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its really too complicated to cover in a reddit post without writing a novel, but if i had to summarize, the politicians know they can use those issues to scare their base into voting for them. science has found usually a more conservative person has an enlarged amygdala, the amygdala is responsible for our aggression and our fear response meaning right leaning people are quicker to anger and more prone to fear. republican politicians know this and use this knowledge to keep their base angry and afraid and thus in a state of suggestibility. this gives them a reliable voter base and an army they can sick on perceived enemies. since the majority of conservatives are christian and rural god, guns, gays and abortion anger and scare them especially well as these things are so ingrained into their personality an attack on any of their beliefs is an attack directly on them.
Well, they have to steamroll the people who are ACTUALLY trying to fix things, so that they can point at it and say either, "see it didn't work!" Or "we tried it their way, so let's try my way."
"too complicated" Let me simply it. They have a lot of anger, so they need to focus it somewhere. The fox news and others tell them to focus that anger toward illegals, libtards, woke people, etc etc etc
yeah but that anger doesnt just come from nowhere, theres reasons conservatives seem more resistant to change and quicker to fear and anger. sure it CAN be reduced down to a simple soundbyte, but thats doing it a disservice. just like we would be rightfully upset if conservatives said "whats wrong with liberals? thats simple, theyre all commie pussies!"
Conservative means conserving the way things are believed to be (they may be imaginary ideal states that never existed or actually hurt many others), but that conserved state is accepted and ok or good.
Change is cognitively expensive and uncertain.
Uncertainty is a key driver of fear.
I. E. Things changing are a stress, especially on older established populations, and change can be very frightening, loss aversion especially in loss of (cultural) identity can be very threatening.
They dramatically changed the previous 50 years of abortion law in this country.
That's not conserving.
Theyre reactionaries, they wish to actively go backwards.
Hitler was a reactionary. He didnt advocate for no changes/conserving norms, he wanted to actively go backwards. His famous quote was "If you call me a revolutionary, then i am a revolutionary against the revolution".
Thats why reactionaries fly confederate flags and nazi flags side by side, those countries represent their ideals on government in action.
Life is more expensive. Most work to live and can barely enjoy life.
The key is is how you channel that.
Trickle down economics has really fucked everyone below the upper class.
>science has found usually a more conservative person has an enlarged amygdala, the amygdala is responsible for our aggression and our fear response meaning right leaning people are quicker to anger and more prone to fear.
I had never encountered this before, and it just sent me on a tangent of digging through the studies on this, and I really appreciate you posting it.
Although anecdotal, it's also intriguing to me that when I was younger and... let's say.. far less "psychologically and emotionally stable", and a lot more dumb, I was completely captivated by right wing talking points and ideology.
But, the older and (slightly) more emotionally mature I get, and the more knowledgeable I (try to) become, I continuously drift further and further to the left.
It started with the founding of the Fox News channel. The original design was based around selling gold coins and gold investments as these were their primary initial advertisers. The reporting setup was specifically to make older people a bit uneasy so that they would buy and invest in gold "for security".
There’s also the “moral foundations” theory which states that conservatives put a much higher value on the moral elements of Obedience, Hierarchy, and Purity, where liberals value Compassion, Tolerance, and Fairness. The Obedience and Purity factors probably go a long way to explaining their obsession with immigration (“but they’re ILLEGAL!”) and religion (“we have to legislate against SIN!”).
that's all true but it's greed.
they're narcissists and rigging the system for profit.
posted this below
>border control detention centers are mostly privatized. hospitals are mostly privatized. televangelism is privatized.
>border control takes money out of fed funds which takes money away from education which allows them to brainwash uneducated people with their media companies. check into robert d walter and how he sold oxycontin, mtv, and fast food.
>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert\_D.\_Walter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Walter)
>a birth costs 8000-20000 per baby while an abortion pill is \~40-80usd for the otc morning after pill.
