How come liberals dont hate conservatives the way conservatives hate liberals

Submitted ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨IzzyJ@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I constantly see angry mobs of people decrying “woke”, “critical race theory”, ““grooming””, and whatever other nonsense they made up this week. They march around with guns, constantly appending lib as a prefix to any word they can use to denigrate. They actively plot violence and spew hatred in the open.

You never see the inverse. There is no ConservativesofTiktok getting churches harassed into shutting down for the day or calling in threats. You don’t see cringey boomer memes on the left. And whenever I openly express those feelings, try to create that sentiment; I get shut down. Noone agrees, I’m often shamed and muted. I just don’t understand why that parity exists, it’s extremely isolating to feel so alone in this

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MrJameGumb@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s because being hateful has become part of the conservative identity. To be accepted as a right wing conservative you have to spew hateful garbage about something pretty much constantly. If you don’t then they think your weak, or start calling you a RINO

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- IzzyJ@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Okay but my point is why aren’t there nearly as many hateful liberals
  
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  - ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It’s really difficult to want everyone to be able to access food, shelter, education, and healthcare and also be hateful.
    
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  - MrJameGumb@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Because being inherently hateful isn’t part of the liberal identity? The terms “liberal” and “progressive” imply acceptance and inclusivity by definition?
    
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  - rayyy@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Conservatives approach things very differently. They tend to blame and make excuses whereas liberals tend to treat the problem and look for solutions in models of success. For example, little Suzie gets her hand caught in the car door. A conservatives would typically blame her or her little brother. A liberal would likely treat the injury and try to set rules to prevent it from happening again.
    Another example, Donald Von ShitzInPantz wears diapers. The right hates it when they can’t weasel out of a fact so they defend it, embrace it as normal even desirable instead of accepting there is a problem. If that was Biden he would be hatefully ridiculed, (blamed) to no end by conservatives.
    Conservatives assume blame, (hate) is the solution. Liberals fit a solution to the problem. There is conflict because of the way they approach a problem and blame, (hate) is the conservative solution.
    
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cygon@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Disclaimer: I wondered the same, since 2014, and this is what I puzzled together for myself, read it with a skeptical mind!

I believe a lot of it can be traced back to the wealthy and to conservative think tanks / media control by right wing moguls.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, conservatives were perceived as well-off business people trying to protect their own wealth (I’ve read that people used to say things like “I’m not rich enough to vote Republican” or children shouting “last one in the house is a dirty Republican”). You can even see old movies dunk on conservatives (i.e. take Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) , at the beginning, with the satellite dish tower, the protagonist noses off about reactionaries being in control of congress, thus leading the country towards war).

This is the rather extreme election result from 1964:

Political map of the US in 1964

Because liberals mostly were Democratic Party voters, Republicans and their wealthy donors tried to alter public perception of liberals (i.e. make it undesirable for their indoctrinatees to be liberal). This included taking over the media (and Reagan conveniently cancelling the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, which gave political bias in the media some guard rails), then painting liberals as all things undesirable: arrogant, weak, clueless, leeches, etc.

Having a “hate object” worked so well that they kept capitalizing on it. Much of it was/is just slinging sh*t against the wall and looking what sticks, but think tanks are indeed looking at what sticks, so successful patterns get repeated. Some of these successful patterns I can see are installing a victim complex in conservatives (feeling their back against the wall, they lash out easier, ensuring anyone talking about conservatives is conditioned to use very soft gloves) and the two-year bogeyman, often trying to capture, redefine and vilify some prior existing concept (thus, when the campaign hits, indoctrinatees can find lots of “proof” online of this thing existing).

For example, social justice used to be universally agreed on as a good thing, woke used to mean remaining aware of systemic inequalities, now they make conservatives pop an artery. This has been going for a while (the “hate object” over time has been rock music, hippies, metal music, supposed satan worshippers, pen and paper games, paganism+atheism, video games, social justice activists, cancel culture, black lives matter, critical race theory, wokeness, …)

And I think, yes, your perception is spot on. This is, for example, what I get when I search for “anti-conservative t-shirts” (if it’s too tiny, try it yourself - they’re all anti-liberal):

Search result on DuckDuckGo for anti-conservative t-shirts, all results showing anti-liberal t-shirts

TL;DR: conservatives are intentionally made and kept angry. It keeps them unified against a bigger enemy (see Genghis Gambit), drives them to go vote and prevents voters from switching sides even if they do not like some things the conservatives are doing. Add to that Russia amplifying this division like there’s no tomorrow. They’re installing this hate for liberals both in tankies and in far-right bigots (and, as far as I can tell, anti-liberal sentiment is pushed into Russian society, too).

