Right wing ideologies depend on distractions from real problems.

The Alt-Right Playboook: Always A Bigger Fish explains that conservatives have a strong preference of hierarchy and order. They have this preference even if they are low on the hierarchy. They reason that maybe they themselves didn’t work hard enough, weren’t smart enough, or whatever, so don’t deserve to be higher up. They gain a sort of comfort from “knowing their place.” Those lower than them on the hierarchy deserve even less.

I think this explanation is spot-on, and is more or less true for every “conservative” I’ve known. I suppose fascism also has this love of hierarchy, which is what the Republican party really is now (or, at least, very similar to it).

Because generally, they don’t vote. And additionally, they make a good boogeyman to blame for all the shit they’re doing themselves.

It’s less “hate the poor” and more “being good dogs for their wealthy masters”

It’s really just exclusive-validity identity politics, which has roots DEEP in many mammal-species…

Here https://www.amazon.com/Immunity-Change-Potential-Organization-Leadership-ebook/dp/B004OEILH2/ you can read the beginning of a book which explains how our unconscious-minds fight off any growing-up, fighting-off change…

In it, it describes 3 unconscious-mind-development-stages, which I call Kegan3, Kegan4, & Kegan5, simply because there are SO many different systems-of-stages-or-dimensions to keep mindful-of, like Kahneman+Tversky-1 & Kahneman+Tversky-2 ( imprint->reaction system, lower-forebrain, the ideology/prejudice/trained-expertise system, vs considered-reasoning, upper-forebrain, much exercised in programming )

… that it’s idiocy to NOT index all such things, now…

Here, if you scroll down a little, you can see a table describing the different unconscious-mind-development stages, ALL of them, that their-kind know about ( the stage after Kegan5 is the self-conquering-stage, which they never saw or identified, because our world’s process sabotages/prevents it )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kegan#The_Evolving_Self

Now think about herdbeasts, which don’t have Kegan5’s systems-of-systems stage…

They do have Kegan3, which is the upper-limit that cows are allowed to, by bulls, & they have Kegan4, which the bulls level-off in…

Kegan3 is wanting to be liked, it is associating-with validity ( hence the power of “influencers”, among the younger humans in any time ), it is, fundamentally, ( & I’m not certain that Robert Kegan understood this ) the absorbing experience stage of one’s life, living more in feelings & social-“reality”…

Kegan4, on the other hand, is what I call “BullingBOSS mode”, where validity is zero-sum game: it is exclusive and that is exactly the way bulls work: it is limbic-brain, in basis, so it should hold throughout most mammals!

Now, IF one’s identity & validity are rooted in zero-sum game, then anyone else having any validity reduces one’s own validity!!

Narcissism also works this way, you’ll notice, so now there are 2 fundamental-causes for such instinct, in-play…

Here you will find a book which explains the 5 LEVELS of culture-process, from competitive-nihilism’s culture-level-1, to LIVING IS SELF-INHERENTLY AWESOME!!'s culture-level-5: https://www.amazon.com/Tribal-Leadership-Revised-Leveraging-Organization-ebook/dp/B006IDG1K6/

Here is the dumbed-down TED Talk about their years-of-research: https://www.ted.com/talks/david_logan_tribal_leadership

Culture-level-2 produces conspiricism! Subject-to-narcissism is therefore strategically-cancerous!

Now, what happens if your culture glorifies exclusive-validity identity, and, in so doing, produces a glass-ceiling on one’s culture, which prevents culture-level-4 & culture-level-5…??

One ends-up devaluing, dehumanizing, others, & wanting them butchered, in order to validate one’s culturally-grown prejudice!

IOW, it isn’t just-the-Republicans, the nazis did it, I’m certain that much of the time the Romans did it, different Chinese cultures have done it, same with the Japanese, etc…

It expresses different ways, depending on the identity-anchors of the “valid”, vs the “nonvalid”…

As Logan, King, & Fischer-Wright noticed, you can walk into ANY hospital in North America, with the exception of 1, which outgrew that cultural-glass-ceiling, & if you walk-in looking both professional & self-confident, the junior staff won’t meet your eyes, because the narcissism-culture of the doctors has destroyed their human-validity.

THAT is evidence-based knowing!!

The vignette that Logan gives, in that TED Talk is on that specific section of their book, but doesn’t give enough of it.

