# Why do conservatives (in the US) hate the left so much **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 28, 2026, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251 "2026-06-28T19:14:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/21 "2026-06-28T22:18:31Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > It might be he wasn’t always this deaf, dumb and blind tool of fascist culture warriors, but he sure as hell has been their solider since I started paying attention to him during the Trump years. Yeah but he has been a fixture since the 90s, and he wasn’t always like this. Sadly, lead poisoning probably claimed yet another baby boomer. As boomers get older, their brains aren’t able to compensate for the damage to high levels of lead exposure they experienced as children. Boomers and Gen X were exposed to a lot of lead paint and leaded gasoline. In modern times, lead levels above 3.5 ug/dl are considered a sign of a problem that warrants attention. People like Bill Maher who was born in 1956 have blood levels around 15-25 ug/dl. [![](https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/blog_lead_crime_main_chart.gif) ](https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/blog_lead_crime_main_chart.gif) ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/22 "2026-06-28T23:02:59Z")
> [@Heracles](#): > > The hatred is not a side effect, it’s the main tool. The whole point is to convince their base voters that all their problems can be blamed on somebody else. > [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > I agree. But that’s a surface level explanation. There may be a little more nuance to it, but I don’t think it’s much more complicated than Heracles’ explanation. Demonizing the opposition is right out of the fascist playbook. In the past, Conservatives and Liberals disagreed, often very vehemently, on what policies were best for America, but there was usually no question that both sides wanted what was best for America, they just had very different ideas on exactly what was best. But now the right is openly saying “Liberals hate America”. This isn’t exactly new; McCarthy fanned the flames of Comminist infiltration fears (lawyer Roy Cohn being the common link between McCarthy and the young trump who learned more about how to be a hateful asshole from Cohn). And Repubs like Gingrich propagated the myth that almost any form of help from the government is (GASP!) Socialism. You want affordable health care? Affirmative action? Go move to Canada or Russia, you Commie. While perpetuating that ‘lift yourself by your bootstraps’ myth that tilting the playing field toward the middle class and underprivileged was wrong, the right was busy tilting the playing field toward the rich. And the playing field gets steeper all the time, meaning demonizing the left needs to keep getting louder to distract the ordinary folks teetering on it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/23 "2026-06-28T23:11:26Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > But why do the right hate the left so much? I would assume it comes down to various answers. And I know some people will say ‘just ask people on the right’. I mean, _I’m_ on the right, so you could ask me — but I don’t believe I can help, because I don’t believe I hate the left. Am I doing it wrong? Maybe I’m doing it wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/24 "2026-06-28T23:16:03Z")
One side believes in a natural order and the other in a more perfect order. The latter views the former as stubborn. The former views the latter as heretics. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/25 "2026-06-29T00:13:35Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Kind of like if someone is an arachnophobe, and then you tell them “We’re going to put 20 tarantulas into your home.” Of course they’re going to hate you. I see your point but it’s more like they’ve been told by someone with an axe to grind (grasping power) or a buck to be made or both, “_They_ are going to put 20 tarantulas into your home but we can stop them.” ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/26 "2026-06-29T00:40:13Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Am I doing it wrong? Maybe I’m doing it wrong. You’re doing it wrong. I was asking about strawmen arguments to cement my sense of moral superiority; not living, breathing humans with complex emotions. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/27 "2026-06-29T00:42:40Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > The confederate flag has been flown openly for generations as a proud symbol of heritage and that heritage is systemic racism, Okay. > [@madmonk28](#): > > incest Ehmmm…okay? The South is more rural, more rural is loosely correlated with higher per capita levels of incest. I’m not sure how much of the difference can be laid at the feet of deliberate anti-intellectualism. > [@madmonk28](#): > > obesity 🤨 Again, obesity levels are higher in the U.S. South and Appalachia. Again the main association seems to be rural and poverty. But especially poverty. While conscious anti-intellectualism can play a factor, food deserts and economic stress are probably a much bigger one. You see the same thing in poor urban areas everywhere. I’m not at all comfortable with a narrative grouping that seems to imply that obesity is a moral evil on the level of racism and incest. I’m also not particularly convinced that you can tie anti-intellectual sympathies with the Antebellum South with fat people in this country. I suspect morbidly obese liberal Black Americans are going to be a bit skeptical of that notion as well. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/28 "2026-06-29T00:51:05Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Again, obesity levels are higher in the U.S. South and Appalachia. Again the main association seems to be rural and poverty. While conscious anti-intellectualism can play a factor, food deserts and economic stress are probably a much bigger one. You see the same thing in poor urban areas everywhere. > > I’m not at all comfortable with a narrative grouping that seems to imply that obesity is a moral evil on the level of racism and incest. I’m also not particularly convinced that you can tie anti-intellectual sympathies with the Antebellum South with fat people in this country. I suspect morbidly obese Black Americans are going to be a bit skeptical of that notion as well. Exactly. For the past decade, I’ve worked with a health insurance company in Alabama. Yes, Alabama has among the highest rates of obesity in the U.S., as well being among the highest for diabetes, asthma, high blood pressure, heart disease, and COPD. It’s about culture, diet (heavy on the sugar and fat), poverty levels, and lack of education on healthy eating, and not political affiliation; there are a lot of Democratic-voting Black Alabamians who suffer from the same suite of health conditions. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/29 "2026-06-29T01:18:46Z")
