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.