And what are we preserving? Some conservatives object to any deviation from the notion that America is a Christian nation. I am not one of those.
Most of us, now–and the so-called Alt Right would belong in this camp–want to preserve the idealistic notions embodied in our Constitution that we should be free from ruling elites who are accountable to no one, and that all are equal under the rule of law. We should be free to speak and act as we choose, within broad boundaries, and the government has no business interfering with either.
I readily grant that it was an elite who created the Constitution, and who early on were the only ones allowed to vote. But the system itself is INHERENTLY amenable to peaceful evolution. An Andrew Jackson, if he had not been the one, would have come along soon enough.
And the question today is where we go from here. The past is the past. The Constitution can be amended, and has been. But that process has been skipped now for 85 years or more. Many many things have come into being without the consent or vote of the people.
This is the essence of what tyranny looks like. It was the SPECIFIC outcome the distribution of powers between the Federal government and the States was intended to prevent.
What we seek to conserve, to preserve, is at root the rule of law, which has been perverted increasingly blatantly, increasingly openly, for the lifetime of most of those now living.
You cannot reject the rule of law, and not expect the unscrupulous–like Hillary Clinton–to abuse it.