Conservatives lose because they go too far right

Submitted by Prashant, Jan 11, 2019 at 22:10

Dear Dr Pipes,

The current state of politics in India explains why conservatives lose in democratic elections. Though India does not classify its political parties as liberals or conservatives, currently India's federal government can be termed as a conservative government. PM Modi's federal government won the election in 2014 because people were tired of corruption of the liberal government of Manmohan Singh. People were also tired of what India calls 'minority appeasement'. Muslims in Europe demand more and more democratic rights for Islam and Muslims in Europe. Indian Muslims are no different. There are full fledged political parties in India whose only purpose of existence is to advance the Islamic cause. Indian liberals like Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, and others offer more and more goodies to Muslims to win votes in the democratic elections. In the 2014 general election majority Hindu voters decided that enough was enough and Sonia Gandhi's Congress party lost the election by an unprecedented margin. It appeared for some time that Congress party was dead for ever and will never win an election again.

In 2018 there were elections in five states of India. Congress won four of them and liberals won the fifth state also. It is highly possible that in the upcoming 2019 Indian federal elections, Indian conservatives might lose or there is a hung parliament. Why? Why do conservatives keep losing elections in India as well?

There are many reasons. First and foremost, in every democracy there are solid voting blocks of people who always vote liberal. How come a Muslim is mayor of London? 12.4% of London's population is Muslim. That means the opponents of the current London mayor have only 88 out of 100 votes to work with. 12% Muslim votes in London will always go to the Pakistani mayor. The Indian conservative across the nation also have about 85% votes to play with. In the 2014 Indian election the majority was better united than the liberals due to people's anger toward Sonia Gandhi's corruption and appeasement of minorities. India is a multi party democracy so Muslim votes got divided among many liberal parties. Since 2014 the liberals have united much more and people's anger against Congress has subsided.

Conservatives are not faultless. They lose because they go too far right and make many people uncomfortable. While Indian people just wanted minority appeasement to stop, they got more than they bargained for. Like every free religion, Hindus of India have their own crack pots. When conservatives win, these crack-pots start thinking that it is their victory and they can never lose again. The percentage of these people is small but they do enough things to turn even educated and modern Hindus against the conservatives. Hard core liberals are against them to to begin with. Just as the evangelicals in the US face significant opposition from the general majority Christians in the USA, so do the Hindu crackpots in India. Given that the conservatives only have 85% votes to work with, even a small percent defection tilts the balance of the elections toward liberals. Liberals know it all too well.

The conservative fall in this situation because modern democracies have been democratic for centuries and the number of religious conservatives is not very high. In Islamic societies due to centuries of dogma and lack of education, the percentage of religious conservatives is high. The stubborn Islamic dogma makes it even easier to harbor fundamentalism (it is not for nothing that General Muhammad, made Islam as democracy-proof as possible!).

So far, I have looked at the problem from the religious angle only. Fiscal liberalism becomes a populist cause in every society. And, religious and fiscal liberals make convenient partners..

In a perfect world all people will show religious tolerance will be liberals on the matters of religions. In this perfect world elections will be fought mostly on fiscal issues. This perfect-world assumption is, however, violated because some people in all societies and most people in Muslim societies always make religion a cause to celebrate in every democratic election. There is no solution to this problem except one. Fiscal-conservatism will always remain unpopular because spending free money always feels good. Religious-conservatives will always be in minority because matters of faiths are difficult to stick to without force. And in all democracies, religious liberals and fiscal liberals will always partner for easy popularity. And, finally, in every democracy Muslims will partner with the liberals of both kinds to advance their Allah-directed vested Islamic interests.

What can be done to prevent Muslims minorities from stealing the agenda and becoming king-makers in every democratic elections? We need to: 1) preach democracy relentlessly and highlight the places where Islam breaches the cause of democracy. 2) work relentlessly to bring democracy to Islamic nations so minorities are not crushed and exterminated in them. 3) Convince Muslims that while spirituality is good; religious conservatism and stubbornness is not good and, thus, encourage them to maintain Islamic spirituality but destroy Islamic politics and fundamentalism.

This is a battle of ideas and it needs to be fought until won.

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