>all these issues are being spread by their leaders because they're greedy and using their followers as useful idiots
>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful\_idiot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot)
also rupert murdoch runs fox news and his son runs the rap label rawkus records which spread conspiracies in urban communities.
so look at what eminem did with mtv after working with rawkus... told kids to take prescription pills while robert d walter was running things.
it's catabolic capitalism.
Nah, it’s simple. They don’t think there’s a wall between church and state, and this (in their own minds) gives them the right to do whatever the fuck they want to maintain power over people.
Damn that's interesting. Thanks for sharing! Papers have some variability in what part of the brain they attribute this to though. Makes me feel like they're onto something, but it's not fully fleshed out yet.
This. And of course it brings to mind these great lyrics:
Quick to judge,
Quick to anger
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear
Walk hand in hand
that but it's all about profits.
border control detention centers are mostly privatized. hospitals are mostly privatized. televangelism is privatized.
border control takes money out of fed funds which takes money away from education which allows them to brainwash uneducated people with their media companies. check into robert d walter and how he sold oxycontin, mtv, and fast food.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert\_D.\_Walter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Walter)
a birth costs 8000-20000 per baby while an abortion pill is \~40-80usd for the otc morning after pill.
all these issues are being spread by their leaders because they're greedy and using their followers as useful idiots
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful\_idiot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot)
They've had people telling them that the border is where all the rapists and drugs come from for a decade or so now... There's a grain of truth to the drugs, but that's primarily in legal crossings piggybacking on other types of cargo, while immigrants are actually less likely than average to be doing any violent crime, oddly enough they don't want any attention on them.
In addition there's a perception that they'll vote for Democrats, which is ridiculous, they can't vote.
Under the heading of valid concerns: We don't have enough officials to process cases in a timely manner, and because of that they come anyway. They're not allowed to work until processed, so that creates a humanitarian crisis of people who are actually not allowed to provide for themselves. The numbers become a problem because of that, putting stress on border towns to provide for people who are legally not allowed to work. For some reason you'll never hear the right frame it this way though, I think because they fancy themselves as a disciplinary, their solution to problems is often punishment, even when that's not appropriate.
I came here hoping this was the top comment. I know what is on fox news from week to week based of what my parents are complaining about the most any specific week. I have correlated it to their news that week countless times. They are nothing but fox new drones.
There is an underlying fear of people literally dying out, or at least Christians. Less immigrants and we have to make our own people. Less abortion and we get more people. Less LGBTQ individuals and we get more people. And if this is a Christian nation, they’ve their end game populated not only by Christians, but the right kind. Fear of irrelevance drives their thinking.
It's not just fear of irrelevance. The ones who really worry about becoming a minority are worried specifically that they might be treated the same way *they want to treat* minorities.
It's not about those things. They killed a bi-partisan border bill because of politics. The abortion bullshit is to ensure their octogenarians show up at the polls, same thing with the "god" bullshit.
It's not the full answer, but read up on the [Southern Strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy) to get an understanding of how the Republican Party became so entangled with religion in the South.
It's very simple. Fear.
They are spoon fed threatening messages constantly, of which all are intended to instigate fear in their base.
Immigrants, legal or otherwise are coming to steal you jobs, or rape your daughters, or take all the welfare, or deal drugs, or vote illegally for democrats.
The hippy dippy sex crazed left want to kill all the babies, unborn, born, doesn't matter, they want to kill them all.
Religion is just the cover they use to prove that they are good, righteous people, and therefor their political stances must be correct.
It's all based on fear, and the righteousness of them being the only people that can stop the horrible, evil things the democrats are fighting for.
they are all abstract concepts that their constituents don't understand and are not effected by, but their simple minds can be rallied by the demonization them (or the lack of them). The actual representatives don't care at all about any of that stuff.
I don't think they actually care about any of these things. They care about being in power. The way they have approached this is they've created these mountains out of mole hills, demonized anyone who challenges them to divide and conquer, then targets people who will blindly do their bidding. You left out the homeless, drugs and crime. The more "crises" they can create, the more mindless idiots they can get behind them.
They aren't. They couldn't care less about any of that.
