“As someone who has spent much of my life identifying as a conservative...” — Max Boot Quote

“As someone who has spent much of my life identifying as a conservative, I can't stand what American conservatism has become.”

“Having emigrated to the United States as a small boy from the Soviet Union, I am instinctively suspicious of socialism and inveterately opposed to communism.”

“Once upon a time - in the days of Margaret Thatcher and John Major - I would have rejoiced in a Conservative Party landslide in Britain. But now, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's victory fills me with fear and foreboding.”

“There is no evidence that Republican leaders have been demonstrably dumber than their Democratic counterparts.”

“You can debate when the conservative movement became a racket - I nominate 1996, the year Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes created Fox News Channel to monetize right-wing outrage - but there is no doubt it has long since passed that point.”

“Irrationality may be more prevalent in the party of climate denial, but it isn't limited to Republicans.”

“Japan's biggest problems are conservatism and cowardice.”

“A conservative government survives essentially by dampening expectations and subduing hopes. Conservatism is basically pessimistic; reformism is basically optimistic.”

“Conservatism cherishes tradition; innovation fetishizes novelty. They tug in different directions, the one toward the past, the other toward the future.”

“Conservatism is not about the party, because the party is merely the shell. It is the inside - it's the filling that really means something.”

“At its core, conservatism is not an anti-government movement, and it's not a no-government movement.”

“It's important that Donald Trump and what he represents - this kind of ethnic, quote, 'conservatism,' or populism - be so decisively rebuked that the Republican Party, the Republican voters will forever learn their lesson that they cannot nominate a man so manifestly unqualified to be president in any way, shape, or form.”