To the OP: the right has long been more likely to see things in terms of right/wrong, black/white, etc. (Liberalism is inherently more prone to nuance.) This can lead to seeing their political opponents as not just wrong on the issues, but utterly immoral, evil, pedophiles, America haters. The rhetoric from Gingrich/Limbaugh cited above whipped this up. When Hillary referred to (a subset of) MAGAs as ‘deplorables’ they went berserk. They consider this tactic their exclusive property. > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Exactly. For the past decade, I’ve worked with a health insurance company in Alabama. Yes, Alabama has among the highest rates of obesity in the U.S., as well being among the highest for diabetes, asthma, high blood pressure, heart disease, and COPD. > > It’s about culture, diet (heavy on the sugar and fat), poverty levels, and lack of education on healthy eating, and not political affiliation; there are a lot of Democratic-voting Black Alabamians who suffer from the same suite of health conditions. Not just obesity, but also smoking. My home state West Virginia has the highest rate of both. Food deserts can play a role in obesity, but smoking is just ignorance, along with maybe some defiant, defeatist, self-destructivism, driven by poverty. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/30 "2026-06-29T01:20:52Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > Not just obesity, but also smoking. Indeed, and I should have mentioned that, as it contributes to the high rates of respiratory diseases, as well as cancer. About the only negative health issue that Alabama does _not_ rank highly on is heavy alcohol use. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/31 "2026-06-29T01:25:31Z")
Interesting. I’m guessing it’s maybe the influence of Baptist and other conservative denominations. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/32 "2026-06-29T01:41:52Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > Interesting. I’m guessing it’s maybe the influence of Baptist and other conservative denominations. - Once you account for how much they lie about drinking… ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/33 "2026-06-29T06:59:45Z")
Getting back on topic, I think one reason a lot of conservatives hate the left is because the left is usually in the role of apology-demanders and concession-demanders, while the right (and everyone else) is usually expected to be in the role of apology-givers and concession-givers. Nobody likes that kind of role, and when it’s the role expected of them over and over again, it leads to a lot of backlash and resentment. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/34 "2026-06-29T08:52:34Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > (Liberalism is inherently more prone to nuance.) Progressivism, less so. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/35 "2026-06-29T10:44:06Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Getting back on topic, I think one reason a lot of conservatives hate the left is because **the left is usually in the role of apology-demanders and concession-demanders, while the right (and everyone else) is usually expected to be in the role of apology-givers and concession-givers.** Nobody likes that kind of role, and when it’s the role expected of them over and over again, it leads to a lot of backlash and resentment. I’m not sure about this. Bill Clinton apologized for the Tuskegee experiment and the mass incarceration law, for which he was criticized by the right. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/36 "2026-06-29T10:58:22Z")
They hate the Left because hatred _is_ what they are all about. The Right has been about hatred for everyone and everything that doesn’t precisely fit into their mandated social order for longer than the US has existed. They are notorious for even turning on their own family members who fail to fall in line, much less strangers with “wrong” politics or skin color. If you could wave a magic wand and eliminate all politics based on hate, the Right would essentially vanish overnight. Hate is _all_ they are. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/37 "2026-06-29T11:16:02Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > Once the fascists were able to brake basic adherence to decorum, truth, and reason; everything became allowed. The rampant lying, scapegoating, corruption, breaking of order, all became accepted daily events. The accepted social state turned into an equivalence of “the purge” but regarding reason, ethics, empathy, and compassion. A 4chan chat room. This. None of this is an emergent property of the right; it’s been the result of domination of social media and traditional platforms with propaganda, usually propaganda designed to cause outrage. For example, in the last election, GOP / super PACs spent **$200 million** on anti-trans ads alone. Spreading myths like the idea of children going to school and returning having had a sex change op. Now, it’s also true that the modern MAGA movement also attracts the bigots and people who just generally enjoy being tribal – I think if “the left” were to leave America en masse, then these people would find some other group or faction to now be the demons who aren’t _real_ Christians or whatever. But the larger proportion of those voting on the right have just been propagandized by right wing media. If I believed 5 minutes of content from FOX, or that Tucker Carlson says, or The Telegraph here in the UK…I would hate the left too. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/38 "2026-06-29T12:32:33Z")
We have a multi-billionaire US President (with executive admin toadies) and a class of hedonistic, misanthropic multimillion-to-trillionaires pumping out the most wildest imaginary things (like white genocide myths) via their mass media platforms directly or via a network of pernicious autonomous ai and human influencers. A force zeroed into demagoguery and geared towards increasing the ambient baseline of social chaos, hate, and scapegoating simply because an alarmed viewership increases aroused engagement which drives ad revenue. This is a class of people so rich as to completely exist outside of any culpability to their actions and influence. The ones like Musk are nakedly and flamboyantly scornful of others without any fidelity to societal norms, social cohesion, or public attachment. However he isn’t the only one. He’s just the one who lives the most publicly without any hint of fear of his actions. Anyways. This thread is about conservatives, not wealthy and fascist techbros. My evaluation of conservatives are that they revel in the freedom from reason, logic, and social responsibity that Trump’s GOP has wrought. Like a child who threw off their clothes and won’t stop running around in public. Once basic adherence to shared social welfare is broken, all is allowed. The only way to get it back is to rebuild conservative investment into a shared society and people. Its hard. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/39 "2026-06-29T17:06:28Z")
Well said. Thank you. Speaking to the results, not to the way they’re ~~created~~ incited … > You can’t have freedumb without the dumb. ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251/40 "2026-06-29T17:13:18Z")
At the end of the day, racism explains most of it. And paternalism covers the rest. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-in-the-us-hate-the-left-so-much/1031251.md?page=3)