Both my parents were medical-professionals, Dad was a medical researcher and doctor, and that researcher bit was significant … because the narcissism-culture of White medicine definitely saturated them both, but his science-culture overrode that, intellectually … for which there ought be no limit to my gratitude, for that gift…

( doesn’t mean I didn’t go no-contact with both of them, though: the narcissism, the exclusive validity that doesn’t include me is toxicity/cancer, in any “family” or “community” )

( btw, the personal-stuff is only so that you understand the experience-induced-understanding: it isn’t just theory, it’s earned understanding. There’s no reason to care about it, otherwise: it’s just context/perspective, so leave me out from any “care” or “concern”. )

Now when you’ve made your culture narcissistic, AND you’re glorifying Kegan4’s BullingBOSS mode…

…AND you add-in non-accountable authority’s rule … then sociopathy’s the result, isn’t it?

It is produced by this configuration of culture-forces!!

( definitions: psychopathy means incapable of empathy, because one’s mirror-neuron-system, or something, just doesn’t function, so other-lives are just meat-marionettes…

sociopathy isn’t brain-intrinsic, it is psychologically-produced analogue-of-psychopathy, through systematic imprinting ( that Kahneman1 imprint->reaction system ), until the programming produced it. )

So, anybody here who wants to read just how evil “normal” can be, please read some of Angela Davis’s “Women, Race, & Class” book … https://www.amazon.com/Women-Race-Class-Angela-Davis-ebook/dp/B0054KKRKY

& you will begin understanding just how spectacularly wrong our assumptions are, re human-culture-produced-outright-evil, from the utterly stomach-turning historical-facts she’s putting into that…

& then you will begin understanding that when prejudice is the ruling-religion, then the nazis were normal, in evil.

So, really it all comes down to specific identity-forces:

• Kegan4, unconscious validity-narcissistic BullingBOSS-mode, being glorified,
• culture being ruled by narcissism, systematically, with an invisible “glass ceiling” preventing culture-level-4 from being known within their culture, &
• nonaccountable-authority garrotting evolution
• our unconscious-mind’s innate mechanisms for preventing growing-up, fighting growing-up off, as “Immunity to Change” identifies, & it gives us simple methods, that work, for getting past the unconsciously-manufactured-obstacles we grow, to block our evolution.
• entirely possibly more, that I’m not aware-of, or not remembering now…

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Salut, Namaste, & Kaizen, eh?

_ /\ _

My brother’s a CEO of a hospital. He makes over $400,000 a year. He told me that he votes for whatever candidate lowers his taxes. He cares about nothing else. Which is strange considering he’s in the healthcare industry. But, he broke down the numbers for me and he voted for Trump over less than $10,000 a year. That’s how much less tax is he pays. Like I said he cares about nothing else. He has a trans son, who he supports, however he will vote against his interest for under $10,000 a year. Year. I don’t know that this is the answer you were looking for it is just the personal experience. Edit: for typos

I’ve been trying to find an answer on that question myself for years. A lot of the other comments so a good job of scratching the surface but there just isn’t enough text to really explain the full concept completely. If you really want to really dig deeper, here are some books that might help. They helped me. Bottom line is it’s smart for conservatives to do this based on their end goals because it’s effective.

The All New Don’t Think of an Elephant! by George Lakoff, covers the strong father theory which is much of what’s described in other comments.

The Dictator’s Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, talks about the principles of authoritarianism and helps understand how the authoritarian structure in nearly every major company has lead to this.

The Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukuyama, explains why stability at the cost of equality is what political machines often evolve into.

The Revenge of Power by Moisés Naím, explains how authoritarianism works and why it needs us vs them to thrive.

Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, a good view of blame based politics, why and how it works.

Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) by Tavris & Aronson, helps explain why people are attracted to the conservative message.

Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti, explains how capitalists exploit the view that poverty is a personal falling so they can continue wage theft and rent seeking.

The Coddling of the American Mind by Haidt & Lukianoff, a deep dive of the modern conservative mindset and helps answer how and why we got here.

Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen, shows how this has been going on for longer than we’ve been alive along with the attack on education and sort of shows why that’s effective.

The Progress Paradox by Gregg Easterbrook, helps explain why “the sky is falling” narrative conservatives like to use is attractive to us.

