The worst thing conservatives have to fear is the loss of what they believe is their privileged position in society. They base their view on a contrast with those who are not of their ethnic, national, and/or (but mostly and) heritage. There is no room in their poltics for “the common good” or even “of the people, by the people, for the people” when other people than those in their narrow definition are included. The great irony here, of course, is that those same “conservatives” would not have been included in said government or said position of privilege in the mythical past they idolize.
They think they have already lost their position in society. And they are often right about that.
As to whether it was a privileged position, they sincerely believe it was not.
If a business executive, they are mistaken. But it is hard for me to see the average West Virginia or Pennsyltucky Republican as having a privileged position in society.
I recall one Twitter post by a white male janitor at a university, who earned low pay - a conservative - sharing his experience of cleaning the blackboard of the chalk written there by a lecturing professor, a minority woman who earned $460,000 a year. The professor had been writing on the board about white male privilege and the like, and the janitor just wasn’t feeling it.
There are some local policies here in the Seattle area that I’d dislike to see done on the national level. Many crimes aren’t being prosecuted, even repeat violent offenders, and I worry about something like that happening on the national level if the left had no pushback at all.
Then again I’m not a conservative and I was a pretty strong supporter of Biden (still am) so I am not really the subject of this thread. But as a moderate that is the only thing I’m worried about happening if Democrats had absolute power. (That and taxes going up to ridiculous levels.)
Maybe I shouldn’t have used the word Pennsyltucky, if that’s what inspired your mention of trash — and even if not. I withdraw it.
You can call me privileged. I am. My parents didn’t give me much cash, but they made sure I could obtain an outstanding education, and they paid for all of it.
Now, when someone, including an average Trump supporter, who isn’t so clearly privileged, is told they are, it might reasonably feel to them not totally different from when they’ve been called trashy.
I don’t know that it is exactly a worst fear, but no one likes being looked down on.
The thing that inspired my mentioning of that term is the simple fact that the poorest, most disadvantaged white still has more privilege than Blacks in the United States.
Are you white? Then, yes, you are privileged and I will call you such. Those trumpist supporters are quite clearly privileged, no matter how they feel. Over the last five years, we have seen how they have decided that their feeling trump facts.
Yeah, they don’t like being looked down on, but they certainly are proficient at looking down on others. They wish for the past in which their version of themselves held all the power in society.
Yeah. Academics who make $460,000 a year are extremely rare, and mostly not in fields where it would make sense for them to be lecturing about white male privilege. (I would buy that salary if the professor were a Nobel-prize-winning physicist or something, but in humanities / social sciences fields, that would be so far outside of the norm that it really wouldn’t serve as a plausible example of any general principle even if it happened to be true in this one case.)
I think you are mistaking cause and effect here, liberal tears are how they keep score but it is not the motivation.
The motivation is to stop this politically correct idea that “all men” means those who are not just like them (white, privileged Christians of at least some means) or those women and people of color who emulate their view of typical or ‘real’ American to the greatest extent possible. Examples here would include Clarence Thomas and Phyllis Schaffley; to the conservatives I know personally (and none of them think they are the least bit racist or sexist) true Americans are stamped out in a plant in the Midwest. They are all white, either manly men or demurring women, all devoutly Christian (Catholics and Mormons are only Christian if they are hyper conservative members of the Republican Party- otherwise they are Papists or cultists), all hard working, mostly professionals- entrepreneurs- or highly skilled tradesmen, and they believe they are blessed by god because they were born that way. They don’t seem to feel compelled to live their religious ideals, just oppose all other religions and all resistance to the tenants of the faith they profess. All social programs are evil (even the ones that support them like Social Security for the elderly) and smacks of communal societies and they KNOW for a fact Communism and Socialism are not just wrong but EVIL because they deny the existence of God Almighty. Every true American knows the default setting is: white, Christian, conservative; all others pretenders to the American dream. (I did not mention their views toward LGBT above but they feel opposing “perversion” is their duty.)
They don’t fear the absence of liberal tears- they fear what that absence would mean. (Namely, a fair and free society.)
I have to agree that for many of those conservatives I know this is kinda true and for the very reason you state and that I bolded above. They definitely have an us against them world view and don’t want to be part of a true melting pot – they prefer the kind of melting pot where those added assimilate immediately and completely. I see the occasional e-mail where they state that they cannot believe they have to live in an America where White and Christian are not the default settings. “Real Americans” are those coming from England and Denmark to establish a free CHRISTIAN nation. Period.
Isn’t this truth ironic coming from the group who feels they are the true establishment ordained by God?
Amen! That has been my experience also.
Sorry, have to disagree here, but I believe you and I may agree. They do have to fear losing their privileged position, but they do not see how privileged their place is. To them being privileged is just normal so when they are asked to be equal to Muslims and Jews and atheists and Hindus and Buddhists they are shocked and appalled.
As I mentioned above, in their views, white Christian is the default and others must defer to them! They are not to be asked to have these ‘lesser’ Americans on the same footing as themselves.
Yes, here we agree completely. I believe we agree above also but phrase things differently.
You would have to say that nothing stings like the other side being so completely right! I sometimes suspect the Republican Party opposes some legislation because they did not think of it first. Hell, they even oppose Republican ideas when put forth by Democrats (for example The Affordable Care Act – aka Romney Care).
White privilege is pretty obvious, if it is not for you I suggest you drive around in the backseat of your black friend’s car for a week. As a straight white male I will stipulate that all of those criteria have benefited me more than a time or two during my lifetime.
Also, their subjective view of things is MUCH more important than reality it seems, as the portion of your post I bolded above states. There is no objective truth and no points of policy – only what THEY want to be true against all reason, sense, and Democratic opposition (what they call Socialism).
When I read this I assumed the greater part of her income must not come from teaching. Perhaps, I thought, she also owned a factory that made her most of that income. But the idea of a good hardworking white guy down on his luck having to serve (clean up after) a woman of color making ten times the money he makes is one fear my multiple distant cousins live with daily. “How could this happen in America??”
Of course one time their father (who was a Yankee but he married a southern gal when he was in the Army) sat me down and explained to me that: “Yea the KKK can be and usually is racist- but they also do some good. When a husband is beating his wife they go over and have a talk with him. If it ever happens again they show what it is like to be the victim of a beating. If someone doesn’t pay their bills and his kids go hungry, they use violence to encourage better parental ethics.” In other words keeping blacks ‘in their place’ (in his view) was just one of the many social services they provided. (Needless to say, this uncle and I have become estranged.)
When I read this I assumed it was a made up story because this is obviously a made up story. As an added bonus, I didn’t have to invent a factory to support my theory.
Professors at the most expensive colleges in the US make about half what that professor at some mysterious “Christian” school is supposed to be making.
And religious schools usually pay their faculty less.