How come liberals dont hate conservatives the way conservatives hate liberals

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

Behaviorbabe,

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.

squid_slime,

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

Snapz,

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.

cygon, (edited )

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:

Political map of the US in 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):

Search result on DuckDuckGo for anti-conservative t-shirts, all results showing anti-liberal t-shirts

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).

squid_slime,

You need to cross post this or something, and keep researching as your an asset to humanity!

Would love to hear more of what you’ve found.

SupraMario,

www.amazon.com/…/ref=asc_df_B0BDM3M15P/?tag=hypro…

Tons of anti-republican shirts… don’t know what you searched for but they’re easy to find.

ccunning,

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):

You make your point well. I just wanted to point out I believe at least one of them is anti-conservative (The devolution of humans into the GOP)

And one is possibly unintentionally anti-conservative: If Liberal Perspective is actually a liberal’s perspective the subject is a conservative with their head up their own ass. I don’t believe that’s the shirt’s actual intention though. It would be hard to depict the interior of the rectum on a T-shirt

obinice,
@obinice@lemmy.world avatar

It’s worth noting that you’re looking at conservatives from a USA perspective, which is valid and very informative, it’s just that OP didn’t specify a country, so it might also be worth discussing conservative vs liberal culture in places like Europe too, or perhaps prefacing your wonderfully detailed response with something to clarify that when you’re talking about conservatives, you mean a very specific subset of them (as opposed to, say, the conservatives of the UK, where their political party is itself called the Conservative Party).

Rock on! :-D

Kid_Thunder,

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.

whoreticulture,

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).

zerofk,

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.

Diplomjodler3,

Nope. No. Absolutely not. One side wants to take away peoples’ rights. The other one doesn’t. Miss me with your stupid bothsideism.

IsThisAnAI,

Progressives love taking rights away. Way to double helping ops point.

Diplomjodler3,

Muh ammenmend won’t anybody think of muh poor ammenmend!

PhlubbaDubba,

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.

Alice,
@Alice@hilariouschaos.com avatar

You got it backwards

FooBarrington,

Has a Democrat president ever amplified messaging like “the only good Republican is a dead one”?

Alice,
@Alice@hilariouschaos.com avatar

Stop it.

See you’re doing it right now

Feathercrown,

Give me one example of liberal hate and I’ll give you five of conservative.

Viking_Hippie,

Fun fact: providing an accurate example of someone spreading hate isn’t itself spreading hate.

Only cult members consider good faith accusations leveled against their leaders to be inherently hateful.

And no, that’s not hate either. That’s ridicule based on observed behavior patterns.

NeoNachtwaechter,

The parties differ not so much in their (propagated) goals, but in the methods they are prepared to use.

xmunk,

points at trans youths

Yea uh… the goals are definitely fucking different. Let’s not fall back into that old rhetorical trap of being fair and balanced.

Feathercrown,

Nah man, the goals are further apart than the methods are. At this point I’m not even interested in hearing your justification. If you can’t see it, you’re blind.

SnotFlickerman, (edited )
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

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.

TropicalDingdong,

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

Nobody,

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.

xmunk,

Hey we wouldn’t be nearly as smug if these fuckers weren’t throwing their votes at a known grifter and a dog murderer. Back when it was W in charge we could actually talk about issues - now these fuckers jumped the shark.

otacon239,

To add to this, the opposite of love is not hate, but ignore.

Giving your energy and attention to hating something typically means that they occupy enough mental real estate in your day to day life that you feel the need to broadcast it on a regular basis.

The liberals I know tend to spend the majority of their free time focusing on improving themselves and the world around them rather than simply target blame somewhere else.

ABCDE,

The right is too angry to listen, and the left is too arrogant to listen.

To listen to what?

FMT99,

Not to the racism and idiocy but to the underlying issues that fuel that anger.

Zoboomafoo,

The underlying issues that fuel that anger

Fox News and AM Radio

Viking_Hippie,

The ACTUAL left (unlike the arrogant center right to right wing corporate stooges in control of the Dem party falsely claiming to be on the left) SHARE that same anger.

We just don’t blame minorities, secularism, the concept of objective knowledge and a lack of bigotry for what is clearly the fault of mainly rich and powerful white conservative and centrist people.

loobkoob,
loobkoob avatar

Those underlying issues are what left-wing people are trying to resolve already, though - wealth inequality, poor mental health, too much power in the hands of corporations and the mega-rich, removing outrage politics, etc.

