Another term for ‘conservatives’ | Letter
Conservative principles face implementation challenges as policy meets political complexity.
A letter writer wants a new word for conservatives, and lands on "radicals. " Cute etymology lesson about Latin roots, less cute as an argument. Wanting to reorganize how the executive branch actually functions, after decades of agencies operating on autopilot with no real accountability to voters, isn't radicalism.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
Radicals! That is my answer to Jean Bryenton’s query about what we should call today’s so-called conservatives (“Conservatives are not living up to their name,” July 8). The word “radical” is derived from the Latin word radix, meaning root.
Project 2025, a policy blueprint from far-right Republicans, was designed to radically restructure the executive branch, consolidating power [...]
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
A letter writer wants a new word for conservatives, and lands on "radicals." Cute etymology lesson about Latin roots, less cute as an argument. Wanting to reorganize how the executive branch actually functions, after decades of agencies operating on autopilot with no real accountability to voters, isn't radicalism. It's the opposite. It's an attempt to drag unelected bureaucracies back under the control of people who actually have to answer to the public.
Call it Project 2025, call it whatever you want. The complaint underneath all of it is that conservatives want change, and change apparently disqualifies you from the label "conservative" in this letter writer's mind. But that's a shallow reading of the word. Conservatism has never meant freezing government exactly as it stood in 1975. It means being skeptical of concentrated, unaccountable power, wherever it sits. Right now a lot of that power sits in agencies nobody voted for, making rules that shape daily life with zero electoral consequence when they get it wrong.
If anything, the letter has the direction backwards. The people trying to preserve the current arrangement, where career staff and agency heads outlast presidents and set policy with minimal oversight, are the ones defending an entrenched status quo. Wanting to unwind that isn't radical for its own sake. It's an argument that the people who work for the public should actually work for the public.
Word games are fun, but they're not a substitute for engaging with what the policy actually does or doesn't do well. Renaming your opponents doesn't refute them.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.