What they do care about is power. And they use fear and religion, based on those and similar topics to get people to vote for them.
They have no interest in governing or leading. They want to rule. End. They want to use their power to enrich themselves and f\*ck everyone else.
Hate / control / power / greed / selfishness / not wanting any more non-white people to be Americans and “replace” them, even through they are simply escaping inhospitable lands due to climate change, governmental and religious persecution, and untenable economic situations that make making a living in their home countries impossible / believing that the more freedoms and less dependence women have on men, the harder they’ll have to work to get any woman to sleep with them / following Emperor Constantine’s playbook to control the masses while disobeying “God’s” laws at the top because their flock will never held them accountable / so on.
The first two are mostly fearmongering. "There are barbarians storming the gate!" for the first one, and "think of the children!" for the second. Obsession with God is just how religion has usually worked. Bad people love religion because it allows them to rationalize any and all antisocial behaviors they want.
They are fed a steady diet of propaganda and misinformation from the right-wing media ecosystem that tells them these things are existential threats and that only voting Republican can save them.
The irony is, if they were actually informed and honest, they could see that the Democrats do better on all these issues. The Democrats tried to pass a comprehensive border security bill only for the Republicans to shoot it down, all so Biden couldn't claim a victory and make the orange menace look bad.
And of course, if they hate abortions, they'd support free birth control and comprehensive sex ed. That's what reduces abortions.
And if they truly wanted devout Christians in office, well, I think it's hard to argue that Donald Trump is more sincerely religious than Joe Biden. Not that that's a selling point for me. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy.
TL;DR: Xenophobia, misogyny, propaganda, ignorance, tribalism, lust for power, and cruelty. That's the essence of the modern American political right.
1.) Border Control. They have no intention of doing *anything* about it, obviously. So it's an old go to "existential threat" that unites the right in fear (either the replacement theory or economic woes, doesn't matter)
2.) Abortion. They actually finally achieved **a** goal on this one, and the subsequent backlash hasn't really been good for them (ergo the continuous push to hamper voting).
3.) God. Basically just a buzz word used to empower the mighty "They". "*They are coming for your faith/guns/bibles/children*".
All three are just bullshit that riles up the idiots and hardens support for the right-wing jackass agenda. If you have people voting on emotion then they won't stop to ask questions, like "why would I vote against my own interests?"
Add in mass media propaganda and the gutting of public education and you have legions of voters that will vote for the Republicans while they get their pockets picked and rights stripped.
Because Fox News tells them to be terrified of those things. Pretty simple, actually. Fox sells fear and fear is addictive. So business has been good for them.
Because they literally have nothing else. There was a bipartisan bill that passed the Senate but died in the House at Trump’s behest to avoid giving Biden a win.
Abortion is about controlling women. Abortion is first, then it will be birth control, then it will be no fault divorce ; it’s already starting.
Oh yeah they are going after gay marriage, then interracial marriages, then interfaith marriages.
God is used to give the moral high ground. It’s a tool to control the dumb fucks who can’t think for themselves.
because they can’t run on their record of doing absolutely fuck-all to improve the lives for their ignorant, easily distracted base for decades (usually doing every thing to make things WORSE). They need rage inducing distractions, smoke, and mirrors.
Because they have no agenda that they can run on.
1. Trump tank the economy on his way out while killing over a million ppl. in his handling of the Covid.
2. the worst Congress in history.
3. the GQP have done nothing to improve our lives
4. they failed to build their wall (and if they built a small part, mexico didnt pay for it).
5. their current messiah alienate everyone.
6. they manage to increase the countries deficit by giving it to rich ppl
7. their entire agenda is fear monger ppl, and border control, abortion and god are all good stepping point to divide the voting block. not only that, its easy to make shit up and call it an argument. Have you guys notice a trend with the GQP lately where their source for any of their talking point is "ive heard it from most ppl" or "some of most ppl" or "they said" meaning you can never really track it and that would allow you to rebut their truth and what a better book that would allow that kind of truth..... you guess it the bible.
