Andrew Sullivan points out that the Tories, the British conservative party, would be considered a hotbed of radical socialism in American politics. They fully support their single-payer health care system, marriage equality for gays, public transit, and moving away from a carbon-based economy.
Meanwhile, American conservatives are currently obsessed with reviving Confederate pride, removing all references to that humanist pansy Thomas Jefferson from history textbooks, and repealing most or all of the Affordable Care Act.
The fundamental difference between these two movements is that the Tories are looking to the future through a moderately conservative lens; American conservatives are fixated on a sanitized past as viewed through a glass darkly. If the Tories do win next month’s election, perhaps their sane counterparts here in the States will be a little bolder in confronting the babbling fringe that is currently holding a gun to the head of the Republican Party.
Band name of the day: The Babbling Fringe.