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
Because conservatism 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, conservatism 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 conservatism 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 conservatism is no longer a coherent political ideology, it’s a fascist movement.
Do you have any preferred sources for learning more about Umberto eco’s 14 points of fascism?
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.
Edit: Whoops, forgot the video links: https://youtu.be/CcklYVR5I-I?feature=shared https://youtu.be/fIN8oxnw__I?feature=shared
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.
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.
yeah they did not really outright embrace it till trump. what he says is terrifying.