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- squid_slime@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You need to cross post this or something, and keep research as your an asset to humanity!
  
  Would love to hear more of what you’ve found.
  
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- ccunning@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  This is, for example, what I get when I search for “anti-conservative t-shirts” (if it’s too tiny, try it yourself - they’re all anti-liberal):
  
  You make your point well. I just wanted to point out I believe at least one of them is anti-conservative (The devolution of humans into the GOP)
  
  And one is possibly unintentionally anti-conservative: If Liberal Perspective is actually a liberal’s perspective the subject is a conservative with their head up their own ass. I don’t believe that’s the shirt’s actual intention though. It would be hard to depict the interior of the rectum on a T-shirt
  
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- SupraMario@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  www.amazon.com/…/ref=asc_df_B0BDM3M15P/?tag=hypro…
  
  Tons of anti-republican shirts… don’t know what you searched for but they’re easy to find.
  
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- Sunforged@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  They’re installing this hate for liberals both in tankies…
  
  Man I didn’t realize Phil Oches was a Russian agent. Leftist criticism of liberal hypocrisy is nothing new, just new to you.
  
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- obinice@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s worth noting that you’re looking at conservatives from a USA perspective, which is valid and very informative, it’s just that OP didn’t specify a country, so it might also be worth discussing conservative vs liberal culture in places like Europe too, or perhaps prefacing your wonderfully detailed response with something to clarify that when you’re talking about conservatives, you mean a very specific subset of them (as opposed to, say, the conservatives of the UK, where their political party is itself called the Conservative Party).
  
  Rock on! :-D
  
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Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Because liberals see “the world vs the ideal world” we see problems and we try to correct them.

Conservatives see “us vs them” and burning the world to the ground is fine as long as “The others” burn with it.

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- tacosplease@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  They’d eat a shit sandwich if they thought a liberal would have to smell it.
  
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  - Serinus@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    “their breath” is the traditional end of that phrase.
    
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blargerer@kbin.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
They do hate them, but generally conservatives believe in personal failings so do direct action against individuals, liberals believe in systemic failings so direct their effort towards changing the system, not the individuals.

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- aasatru@kbin.earth ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This. Conservatives tend to themselves be the victims of a failed system, hating them for failing to address it in a useful manner is hardly constructive. I reserve my hatred for billionaires.
  
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  - Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That’s a big part of it. I don’t hate conservatives.
    
    They are actively trying to make the world worse, so I’m not going to be sad if/when the ideology disappears, but as a whole, they aren’t bad people. They are my family and coworkers. They are decent people who have been taught to fear the enemy.
    
    I don’t hate them, I pity them.
    
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pjwestin@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Because conservativism is no longer a set of political beliefs. In the modern conservative movement (basically starting in the 80s, liberals and conservatives were much different before that) conservatives had social beliefs, like preserving cultural norms, promoting religion, and maintaining the nuclear family, as well as fiscal beliefs, like limited government, individual liberty, fiscal responsibility, free markets, and a whole lot of other bullshit that basically boiled down to, “we don’t want to pay taxes.”

Now, conservativism is really only about establishing an in-group and othering their opponents. Oppositions to trans rights may seem like an attempt to preserve cultural norms, but it’s real goal is to create outrage and panic over trans, “groomers.” Objections go CRT and DEI serve a similar role in othering people of color. “Wokeness,” is just a meaningless catch-all for, “enemies.” Similarly, fiscal policy is meaningless, and can be picked up and discarded whenever convenient; corporations can be deregulated and given tax breaks in service of the free market, but subsidized or bailed out whenever needed.

This is because modern conservativism isn’t a political ideology, it’s a fascist movement. I mean that literally, and while the meaning fascism is notoriously hard to pin down, I use Umberto Eco’s 14 properties of fascism. And, to bring this back around to your original question, fascists hate liberals because hating a group is very important to a fascist movement. The modern conservative hate for liberals is especially clear in Eco’s 4th, 5th, and 7th properties of fascism (disagreement as treason, fear of differences, and obsession with plots, respectively).