FMT99,

I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, except maybe we should switch to show not tell. I understand that it’s not as easy as that but over the last let’s say 30 years, how much has the left really improved life for the rural population? And by comparison how much do we preach to them that they’re backwards and their world view is invalid?

It’s exactly as you say, the working class should be an easy win for us on policy, but it hasn’t turned out that way.

You can just say “well they’re stupid that’s what you get” or you can ask yourself why aren’t we getting these people on board while some greasy billionaire can?

loobkoob,
loobkoob avatar

You can just say “well they’re stupid that’s what you get” or you can ask yourself why aren’t we getting these people on board while some greasy billionaire can?

I don't necessarily like to just dismiss people as stupid, but a lack of education and the ability to understand complex issues is both a big issue for these people and a reason why the greasy billionaires can get them on board. Convincing someone that them paying some of their money into a union will actually result in better working conditions and more money for them - rather than just being poorer - is a lot harder and takes more understanding on their part than someone convincing them there's less money to go around because there are more immigrants, for instance.

On top of that, people like to be able to absolve themselves of personal responsibility if they are given the option to. That's not exclusive to right-wing people, but when that's coupled with people wanting simple "explanations" because they don't understand more complex systems with all their consequences, knock-on effects, etc, it makes it easy for right-wing politicians and media to offer simple scapegoats and get people on board.

To use the immigrants example again: not only is it not your average right-wing voter's fault in any way - it's the immigrants' fault - but also, they don't personally need to do anything to fix the issue, they just need to let the right-wing politicians get into power and it'll all be solved for them. It's all very comforting for them - much more so than being told it's going to take ten years and some work on their part to improve things.

Brunbrun6766,
@Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world avatar

Arrogant, interesting.

See, the issue to me is that one side comes up with real tangible solutions to problems, while the other side is busy smearing shit on the walls, getting red in the face screaming about deep state this or jew lasers that, and then people like you tell me we should engage those people and treat their ideas with respect and equal levels of severity.

See the issue here?

TachyonTele,

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.

RightHandOfIkaros,

Seems everyone these days makes politics their identity, left and right. And center.

Hugohase,

“Enlightened” centrism is not the answer…

Viking_Hippie,

Never has been, never will be.

The billionaire-owned media will continue to insist otherwise as long as we allow for billionaires to exist, though…

Burn_The_Right,

That’s because “centrist” is just what conservatives call themselves when they are too embarassed to admit they are conservatives.

morphballganon,

A table with 11 people, including a nazi, is a table with 11 nazis.

Don’t compare choosing to not sit at that table with the bullshit republicans do.

TachyonTele,

Definitely not.

TachyonTele,

How many Biden hats and flags have you seen?

MrJameGumb,
@MrJameGumb@lemmy.world avatar

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

IzzyJ,

Okay but my point is why aren’t there nearly as many hateful liberals

ImplyingImplications,

It’s really difficult to want everyone to be able to access food, shelter, education, and healthcare and also be hateful.

MrJameGumb,
@MrJameGumb@lemmy.world avatar

Because being inherently hateful isn’t part of the liberal identity? The terms “liberal” and “progressive” imply acceptance and inclusivity by definition?

rayyy,

Conservatives approach things very differently. They tend to blame and make excuses whereas liberals tend to treat the problem and look for solutions in models of success. For example, little Suzie gets her hand caught in the car door. A conservatives would typically blame her or her little brother. A liberal would likely treat the injury and try to set rules to prevent it from happening again.
Another example, Donald Von ShitzInPantz wears diapers. The right hates it when they can’t weasel out of a fact so they defend it, embrace it as normal even desirable instead of accepting there is a problem. If that was Biden he would be hatefully ridiculed, (blamed) to no end by conservatives.
Conservatives assume blame, (hate) is the solution. Liberals fit a solution to the problem. There is conflict because of the way they approach a problem and blame, (hate) is the conservative solution.

MrJameGumb,
@MrJameGumb@lemmy.world avatar

If little Suzie got her hand caught in a car door today’s modern Republican would claim it was part of a conspiracy by foreign auto makers to destabilize the US education system.

Then someone would find out that little Suzie’s parents are Jewish and claim the whole thing is part of a satanic pedophile ring trying to undermine the good Christian values this country was founded on.

Then once any sane person in the room points out that this is all clearly bullshit they would turn on Suzie and file a lawsuit claiming that she is somehow responsible for the downfall of the US automotive industry.

Several years later after Suzie has had to move 8 times because of death threats against her family the GOP would deny any wrongdoing, claim they’ve never heard of anyone name Suzie, and call the whole thing a woke liberal conspiracy.

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