# The things that each side fears losing (on a given political issue) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 13, 2019, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-that-each-side-fears-losing-on-a-given-political-issue/843367 "2019-11-13T15:45:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 41
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-that-each-side-fears-losing-on-a-given-political-issue/843367/41 "2019-11-15T17:53:56Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I think conservatives fear losing security and relative status. The cosnervative movement is made up of people that society deems more valuable than others (men, whites, christians, native born americans). They’re seeing America become more egalitarian and they are losing their relative status and sense of privilege, as well as their group and social identity. I think conservatives also fear being treated the same way they’ve treated others. If gays started taking away christians rights to marry, if Muslims passed laws denying religious freedom to christians, if women passed laws limiting reproductive freedoms of men, if black cops brutalized and terrorized white people constantly, etc. > > Plus because conservatives notice threats more strongly than the left, they feel the left doesn’t take threats like street crime, terrorism, dangerous nations, etc. seriously enough. > > For the left we fear losing democracy, equality, the social safety net, and a sustainable society. Conservatives want to undermine democracy to create an unequal white ethnostate with a reduced social safety net and out of control plutocrats. Plus we worry about the world our grandkids will inherit due to resource depletion and climate change. Conservatives believe that society has made massive leaps forward in the past 120 years and want to preserve both the improvements and the structures that enabled those improvements. Technological innovation, investment, globalisation, and corporate capitalism have improved the lives of billions of people, and offer the best prospects for the future, but are routinely described by the left as the rich taking advantage of the poor. For example: Snipped quote from Elections thread: “most [of] us don’t wake up in the AM wanting to smack Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg in the face.” > [@Elizabeth Warren campaign goes full blown populist](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-campaign-goes-full-blown-populist/843335/4): > > We should. We’ve got people working two jobs who still have to beg for insulin money on the internet. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos could burn a hundred billion dollars and _still_ be one of the richest billionaires in the world. That shit ain’t right. Two people who more or less created new modern industries deserve violence and property seizure because they were successful. If you’re going to caricaturise the right, I’m going to caricaturise the left. Believe me, right now in Britain there’s more than enough left-wing idiocy to ridicule. > **[Ferocious backlash grows against Labour's plans to part-nationalise BT](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-news-ferocious-backlash-growing-against-labours-crazy-plan-to-partnationalise-bt-a4288161.html)** > > A ferocious backlash was growing today against “crazy” plans from Labour to part-nationalise BT and give away its broadband services for free. To address the OP, what conservatives fear are misguided emotional campaigns that won’t achieve anything other than a lot of needless spending and may actually be counterproductive. Quick example: California High Speed Railway. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-things-that-each-side-fears-losing-on-a-given-political-issue/843367)._