So, tl;dr: the one-sided hate that conservatives have for liberals is because conservativism is no longer a coherent political ideology, it’s a fascist movement.

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- HubertManne@kbin.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I mean I would say it evolved from the thing starting in the 80's. Especially that nothing mattered but lowering taxes on the wealthy (since sometimes they push for "flat" taxes and a lot of what they do just moves the tax burden lower down). Pre 80's conservative ideology was not my cup of tea but had some merit. they used to be against deficits.
  
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  - pjwestin@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yes, it certainly developed over time from Regan-era conservatism. Conservative family values are inherently a rejection of modernity (Eco’s second property of fascism), and the party was already othering people of color and the queer community. The Bush era also did a lot of work priming conservatives for fascism with war propaganda, xenophobia, and equating dissent with treason. Trump brought the party into full-fledged fascism, but it had been stewing for a while before he arrived.
    
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- anomoly_@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Do you have any preferred sources for learning more about Umberto eco’s 14 points of fascism?
  
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  - pjwestin@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Well, the essay is a pretty breezy read, it’s only 10 pages. It’s called Ur-Fascism, here’s the full text. If you’re looking for something lighter (and lighter is an extremely relative term here), Cody Johnston is a comedian and video essayist that delves into right-wing extremism on his show Some More News. These two videos are older, but they do a great job putting Trump and conservatives in context using Eco’s definition of fascism.
    
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NeptuneOrbit@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Many many liberals were raised by conservatives.

Many many conservatives raised eventual liberals and are aghast.

I don’t need to camp out and bully conservatives. I spent enough of my childhood immersed in their insanity. I’m just done.

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- Dkarma@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Conservatism is the past and once you’re ahead u don’t want to go back.
  
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theparadox@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
USA here. They’d likely consider this to be extremely patronizing, but I consider most conservative voters to be unaware of what it is they are actually preaching. It’s crazy but the more extreme their views get, the more I’m convinced they’re misinformed and misled. Some folks at the top of their pyramid I legitimately hate - I have no doubt they know exactly what they are doing.

So many of conservative beliefs just fly in the face of reality. I hate that they’re perpetuating the harm that the beliefs and resulting policies cause, but seeing as how they are mostly based on clear and obvious lies, I have to assume that most of the supporters just don’t realize they are being lied to and have invested emotionally in an identity that actively harms their own interests.

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- Asafum@feddit.nl ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This is pretty much where I’m at too. I don’t hate conservative voters, but I have such distain for conservative politicians for all the hate and pain they foment.
  
  For most people I believe “no one is the villain of their own story” they believe they’re doing the right thing with what information they are presented. For politicians, they’re the fucking scum of the earth and I wish hell was real so those fuckers could rot in it.
  
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- fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This is my take also. I try not to think they’re all idiots but more and more I’m just agog at the stupidity required to be conservative.
  
  Conservatives seem to perpetually vote against their own interests.
  
  Like my parents are pensioners, but will always vote for conservatives who will never increase their pension. They’ve been on this trajectory their entire lives.
  
  I like the phrase “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”. As in they think of themselves as wealthy and vote that way because it makes them feel like part of the club.
  
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- Seleni@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  ‘Most ignorance is willful’
  
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Hacksaw@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
A lot of the responses are correct, but there is one aspect being missed.

Liberals don’t NEED to hate conservatives. There are real problems in the world that the left is trying to remedy.

Conservatives NEED to hate the left. Modern conservatism (and some would argue all conservatism) doesn’t have any moral ideology. There is nothing they’re fighting to for. Conservative ideology is the idea that there is a group that the law should protect but not bind and a group that the law should bind but not protect. To push this, an out-group has to be created and hate is the only way to dehumanize someone enough to treat them the way conservatives treat women, minorities, LGBTQ+ etc…

Conservatives hate Liberals because conservatism doesn’t work without hate. They hate because they NEED to.

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Dagwood222@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Saw a cartoon years ago. Panel 1 = “How Democrats See The World.” It’s a globe with the USA divided into Red States and Blue States. The rest of the countries are pink/green/orange except for a few black spots with a skull and crossbones marked ‘Terrorists.’

Panel 2 = “How the GOP Sees the World…” Same globe, except there are only two colors; the Red States and everything else is “Terrorists.”

