I think you're giving conservatives and their movement too much credit, bowser, as if the GOP were the equivalent of SPECTRE and conservatives all sovereign Bond villains(1).

To harp lightly on a favorite theme, there's Conservative and then there's conservative. The upper-case Conservative ideology tries to argue that their economic beliefs create a "rising tide that lifts all boats", and it' couldn't possibly be their fault that the rising tide of the Reagan Revolution is drowning the middle class. They believe that with all their hearts, and they know they're not the villains. A lower-case conservative doesn't give a rat's ass and couldn't be bothered to argue. Lower-case conservatives just know it's all the fault of libtards, and can't grasp that there might be things they might not know.

What they both have in common is cognitive near-sightedness. You can't accuse them of wanting this outcome, simply because they're not capable of imagining this outcome. History just happens to l.c. conservatives; they're always caught by surprise. And reliably, in their shock and fear, they turn to demagogues to save them, daddy, save them!


1--"sovereign Bond villains": It's uncanny how all non-governmental Bond villains are sovereign citizens. They reject the authority of the state and consider themselves sovereign, answerable to no one. And yet James Bond is the ultimate conservative enforcer, licensed to kill indiscriminately to stop the renegade sovereigns and restore the status quo and the authority of the Crown, the One True Sovereign.