A Quote by Michael Ashcroft
Conservatives like to talk about 'the strivers' who share what they like to think of as Conservative values. But as I found in my Blue Collar Tories research in 2012, such people no longer see the party as their natural ally.
Related Quotes
If you're a progressive, you can find lots of people who call themselves conservatives, but who agree with you on lots of things. There are people who call themselves conservatives, but who love the land as much as any environmentalist. Progressives share a number of common values with people who call themselves conservatives. Barack Obama has understood that very well. What he calls bipartisanship is not adopting conservative views, but finding where people who consider themselves conservatives share with him and other progressives these fundamental American values.
When we talk about values, I think of rationality in solving problems. That's something I value. Fairness, kindness, generosity, tolerance. That's different. When they [Conservative right wing Republicans] talk about values, they're talking about things like going to church, voting for Bush, being loyal to Jesus, praying. These are not values.
What Barack Obama calls bipartisanship is not moving to the right, but finding where people who consider themselves conservatives share these fundamental American values. When he talks about union, that's the kind of thing he means. That requires common responsibility. Individual responsibility is one of the hallmarks of conservative thought. In conservative religion, you yourself are responsible for whether you get into heaven. Or with fiscal conservatives, you are the market. It's your individual discipline and market discipline.
...whatever the self-righteous excesses of the environmentalist left, it is impossible to be true to traditional conservative values (to say nothing of the Christian faith conservatives like me profess) and hold laissez faire attitudes about the use and abuse of the natural world.
Sometimes a politician gets up and talks about British values and what we think that means, and we can be knocked down quite harshly, but I don't think we should be. I think we should be able to talk about British values and about immigration without people saying, 'Oh, you're just being like a crazed other party.'
I think the Democratic Party is firmly in the wilderness right now and doesn't know exactly what to do. We talk about trust. Fundamentally, the American people have lost a lot of trust in both parties, but in particular, my party. Growing trust is a very simple calculation: People want to know what your values are, and they watch your behaviors. If your behaviors align with your values, then they trust you. If you say I'm for the people, but we're just as bought off as the other party, or we say we're for fairness, but we gerrymander just like the other side, people see.
We're a blue-collar band. That's how we like to think of ourselves. We come from humble beginnings and still have this attitude of really loving to meet people, shake their hands, and talk with them.
Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.
Dick Armey is an economic conservative. He is not a social conservative. He doesn't like to talk about marriage and about the unborn child, the sanctity of life and things like that. He wants to talk about smaller government.
Linda asked that morning what it was about Charlotte’s Web that Ally particularly liked; maybe it would help to think about that, since it was Ally’s model book. “I like the family that comes together in the barn,” Ally said without hesitation. “I like that they aren’t all the same thing; one is human and one’s a spider and one’s a pig. I like that it has nothing to do with blood relations, and everything to do with love.
Some people see writing as a white-collar career, but I've always approached it as a blue-collar writer.
I think fans cling to me because I'm a blue-collar guy in a blue-collar city.
Once upon a time, it was the Democrats who claimed to be the party of the working man. No longer. They abandoned the working guy. They slammed the door in their face, and now, it's President Trump and the new Republican Party that is supporting working Americans, blue-collar workers.
Mr. Trump, you were elected mainly because you found a way to connect with the average blue-collar worker who's sick of the games politicians have been playing for years. Those same blue-collar folks, who go to church, want to feed their families, have to pay their taxes.
If you're not mechanically in the community with people from the community trying to talk about our party, talk about school choice, talk about SBA loans for business owners - if someone's not there, nothing is going to change. You also need to have the tone ... people believe obviously you like them. If people don't think you like them, then they're not going to vote for you.
As much as I'd like to think and as much as people mistakenly think my audience is blue collar people in the heart of America, my audience is basically, in the States, an NPR audience. I play college towns in the summer because that's who comes to see me.
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