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- Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  In Germany, there is a conservative/far-right party that actually sees things that way. The AfD, the self-proclaimed “Alternative for Germany” (literally the spiritual successor to the NSDAP, the party of Adolf Hitler) once posted this picture on Facebook: Image
  
  It shows a map of Germany, divided in two parts. The east, where the AfD has many supporters labeled as the Federal Republic of Germany, and the West where the AfD has been losing many elections labeled as an islamic Caliphate. These Nazis actually think that half of Germany is controlled by migrants and islamists. This insane view of the world is so fucked up, I can’t really describe it. Fun fact: An AfD member of the German parliament has been caught accepting large sums of money from Russia. Their MPs repeatedly traveled to Russia during the invasion of Ukraine, including the illegally annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. They also think that Russian elections are totally legit and Putin the war criminal has been legitimately elected by the Russian people. Their MPs also work for the Chinese intelligence service btw: lemmy.world/post/15121591
  
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  - UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    the West where the AfD has been losing many elections labeled as an islamic Caliphate
    
    Real “stay mad” energy.
    
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  - Dagwood222@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Back in the day, the Soviets overtly backed Leftist positions across the world. They ended up empowering the Far Right by giving them a concrete enemy. Former KGB operative Putin reversed it; he’s been supporting the Right to undermine the West for years.
    
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Donebrach@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Because conservatism is fundamentally based on fear.

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- myrrh@ttrpg.network ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  fear leads to anger.
  anger leads to hate.
  hate leads to fascism, i guess.
  
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  - Donebrach@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    “We’re cancelling the woke Dagobah agenda!”
    
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Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Politics is fundamentally different for conservatives. They have have someone to hate. It’s drilled into them by their media outlets.

The tactic is a form of fear based control that conservative media has been working on since Nixon.

Seriously. Nixon’s think tank conceived the conservative media outlet as a catch-all, exclusive source of news that as a primary function would steer conservatives to not trust other news sources.

They did this because they did not want another Watergate, where conservatives turned against Nixon because of hard evidence laid out by popular unbiased news, which at the time conservatives still were informed by.

The Frankenstein’s monster of a party that that tactic has turned conservatives into requires manufactured rage to fuel the fire. If the outrage ever simmers, you begin to see smarter conservatives recognizing what their party has become and it begins to fall apart.

So there’s your answer. It’s because the hate is necessary to continue the control. If you don’t believe me, turn on Fox news. There’s always the manufactured rage-of-the-day filling the air time.

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Nobody@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Liberals are dismissive of conservatives. You can only hate people so much when you infantilize them.

The right is too angry to listen, and the left is too arrogant to listen.

This is how democracy dies.

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- xmunk@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Hey we wouldn’t be nearly as smug if these fuckers weren’t throwing their votes at a known grifter and a dog murderer. Back when it was W in charge we could actually talk about issues - now these fuckers jumped the shark.
  
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- Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Arrogant, interesting.
  
  See, the issue to me is that one side comes up with real tangible solutions to problems, while the other side is busy smearing shit on the walls, getting red in the face screaming about deep state this or jew lasers that, and then people like you tell me we should engage those people and treat their ideas with respect and equal levels of severity.
  
  See the issue here?
  
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- ABCDE@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  The right is too angry to listen, and the left is too arrogant to listen.
  
  To listen to what?
  
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  - FMT99@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Not to the racism and idiocy but to the underlying issues that fuel that anger.
    
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- otacon239@feddit.de ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  To add to this, the opposite of love is not hate, but ignore.
  
  Giving your energy and attention to hating something typically means that they occupy enough mental real estate in your day to day life that you feel the need to broadcast it on a regular basis.
  
  The liberals I know tend to spend the majority of their free time focusing on improving themselves and the world around them rather than simply target blame somewhere else.
  
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southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
You have been hanging in the wrong places lol.

There are absolutely identity politics driven US liberals (as opposed to the use of liberal by the rest of the world) that are ranting, raving assholes. Always have been.

But, here’s the thing. Those assholes are much more likely to be ostracized and/or shut down by the less batshit US liberals, progressives, socialists, etc that form the “left” writ large. But echo chambers for it do exist anyway. There’s a few on lemmy, though they aren’t federated with most of the rest.

Here’s the key difference. What conservatives want to conserve is their sense of power. It’s mostly straight, cis white people here in the US. There’s plenty of exceptions, but they tend to not be as loud and asinine as the ones you’re talking about.