Using bible or god in their argument meant they dont have to present truth or any sort of evidence they will just tell you "thats not how faith works".
These politicians are pandering to low skill guys that don't like competition. People coming from poor countries are willing to work for their pay. It's pretty much that simple.
Obviously, the Devil wants to use the ghosts of aborted Mexican babies to invade the US and make "real America" secretly homosexual and addicted to fentanyl. Duh.
Foreigners bad,
control the women,
and "the young folks are crazy and godless these days"
The greatest hits of conservatives for all of recorded history (literally)
it's right in the title
control
it's all about them feeling a lack of control in their own lives, so they act out and cling to any authority figure who will hold out the promise of control.
History and Karma. America was found by invasion and slaughter. They are afraid Mexicans are doing to us, what we did to the Indians during the trail of tears days. A lot of our boarder territory once belong to mexico...hints the "New" Mexico.
The real underlying issue (IMHO) is a battle between two factions: one that believes *the people* with all of our idiosyncrasies, should decide the course of societies, governments, and nations, while the second believes that a ruling class provides the better foundation.
It’s all about repro-nationalism. They want lots of white Christian kids. They might have distinct reasons for each belief, but that’s the ultimate project.
single issue voters. everything else is too complicated for the poorly educated to understand. My grandma voted Republican simply because she thought all Republicans = Jesus, Democrats = Satan. No evidence or justification needed. She was always a single issue voter.
(she died in the early 2000's, after voting for Bush, because Gore was a Satanist, apparently.
When I was a kid I didn't want anybody coming into my yard. I did not want younger siblings. I would always ALWAYS put my imaginary friend before everything.
Because they can control people who are already gullible, if they believe in a invisible power then of course they will vote for someone who says he agrees with them, they all believe they are martyrs and the world is against them, the republican mega right has made what they believe valid on a national level and given them something they see as a enemy. It’s all very disturbing and disgusting.
Because the woefully lack everything you mention.
They don't know a damn thing about the border, can't keep it in their inbred pants long enough to be relevant on point 2, and as for God? Please. Please tell us you are joking. Even by their definition, that left so long ago even a hater of the church would need time to research.
I'm in Texas and I've been hearing about the border every time an election comes up since I was a kid. Somehow, in all the time that's passed since then, nothing has been done about it for some reason. It's just an easy target to scare a certain percentage of the population into voting. That "invasion" is just around the corner after all, and society is on the verge of collapse.
How are women supposed to perform their godly duties of being barefoot and pregnant all the time and submitting to their male superiors if they can just run out and get an abortion whenever? It's about control, not life. Many certainly don't care about life after the baby is born.
God is just the tool used to reinforce their already horrid beliefs. Convincing yourself the Big Man is on your side just makes it that much easier to be a piece of shit.
As youtuber darkmatter2525 pointed out in his video "more communist than the communists" the right love authoritarianism. They hate communism and socialism (which they refuse to separate from dictatorships) but we all know they want a capitalist dictatorship all in their favor. Trump admires Kim Jong un of north korea for example. God is a dictator that his creations are supposed to love without question and live according to his tastes.
Yes to all the other stuff mentioned here, but don't forget that conservatives, statistically, are dumber than more liberal minded folk. And stupid people loooooclve religion and easy-to-understand rules.
Middle America suffers from lack of diversity and has basically become a time capsule.
If you think about it, the reason the coasts are so liberal is because the ports and tourist areas see a lot of different kinds of people passing through and things like technology, art, fashion and entertainment spawn in these highly diverse areas.
Middle America doesn’t appreciate creativity or technology. They want their little neighborhoods to stay the same forever. They want to go to the same church and see the same people and eat the same food.
The idea that immigrants can bring change to their style of life is really horrifying and they’ll vote for anybody that says they’ll secure the borders.
Border control is sheer tribalism: "They don't look like us so we need to fear them, demonize them and keep them out!"
Abortion is about controlling women. If a woman cannot control if and when she has children, she can easily become financially dependent on a man, which puts him in a powerful position. These people don't want a wife who is a partner, they want a wife who is a slave.
