• Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    You’ve misunderstood. I’m not a conservative. I’m not trying to defend conservatism. I’m just trying to explain why it isn’t the same thing as fascism. Conservatives on the long scale are simply those who resist change for whatever reason. For the last 70 years that’s been racial equality and helping poor people. Which incidentally, lines them up really nicely to be recruited by authoritarians and fascists.

    They believe, as part of fiscal responsibility, that everyone is responsible for themselves and their family. That the government helping them actually reduces that family’s ability to get out of poverty. The important thing to notice here isn’t the logical imbalance, but that they believe they’re helping. Obviously we aren’t talking about the extremists who are more than happy to demonize the poor and marginalized. The far right has a completely different set of ideologies. That’s why they have to pay Jordan Peterson to convert normal conservatives.

    • supersquirrel
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      5 months ago

      They believe, as part of fiscal responsibility, that everyone is responsible for themselves and their family. That the government helping them actually reduces that family’s ability to get out of poverty. The important thing to notice here isn’t the logical imbalance, but that they believe they’re helping

      These beliefs are just a thin veneer of bullshit, both for conservatives and for rightwing extremists because the hate and exclusion is the point. I see no evidence that rightwing extremists are ideologically any different than normal conservatives at a fundamental level, they just have different ideas about tactics and the tone/rhetoric they actually are willing to publicly commit to (instead of doing it behind closed doors like normal conservatives/republicans). Conservatives will always roll out of the red carpet for fascists, they are intellectually lobotomized by their ideology in a way that has been shown throughout history to be essential for the rise of fascism to power, thus my cannon metaphor.

      I consider it all part of the same firing process even if the cannonball is usually the fascists.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I think you’re confusing the Republicans with Conservatism. Fully half the Democrats hold these conservative ideas too. And they certainly aren’t rolling out a red carpet.