this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2026
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I've seen some interesting discussion of this linked to the idea of survive/thrive strategies. Is the world a dangerous place that calls for avoiding risks and protecting what you have, or is it full of opportunities and calls for exploring and being open to novelty? Neither inclination is fundamentally wrong. But I'm not sure how to reconcile that with modern "rightists" who want to burn down the system and aren't conservative in the lowercase-C sense.
Fear of non-conformity.
They value being in some kind of 'tribe' to a literally irrational extent.
Hence, black and white, ingroup vs outgroup thinking.
Then combine that with half of them hate themselves (mostly because of the peer pressure that comes from their tribe) and are literally in a suicidal apocalyptic death cult.
So when the death cult says 'destroy', they don't want to lose their group identity, because without that, they are nothing, so, they destroy.
The Republican party (and conservatism as a movement) are full-blown reactionaries. I like this passage from Corey Robin'sThe Reactionary Mind:
And from another section:
I just now saw this and... that is a much erudite explanation than I gave... I will have to check out this Corey Robin.
I think these ideas, and what I said, are mutually true.
What do you think?
Basically, yes, conservatives either literally are losers or fear loss, to horrifically paraphrase Robin... and also, their replacement identity, their group identity that has supplanted their personal identity, which includes being directed to war against certain ideas and concepts, well, they can't not perform those ideas, otherwise, its another existentual criss.
First, they lost or failed at something core to their personal identity, then they subsume themself into the aggrieved group identity... and if they renege against or fail at the performance of the group identity... well now they have another existential crisis, suffer another kind of identity loss.
Conservatism, as a trauma response.
I just also want to note the immense cognitive dissonance between the actual, fear-based conservative mindset of 'zero-sum'... and their purported belief in the 'free market', much of which totally fails to be any kind of logically coherent without the idea that... an unregulated market generally (or even always) leads to a 'positive-sum' situation.
They lie about how they actually think, and tell you the thing that very often actually is zero-sum in reality... is broadly mutually beneficial... and that you're wrong/evil if you disagree.
Its... all projection.
Quite a logical short circuit.
You should definitely read the book if it's a topic that interests you; it's the best overview of conservatism that I've read. I'd say you're pretty well aligned with what he wrote within, too.
Well they are afraid of the system, which they think is out to get them. See white nationalists who claim they are being persecuted, "deep state", various conspiracy theories, need for guns for self protection, etc, etc. I don't see anything hard to reconcile.
Conservatism typically assumes that much of the world is a zero-sum game, so for one to prosper someone else must be worse off. Instead of them collaborating for a better outcome.