Because we humans are social animals that like seeing others happy and dislike seeing others unhappy. Same goes for seeing animals.

Conservatives have convinced themselves or have been convinced by others that everyone is solely responsible for their own success. Or they pretend to believe this.

When they see pain in the world the only thought they can have is: This person did something wrong.

In reality meanwhile things aren’t so easy. People have responsibility in achieving a happy life. But there are a myriad of factors that make life easier or harder. But you all probably know that.

In order to truly understand this, you have to tear yourself away from the Republicans and start looking at conservative ideology itself.

At the core of conservative ideology is the very American idea of “pulling oneself up by their own bootstraps.” This is essentially the idea that, no matter the circumstances of one’s birth, one can achieve anything. Historically, this was a rebellion against the classism of old Europe, which was structured around a class system. So, in that context, it was a very liberal idea. The problem comes in when you start to recognize that people are not actual born on a level playing field, financially, culturally, educationally, etc. Today, the idea that everyone can “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps,” foments the lie that we are all born into equal opportunities in life, which is demonstrably false.

So, the core of conservative ideology is based on an untruth, and it has never reconciled this. Conservatives thus blame disparities in achievement in society on lack of individual effort, and don’t take into account differences in opportunity by birth circumstances. As such, when they see people who haven’t done as well as others, they attribute that to personal failings rather than circumstantial inequalities. When you see all outcomes as a result of personal effort, you can dismiss bad outcomes as the result of a lack of effort, and thereby justify denying the less fortunate help under the notion that it is unfair to the more prosperous because it rewards those who didn’t try as hard with the same outcomes who had to work for them.

Conservative ideology is simply outdated and uninformed by modern sociological research.

I agree with most comments when applied to Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires.

I think the ruling class (aka the rock that does not need this cope) needs the threat of homelessness (aka the hard place) to squeeze the proletariat against.

My ex MIL is great in a lot of ways but I think a good example of a middle income conservative person with a disdain for the poor. She personally used welfare to go to school and become a nurse but in her mind this was exceptional - welfare she thinks holds people back (just not her, somehow). She doesn’t hate the poor, she just thinks they are doing it to themselves. Because she managed to make it.

I think that’s the fundamental difference between conservative and progressive, honestly. She thinks she personally should get whatever advantage, but if someone else gets it that’s cheating, basically. Even though she was IN that situation she blames others who are.

For me (and I think most people) the life experience of being poor and homeless gave me perspective and empathy for those who are in that situation now, and I’d like them to get more than I did so they can get established.

I’ll just repost this comment I made on a similar question earlier: That would be because most wealthy people believe that they did something to “earn” their wealth and that poor people just need to work harder. They refuse to admit that their wealth is built off of the backs of others and a good amount of luck. This also explains a good chunk of Republican policy decisions.

Adding on to that: Republicans see the government as a zero sum entity. If they are paying money into it, they should be receiving an equivalent benefit. If someone else is receiving a benefit that they are not, that is unfair and is effectively equivalent to stealing, since that person doesn’t pay as much into the system. The primary and largely singular motivation of the Republican party is to mold the government to only serve them and increase their “ROI” for their taxes. They do not care about the societal good that social programs do, nor about the massive boon that these programs typically are for the economy in the long run. They care that the poors are getting something that they didn’t work for because they perceive themselves as paying for it personally.

Tl;dr: republicans are selfish myopic people that are absurdly bad at cost benefit analysis

Capitalism is built on the notion that wealth is virtue.

If you are rich, you made good decisions and the invisible hand has guided money to your pockets. You’ve created things that contribute to the comfort/progress of society as a whole, and your reward for it is to be held above others.

If you are poor, you have not been actively contributing to society. You have instead been a drain, and the invisible hand is punishing you got this. Your inability to find meaningful ways to contribute is a vice, which should be looked down on. Ultimately, if you cannot afford to live, that is survival of the fittest, and the world is better off without you.

If you believe any of the above to be true, you are delusional scum of the earth, and you are the reason everything sucks. You’d also feel right at home with the right-wing chuds currently undoing decades of progress.

Hatred of the poor can be found in every society and culture. It’s so pervasive, it’s ridiculous it doesn’t have a proper name. The closest thing is “classism,” but this is something different.

You can’t hoard wealth and distribute it too.

The average republican is not super wealthy, of course, but they are manipulated and controlled by those who are.