That’s where the anger comes from: fear. Fear of black/brown/yellow/red people. Fear of anything different. Fear of a non Christian based world leaving them behind.

The ones at the top also want to stay rich and powerful in the political sense, and are perfectly willing to weaponize their voting base to do so.

The ones at the top of the various non-conservative branches in the US also want to keep power and make money, and they’ll use different fear to mobilize, but they don’t usually weaponize it.

Fwiw, if you’re one of the ones that does want to play petty, childish games instead of doing something useful, it’s good you’re shamed and muted. Shit or get off the pot. Engage in real work for real change, and do it like you know how to pretend to be a civilized human being. I’m not even talking about peaceful efforts. If you really want to force change, step the fuck up and do something about it. Start the revolution you want to see. Just don’t be some douche harassing churches and pretending it’s anything other than self congratulatory masturbation.

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TachyonTele@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Conservatives make politics their identity, and hate everyone that doesn’t also identify as them. Most other people realize that’s stupid, they just want a better life.

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- RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Seems everyone these days makes politics their identity, left and right. And center.
  
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  - Hugohase@startrek.website ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    “Enlightened” centrism is not the answer…
    
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  - morphballganon@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    A table with 11 people, including a nazi, is a table with 11 nazis.
    
    Don’t compare choosing to not sit at that table with the bullshit republicans do.
    
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  - TachyonTele@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Definitely not.
    
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  - TachyonTele@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    How many Biden hats and flags have you seen?
    
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Cybermonk_Taiji@r.nf ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Conservatism is the idea that people are basically bad and need to be controlled, liberalism is the Idea that people are basically good and deserve to be helped.

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- Woozythebear@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That’s not what liberals are at all… they don’t want to help anyone if it means doing anything that may hurt capitalism.
  
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  - Vanix@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Thank you for sharing this comment. I know I’m stupid but it always brings me joy when other people make me think maybe I’m not the MOST stupid person alive today
    
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orcrist@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Liberals are not leftists. You can choose your own definitions, but I would say that many so-called liberals are actually pro-capitalist anti-worker centrists. And the center is not so far from the center-right. So many liberals don’t hate conservatives. On the other hand, many conservatives bundle liberals and leftists together, because complexity is so irritating, making it easy to hate the entire group (even though it’s actually at least two groups).

And quite obviously, many liberals and leftists hate some conservatives. You aren’t alone. That being said, hate is an emotion, and however you feel is totally fine because it’s your life. At the same time, hate itself is not constructive. Many people read and write about politics online because we want to learn about or change our world. If the content you’re creating doesn’t help with either of those goals, some people are going to ignore or down vote it.

Anyway, your community is surely out there, if you keep looking.

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- spikespaz@programming.dev ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  We are misrepresented in the two-party system.
  
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TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Bruh I’m tired, I gotta work. I don’t have time to be that angry.

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JoBo@feddit.uk ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Because there is no mirror image.

@pjwestin@lemmy.world has given you a good description of fascist methods. They’re not available to the opponents of fascism because they are not fascists.

Fascism appeals to the worst parts of our nature. It gives permission to those feeling fear, humiliation or shame to lash out in anger and destroy the people that make them feel that way.

You can’t deploy the same tactics to make those people want to be on your side instead. If you try to shame them, they will just hate harder.

You should, of course, expose and ridicule the grifters who lead fascist movements and punching fascists is encouraged. But you need to distinguish between authoritarian leaders and the people they seek to lead.

You should not pander to the billionaire-funded leaderships (take note NYT), but you must not sneer at the people they are trying to lead (take note centrist Dems).

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- ken_cleanairsystems@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  lash out in anger and destroy the people that make them feel that way
  
  Small correction: “… destroy the people that they think make them feel that way”.
  
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- pjwestin@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Thank you, this is a very good explanation of something I failed to mention.
  
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- IzzyJ@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Why the hell do you want them on our side? Why dont you want to destroy them? Thats exactly what Im asking about, where is the hate?
  
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  - JoBo@feddit.uk ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Because handing election victories to fascists is a really, really bad idea.
    
