Reformocon (reform conservative)
“Reformocon” (reform conservative) has been used since at least 2008 in Canadian politics. “Extremely well-positioned to be the leading reformocon in the Senate, but hasn’t really done it yet: @kellyayotte” was cited on Twitter on May 7, 2013, by conservative American political commentator Reihan Salam. “Let’s popularize ‘reformocon.’ I like it because it sounds like the name of a fighting Japanese robot” was written by Salam on Twitter on July 2, 2013.
“Reformicon” (reform conservative) means the same as “reformocon” and was popularized by liberal American political commentator E. J. Dionne Jr. in May 2014. Salam wrote in Slate on February 6, 2015:
“For the record, most reform conservatives favor ‘reformocons’ over ‘reformicons,’ so I’ll use that spelling from here on out.”
Wikipedia: Reihan Salam
Reihan Morshed Salam (/ˈraɪhɑːn səˈlɑːm/; born December 29, 1979) is a conservative American political commentator, columnist, and author. He is the executive editor of “National Review” and a columnist for Slate, as well as a contributing editor at National Affairs and interviewer for VICE. He has also appeared on a number of radio and television shows, including NPR’s Morning Edition, Talk of the Nation, All Things Considered, Tell Me More, HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, NBC Universal’s The Chris Matthews Show, WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show, BBC’s Newsnight, ABC’s This Week, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report”, and American Public Media’s Marketplace.
Twitter
Davin Risk
@davin
@splorp I’ll agree that all options have issues but all I see from the Reformocons is bad news. I vote NDP but Dion originally gave me hope
3:28 PM - 7 Sep 2008
Twitter
Josh Lavoie
@joshlavoie
@billmarch Maybe @pmharper plans on putting Tory dissidents in there. I’m predicting a PC insurrection in the ReformoCon party.
11:54 AM - 26 Oct 2010
Twitter
Eliza
@sandstonelass
@bigpicguy didn’t canadians do that already by electing so many damn reformocons?
5:16 PM - 28 Oct 2011
Twitter
Reihan Salam
@reihan
Extremely well-positioned to be the leading reformocon in the Senate, but hasn’t really done it yet: @kellyayotte.
1:45 PM - 7 May 2013
Twitter
Kristen Anderson
@KSoltisAnderson
@reihan I like this term “Reformocon.” Sounds like we’re going to go fight a bunch of robots for control of the universe.
10:41 AM - 10 May 2013
Twitter
Ross Douthat
@DouthatNYT
I, too, enjoy @jbarro’s irascibility, but his policy diffs w/other reformocons are bigger than @jonathanchait allows: http://bit.ly/10K4QPD
9:19 AM - 23 May 2013
Twitter
Reihan Salam
@reihan
Let’s popularize “reformocon.” I like it because it sounds like the name of a fighting Japanese robot.
11:18 AM - 2 Jul 2013
Breitbart
‘REFORMOCONS’: HOW CONSERVATIVES SHOULD STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE DEBT BOMB
by JOHN HAYWARD 17 Jan 2015
It’s not exactly a shocking revelation that liberals are interested in supporting Republicans who want to drag their party to the Left, especially after a historic midterm election where liberalism got its posterior kicked sideways.
(...)
Thus, we have Peter Beinart, writing at in praise of the “reformocons,” i.e. Big Government-friendly Republicans whose primary mission is to run urbane GOP candidates with good resumes, who can lose gracefully to Democrats, with a minimum of pinched-face scowling from debate moderators during the next presidential campaign.
National Review Online—The Corner
Sorry, There Is No Huge Beef Between Reformocons and Other Conservatives
By Reihan Salam
February 3, 2015 11:53 PM
Bob Davis of the Wall Street Journal has a report on how reform conservatives are trying to influence GOP presidential candidates on taxes, and in it he reaches out to several members of the National Review family, including Ramesh Ponnuru, Yuval Levin, Michael Strain, and Robert Stein. My concern, however, is that Davis is misrepresenting exactly what these thinkers are trying to accomplish. Specifically, Davis maintains that reform conservatives are uninterested in cuts to marginal tax rates and that they prefer “targeted tax breaks,” to go by the article’s subheading.
Slate
FEB. 6 2015 4:36 PM
A New Kind of Republican
Is Jeb Bush a reformocon? Also, what’s a reformocon?
By Reihan Salam
(...)
On Tuesday, Bob Davis of the Wall Street Journal reported on the young “reformicons”—a term that brings to mind a hitherto unknown faction of Transformers—challenging the GOP establishment. (For the record, most reform conservatives favor “reformocons” over “reformicons,” so I’ll use that spelling from here on out.) According to Davis, the really distinctive thing about the reformocons is that they prefer middle-class tax cuts over the rate cuts for the rich favored by many supply-siders. Last summer, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne offered an extended critique in Democracy Journal. For Dionne, reform conservatism is the anti–Tea Party. Whereas the Tea Party represents (in his view) “extreme opposition to government,” reformocons are (also in his view) people that the left can do business with, if only they would acknowledge how much they have in common with Barack Obama.