Something I've noticed from like, every shade of liberal or left-ish person is that a lot of folks tend to be really bad at understanding how run-of-the-mill right wingers think

Their conceptions of them always feel way off base to me

And like, I get it, because at the end of the day it's an incoherent and cruel ideology

But you'd think people would understand it better from at least like a "know your enemy" perspective

Like, for an example of what I mean: people always trot out the "temporarily embarrassed billionaires" line to explain why conservatives defend the rich

And that definitely describes some people but it's not some silver bullet to understanding right wing thinking

My dad's a 60-year-old man with a severe mental disability, he is under no delusions that he's going to be rich some day. But he still passionately supports conservative economic policies.

He does that because he fundamentally believes that capitalism is a fair game. He's played it honestly and he's gotten what he felt was due to him out of it.

He thinks rich people, on balance, also play the game fairly, they're just much better at it than everyone else. He doesn't detest wealth redistribution because he thinks he might have his money taken some day, he detests it because he sees it as cheating

If you don't or won't accept that the "game" of capitalism is rigged, then anyone who wants higher taxes or welfare programs comes off as a sore loser. Unhappy with your lot in life? Just work harder! The system is fair, if you don't have much then it's because you're not trying

If you work hard to make a living, and you see someone else who gets by on government assistance, and you have blinders on that block everything else out, then it feels like the value of what you've worked for has been cheapened.

It feels like you're working not just to support yourself and your family, but also every "lazy sore loser" that would rather live off of welfare than pull their own weight.

And in my experience at least that kind of attitude is WAY more common than the "temporarily embarrassed billionaire" thing. That only really feels like it applies to "rise and grind" weirdos

I feel like a lot of people on the left/center-left see conservatism as a cruel ideology, and therefore everyone who believes in it has cruel motives. "They only want unfair tax laws because they think they'll benefit from them one day"

But generally they just *don't see that stuff as unfair.* The status quo makes sense to them and feels right, so every argument to change it feels like sour grapes at best and insidious evil at worst

And to be clear I'm NOT trying to defend it or make excuses for it. All of this stuff is super wrapped up in racism, sexism, homophobia, light-to-moderate-to-heavy fascism, etc.

It's just that it always sort of puzzles me when I see someone opine about how conservatives think or what motivates their behavior and it always feels like they've never talked to or listened to a conservative person in their life

Which, again, at the very least it feels like it would be valuable to understand what you're fighting, y'know?