Conservative
Richardson suggests that it is ironic that today's conservatives use that label proudly when they are not actually advocating conservative policies or perspectives. In fact, she argues that they're espousing a radical viewpoint because the more conservative view is that the liberal consensus, which was in effect for a long time, is rooted in the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Conservatives actually want to overthrow that and implement a hierarchy in which some people are better than others, which is not a democratic view and not what the country was really founded upon.
Capitalism and Democracy
Richardson explains how in the late 20th century "Republican politicians focused on spreading capitalism rather than democracy, arguing that the two went hand in hand" (68). This is fundamentally ironic to conflate the two, because capitalism is all about some people having more power and more influence than others. It favors bold, roguish tactics that trample on other people. It is fundamentally an unequal system, whereas democracy is supposed to be more or less a system in which people have equal access and equal say.
Democracy in One Man
Richardson concludes of the 2020 Republican National Convention where Donald Trump used the trappings of dictators alongside the patriotic symbols of America: "the televised spectacle concentrated all that power not in our democratic government, but in one man" (145). This is an ironic, or perhaps paradoxical, statement. How can one person be democracy? How can a democracy function if only one person is in charge?
All Men Created Equal
One of the biggest ironies of the Declaration of Independence is how the writers and proponents of the cherished line that "all men are created equal" could be enslavers themselves (or simply turn a blind eye to it). There's not a simple answer to this irony; it simply is. But Richardson details how over the centuries people recognized the need to interrogate, challenge, subvert, and eventually uphold in a real way what the Declaration said in that line.