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  - orcrist@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    “So I guess this is where I tell you what I learned - my conclusion, right? Well, my conclusion is: Hate is baggage. Life’s too short to be pissed off all the time. It’s just not worth it.” ― American History X
    
    “I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me: nobody cares for the woods as I care for them, not even Elves nowadays.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
    
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Treczoks@kbin.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Conservatives are afraid. They (at least the professionals and the GOP as an organisation) are well aware that they are on course to get irrelevent in the future. Not only are their politicians getting older, their voter base is getting older and shrinking. So the try everything in the book to stay relevant: Gerrymandering, reducing access to the voting process fro people who are unlikely to vote for them, etc. And as we all know, fear, or worse, existencial dread, leads to hate for the other side, the group of people seen as their very threat to their existence.

They are basically cornered rats, clawing and biting the pest control man.

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Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Gunna take this as Liberal/Conservative as party brand names rather than strict social ideology and you’re talking about “the left” more generally.

I think the short answer is empathy. When you dig down to the bottom a lot of the discussion on the left talks about different forms of human needs. A need to feel accepted and loved, desires to exist publicly without fear… It is a radical form of empathy that asks you to put yourself in multiple pairs of shoes and see the world through perspectives you aren’t naturally born into. The ultimate aim is to achieve a picture of humanity which is inclusive of the widest possible range of understanding.

In that way “Conservatives” are also people. It is not impossible to empathize with their issues. It takes a lot cognitively to internalize this new data and a lot of the rejection from the right comes not from outright cruelty but a desire for things to be and remain simple and easy. They don’t want to stretch themselves and are scared of a world where that is something they are forced to do. The issue is a lot of the people selling the pitchforks on that side are doing it because it benefits them. That desire to understand encompasses the motives of individual Conservatives and splits them apart. A lot of the issues Conservatives have is that the left is “preachy” that we act like we’re better than them and that does come from somewhere. Some leftists do just want to be the smartest most correct person in the room but others are just waiting for the Conservatives they know to be more understanding of other people who they learned about so they stop being mean. The person who pitties the school bully is often their target because that empathy seems to the bully like condescension.

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- IzzyJ@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  After a certain point, you have to realize your bully is either incapable or unwilling to engage in that empty. At which point, your option is beat or get beat
  
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PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Because the right doesn’t have a system of morals, just a list of justifications.

The center and left actually feel bad if they don’t live up to their own ideals and so try to avoid behaving in ways that run counter to those ideals unless it becomes absolutely necessary for them to do so, and even then they’ll still feel like shit for it.

See also, all those AITA posts where OP is very obviously in the right and just snapped after years of abuse, but has been gaslit hard enough to start doubting themselves because biting back just feels wrong to normal people.

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zerofk@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
You should really ask the same question - or its inverse - in a conservative forum. If you only ask it here, you’ll get a very skewed answer.

And to be honest, the question itself and the wording shows your bias as well. Whenever something about US politics is posted on Lemmy, there are always comments about how “they” are hate-filled people, how “they” are projecting, how “they” want to rape children. It’s a different expression of that hatred, but it is the same hatred.

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- Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Nope. No. Absolutely not. One side wants to take away peoples’ rights. The other one doesn’t. Miss me with your stupid bothsideism.
  
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  - IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Progressives love taking rights away. Way to double helping ops point.
    
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sudo42@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m going to take a somewhat different tack to describing this.

There are many ways to motivate large groups of people. You’ve likely seen this a lot and not really noticed or paid attention to it. Some examples are tribalism (“Hey! They’re not one of us!”), nationalism (“Those dirty foreign people!”), religion (“Do what I say and go to heaven!”), money (“Do this and I’ll give you something valuable”), etc.

One of the best motivators is fear. (“Do this or I/they will do something you really don’t like”).

Political groups need something to motivate large groups of people. When done well, they appeal to the better sides of humanity. When done by the lazy, the dumb and the craven, they go with the simple one: fear.

That’s what Conservatism has been hammering for a while now. They don’t really have a way to appeal to people’s better sides, primarily because their platform isn’t to make humanity better off. They platform is to make a few people better off to the detriment of everyone else. So they try tribalism (“Those brown people are trying to take your money!”), nationalism (“Those foreigners are taking your jobs!”), religion (“Those non-Christians are trying to install sharia law!”), etc. The most effective one is still fear. So getting their followers scared and angry is the best way to motivate them, get them to stop thinking rationally and build moats that will isolate them from people that might talk them down.

This is used to motivate people to vote in certain ways, as well as motivate them to watch advertisements. In other words: money and power.

