with any and all gender and sexual choices, and also in favour of less business restriction, as well as Conservatives who favour lower taxes and smaller government but not the violent overthrow of the democratic process. Many people also feel strongly about specific issues (often ones that touch them, or which they see as a solution to specific problems) and care much less about others.