No Stupid Questions

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.

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.

Because they're mostly a group of people filled with hatred. That's what's uniting them. And the other side less so, so they don't act that way.

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 rich donors if they obey their voters.

Just in my observation, people who lean more liberal are more emotionally regulated. If there’s anything to “hate” it’s ideas. Now, as a person I’m wary of conservatives because of those ideas. Whether it’s due to poor judgement or some other reason, if someone embraces social conservative ideas, I cannot tolerate them in my social circle.

My right wing uncle just yesterday posed this question in reverse oddly enough, it was a jarring conversation, soon ended when I pointed out the plentiful admittions of hateful rhetoric the right have spouted.

His information comes from YouTube personality's and I take great pleasure in researching the shit he regurgitate and showing him my finding with carefully selected source as unbiased as possible. in a way I feel sorry for the working class right winger, misguided, fueled purely by escapism and negative emotions then peddlers with skin in the game wrap them up with crazy notions of patriotism and conspiracy

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.

Disclaimer: I wondered the same, since 2014, and this is what I puzzled together for myself, read it with that in 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 "2010: The Year we Make Contact" (1984), 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:

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 Republican 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):

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).

The conservative strategy has been to polarize politics in America in order to have a very aligned power. This means that if you aren't 100% behind them, then you are an enemy to them.

It is only through this that the GOP can both say that they are protecting individual freedoms but limiting or taking them away (of course opponents to this will be quick to point out the one and only counter point which is fighting against restrictions of the 2nd Amendment and only that), say that they are for smaller government but yet want private companies to be regulated that attempt to censor hate and misinformation (which has nothing to do with the 1st Amendment when it comes to non-government entities) yet still say that they are for businesses to operate as unrestricted as possible. They are anti-union because they are corrupt and take away accountability yet strongly support the worst of the worst of unions -- the police unions. The GOP constantly cries that there's a nanny government, yet they push laws to restrict people's choices, censor libraries and try to tear down citizen protections. The GOP cries that this country's deficit is out of control but when they are in power, they over spend. They complain that public schools indoctrinate but at the local and state levels attempt to indoctrinate in public schools. They talk about needing to stay in power to turn America around, yet when empowered in all three federal branches fails to pass meaningful legislation and run the government that they are overseeing and yet blame the government because they will eat each other alive for their own individual gains.

There so much more but the GOP is a party of hypocrites. Without polarization mixed with some fear mongering their party would likely cease to exist with any real power because they do not stand for the ideals that their own voting base supports.

The GOP constantly tries to create an environment of being constantly under attack and spews hate. Their voter base is simply a product of that.

there are definitely cringey liberal boomer memes, they're all on Facebook.

So you feel alone because you want to make cringey boomer memes and send threatening emails to Churches? I'm confused.

There are militant left movements, but there are just fewer people who align themselves with those movements because Communism and Socialism were basically illegal to talk about for decades, and the conservative fascism is basically just our mainstream government ideology (D or R).

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.

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.

Not sure "liberals" is the right word, because it kind of encompasses all of the left, of which liberals are more center than left.

Anyway...

Because it's at odds with with our moral compass and our knowledge of how human psychology works. We believe in people's ability to learn, change, adapt, and become a better person. We see it practiced better in Europe than America, at least very often in respect to the criminal justice system, which the American version is abusive, unhelpful, and, well, conservative. On the other hand, the left thinks that even the conservatives that hate us deserve at least a bare opportunity at education and redemption. (Or at least most of the left anyway, tankies notwithstanding, of course.) We have science that supports compassion and conversion works better than abuse and ostracism. It takes a lot of fucking time and effort. A lot more than many would say they're worth, and I get that, but it doesn't mean it's impossible.

We don't hate them the same way because we're not in a brainwashed cult like they are. While a lot of them may be too far gone, not all of them are, and as things spin out of control in the conservative world, increasing numbers of them are starting to question what they're backing. It's part of why the crowds protesting for Trump have slowly dwindled to pathetic numbers and have gotten increasingly strange and unhinged. Only the true believers are left, and their numbers are already dwindling in terms of those willing to come out and risk it for Trump.

Even when understanding the Paradox of Tolerance, you'd be hard pressed to find large numbers of leftists who think the best solution is the same kind of senseless eradication of the enemy that conservatives want. You'd find a large number of them who increasingly want to be armed and prepared if they are attacked by violent conservatives, but far fewer that want to be the one to fire the first shot in such a war.

Also, as to a counterpoint, I don't know many leftists who don't hate cops. Cops are pretty much universally conservative thugs and universally hated by everyone on the left.

Bruh I'm tired, I gotta work. I don't have time to be that angry.

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.

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.

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