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- IzzyJ@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Why arent you afraid of them though, they really will do actual terrible things
  
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  - undercrust@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Hating people never leads to logical outcomes. I’d rather accept that they’ve been somewhat brainwashed and battle against it, than hate my neighbour.
    
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  - sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There have been a couple studies about the actual brain differences between people on the left and their less developed progress stopping conservatives. scientificamerican.com/…/conservative-and-liberal…
    
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  - jbrains@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Are you afraid of them or do you hate them? Those seem like two independent opinions to me, but I’m wondering if you’re conflating them.
    
    I’m afraid of them and I don’t hate them.
    
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shani66@ani.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Fetishization of the concept of civility. Liberals have always preferred a negative peace to even incredibly mild disruption, and that’d include hating people who want nothing more than to see the world worse for everyone. Decent leftists are quite proud in hating people who, again, want nothing but to make the world worse for literally everyone.

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Adderbox76@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Conservative Politics is about giving their base something/someone to be angry at.

LBJ summed it up the best:

“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

Back then it was the african american population. Today it’s trans/lgbt/migrants/muslims/etc… Insert your group of choice here and that’s the Conservative political machine.

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Snapz@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Hate comes from fear. All varieties of conservatives operate from a fundamental core of fear. They are often preyed upon in broken systems with limited education options and are often kept ignorant to so much of the world around them. Because they don’t know, they fear. Further, they can be limited by a heavy blanket of religious fundamentalism, more systematic fear.

“Liberals”, on the other hand, are often educated and taught to understand things and ask questions about things they don’t understand. As a result they are often aware of their surroundings, their neighbors and that exposure breeds empathy. That empathy is what kills fear which means they don’t generally hate.

The feeling towards conservatives for many “liberals” is likely more of a strong disappointment mixed with regret that, as individuals, they can’t really do more to help them out of the predatory cycle that conservative politicians keep them treading water in.

All this while the majority of both sides are actually struggling on the sane listing side in the same class war that has already taken the entire middle class as a casualty.

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Nemo@midwest.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m going to make a second comment, from the point of observation bias:

OP obviously knows people who have been attacked by vicious, hateful people on the right. But OP is probably hanging around neither the people on the right being attacked by vicious, hateful people on the left, nor around the vicious, hateful minority of the left who are attacking people on the right.

So she hasn’t seen it. But I have. I’ve been attacked from the right for my progressive views and from the left for my conservative views, and from both by people who assume that if I think A I must also think B and C, no matter how benign A is and horrific C is.

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GiddyGap@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I think there’s an equal amount of anger on both sides. Unfortunately.

There’s no longer room for actual, mature debate. Just mud-slinging and slurs. The fact is that most people are somewhere in the center politically, but the extremists are louder and get the attention because it’s entertaining and the media uses it to sell content. It sucks.

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That_Devil_Girl@lemmy.ml ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Conservatives are typically motivated by anger and fear. They tend to be less educated and more superstitious. They can be easily swayed by appeals to their religious beliefs.

Those motivated by anger and fear are far more easily tricked and manipulated by others with nefarious intent. They can even be deceived into going against their own interests, as evident by Republican politicians and their opposition to democracy and freedom.

Liberals are typically motivated by humanism and live-and-let-live philosophy. They tend to be more educated and less superstitious.

Democrat politicians have a much harder time trying to browbeat liberal voters to do their will. They’re conflicted as they lose voters if they obey their rich donors, and they lose donors if they obey their voters.

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Brutticus@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
ConservativesofTikTok hehe.

Okay first thing: there is no mainstream left in US politics. AOC and Bernie taper off at a hair left of center. I don’t even dislike them. And normally that would be fine, but the right does include flamboyant, and very loud fascists. So the right has no counter weight, and what there is are Centrist Libs, who long for days of “reaching across the isle”, and “order,” and “civility” While people talk about Fascists projecting, the Libs are too, and they think everyone approaches politics that. They don’t realize the fascist uses their invitation to get, and civility as a mask, to play the game, and uses any means they can to gain power, and then disposes of the libs when they don’t need them anymore, and left, like Eddard Stark holding a piece of paper like his dick in the breeze.

This last piece of this is that there is an aspect of the left that matches what you say, the so called “dirt bag left,” streamers like Vaush and Hassan Abi, and Chapo Trap House. They are in fact quite controversy prone, and I don’t think they are good people, but I think they do match the general vibe of your statement.

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