That current Republican leaders see fit to assault the FBI, historically the country's most conservative law enforcement agency, simply to protect Trump's criminal behavior, is just one example of how they have abandoned conservatism in any meaningful sense of the word. Genuine conservatism can at least be credited with supporting the rule of law, and according to Adorno, the "unqualified rejection of antiminority prejudices."
The point here is that "all fascist movements" utilize what Adorno refers to as pseudoconservatism – that is, they "officially employ traditional ideas and values but actually give them an entirely different, anti-humanistic meaning." Step one in guarding against the destruction of American democracy is knowing its enemy.
We must identify the pseudoconservative for what he or she is – one "who, in the name of upholding traditional American values and institutions and defending them against more or less fictious dangers, consciously or unconsciously aims at their abolition."
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