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
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: power and money.
Why arent you afraid of them though, they really will do actual terrible things
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.
There have been a couple studies about the actual brain differences between people on the left and their less developed progress stopping conservative (my editorializing of the situation) people. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/conservative-and-liberal-brains-might-have-some-real-differences/
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.
I hate them because i have to constantly be afraid of them.
I can both understand and relate to being afraid of them. As you wrote, they do real damage and they seem intent on doing more and they seem to feel it’s their mission to do so. From what I can tell, they have been programmed to see the very concept of progressive thinking as evil. Fearing them seems sensible, because being aware of the threat makes it easier to defend against it or protect oneself from it.
But how exactly does it improve your life to hate them?
It doesn’t improve it. You could argue it makes it worse since I often face social rejection from the left for it…for some inexplicable reason. But I don’t simply choose to hate or not hate something, the same way one does not simply chose their sexuality or gender or race or emotions.
I relate to your position. You are wrong. You absolutely do choose to hate or not hate. This lies entirely within your control.
I used to have the impulse to hate them, but I don’t any more.
On the list you cite, emotions is the one thing you choose, even though it might not feel that way right now. I don’t expect you to believe me. I will cite Lisa Feldman Barrett and the book How Emotions are Made and you can decide whether you want to explore or not.
Either way, peace.