Anyone have a gift link for this article? (I am not interested in any commentary about the Post, thx.)

Not a particularly controversial position. There's nothing ostensibly wrong with small-c conservatism. I like to think it's part of the balance. We need to strive for righteous change, of course, but we also need a safe harbour.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I read none of those words from Tim and thought to myself: David Lynch was an abject republican of any ilk. Tim seems to argue that Lynch's ideas and approach, at least to me, place him in tune with progressive ideals. A vote or two for Reagan and a visit to his White House doesn't define him completely.

I voted for a Bush once, and also would have considered a vote for McCain if he didn't choose who he chose for VP. I'm a 25-year+ commercial artist, and need to approach my business with a conservative accounting perspective, because the economy doesn't care which way I vote. I need to stay in business despite market swings. So I carry no debt. Pay on time, and practice ethical business standards. But I'm also deeply in love with being kind and supportive to all people, not just straight, white ones. That makes me some kind of liberal in the voting booth. Perhaps I'm a loony tune, but I find liberals to be more financially conservative, and culturally progressive. That defines me, and I think that defined David Lynch just fine.

But what do I know? One word following by a period: nothing.

I also found this unsatisfying—less a provocation than a swing and a miss. I think it would have been useful for Carmody to define what "conservative" means to him. Instead he mostly gives definition by subtraction. For instance:

And though he clearly had a great sense of humor, there’s very little that’s insincere or campy about Lynch’s attitudes toward either his country or his films’ subjects.

I think his definition of a liberal/progressive artist is... John Waters? I just don't see how insincerity and campiness neatly track onto politics. What's campier than a MAGA hat?

Ultimately, Carmody seems to be arguing that having a strong sense of morality makes you a conservative, which just seems wrong. Here's his line on this:

For all his comfort with ambiguity and fascination with evil, Lynch turns out to be a profound moralist. In one of Lynch’s last acting roles, his character Gordon Cole in 2017’s revival of “Twin Peaks” half-shouts, “Fix [your] hearts or die.”

This had me tearing out my hair! How can you bring up that line WITHOUT MENTIONING THAT IT'S DIRECTED AT ANTI-TRANS BIGOTRY! That's not just argumentative malpractice; the elision totally distorts what's going on here. Gordon Cole's line is about morality, for sure—but in our society it's a decidedly progressive take on the moral. Not Reaganite "family values" but a vision of bodily autonomy and freedom of self-expression that would put Lynch to the left of not just today's Republicans but also many "centrist Democrats."

The biggest problem with this take, though, is that I just can't see how it's useful or expands our understanding of the man or his work.

But where liberals look for solutions and progress, Lynch finds ambiguous fragments of dead futures.

Man, that's not a difference between liberals and conservatives—that's the difference between a politician or pundit and an artist. Lynch was always tight-lipped about what his work meant, and he also didn't go out and get involved in political campaigns. That was a choice he made, and for me at least it's more than a touch sacrilegious to try to pin him on a 2-d political spectrum when he spent decades exploring territory that was so far beyond such fantasies.

I don't see how you come to this conclusion without a very edited version of conservatism and a very edited version of Lynch.

Tangential: I think the next four years we're going to see a lot of articles approved for publishing if they can give people some form of "Conservatism is actually okay."

This seems like a bit of a hot take considering the news of the day (the election and Lynch's death). I also feel that it somewhat falls into the trap that Republicans have laid down for decades of progressive politics to fall into, which is that conservatism = all-American, apple pie, etc., and progressivism then must be something other, and less American, less "moral". I also feel that if anything Lynch often shreds the idea of nostalgia for the fiction that is, rather than basking in it.