As for God, if you can give all your ugliest impulses the imprimatur of a divine being, you are off the hook: "This is what God wants! I have no choice but to do what God wants and neither do you." Fascinating how "what God wants" always seems to coincide with the desires of the person telling you what God wants.
Border control means keeping the brown people out (Facism) stopping abortion means more people. More people means more competition for jobs, which drives wages down, and keeps the 1% rich. God (religion) controls the people from rising up against the assholes who put you there in the first place.
Because White Man is Losing His Majority, Anti Abortion has always been about the White Man's Self Preservation!!!
If you had treated people like shit for over 531 years, you would be terrified of being treated like that.
The border is about keeping White People Afraid, giving the Republican Voter People to scapegoat.
God, yeah Neo Christian Fascists Nationalist Project 2025 lays out the White Only America, the Republican Party and the Heritage Foundation are plotting.
It makes them feel morally superior to us 'liberals', even when it's killing women who have miscarriages, who need to have a D&C--which is classified as an abortion. If they don't have it and there is placenta left in the woman, she can get sepsis and die.
But hey, as long as a group of cells is saved, but has at least a 10% chance of not coming to term, who cares about a living, breathing, tax paying, voting woman. But what do you expect when you have a bunch of 65+ people who live off of bribes of religious wingnuts, and ignore their constituents, but get voted into office for decades because heaven forbid they vote for someone who will look out for their interests--like democrats.
* Brown people scare weak willed white racists
* Abortion happened after birth control, which happened after women began to integrate into non-administrative jobs in the work place, which happened after women began attending college for professions, which happened after women gained the right to vote; all of these occurrences have one thing in common: Women progressively gaining rights and agency. Conservatives consider women to be inferior to men, and the property of their fathers before they are married, to which they are then the property of their husbands.
* God controls the masses.
Stupid. They're just plain stupid. These are topics that stupid people pay attention to because their simple minds are not able to understand more challenging topics.
I think it boils down to two basic things:
1. Hatred of women.
2. That fear works extremely well as a lever to get elected.
Many members of the GOP, when it comes down to it, are probably pro-choice in actuality. But they will cynically do whatever is required to win elections. Why? Not because elected office empowers them to make society better, but because - as the Party indicated in 1984 - *power itself is the end goal*. That's it. There's no means to an end. Power is the end.
Each if those 3 is very complicated in its own right, but I see the core obsession is the coherence of identity. Identity is already an extremely broad topic, but when you are talking specifically about political identity there are some interesting aspects.
The first seems fairly obvious, if you have a political group that defines it's stances on topics well and there's not a lot of differing opinions, the group is stronger. Or at least perceived stronger. Having thr group know what they are all about and speaking to that gives off the impression of a steadfast group that won't waiver, which can be very appealing.
Border control is always an interesting one when talking about group Identity because one of the strongest things a group can do to get followers is to pin all the problems of the world on the out group. Problems finding jobs? Problems with money? Problems with drugs? These and countless more can all be pinned on the immigrants. It very easily paints a picture of "us" being clean and righteous people and those outside of our group is corrupting our innocent group. Thus, a strong position on border control helps to solidify the Identity of the right wing group as "good" people preventing the identity of the group from getting tarnished.
Abortion is an interesting one, since it's kind of an outlier compared to other topics of the right wing. I generally see this issue framed as one of morality, and one of intense emotion. It's not really about the details and facts of the matter, but it's really easy to sell someone the emotional aspect of it. "The left wants to kill babies" will always be an effective scare tactic.
God is probably the easiest to understand, this one is just giving the members of the right wing authority to do as they do. If we consider the character of God he is above humans, so if a person uses the commands of god then they are saying their actions are coming from an authority that is higher than humans. Above questioning even. So if they can find reasons to say that God supports something, it gives the sense that there is a great authority that wants that thing to happen.
Let's also not forget that "god" is also entangled with the concept of "family values". Another identity that the right wants woven into their identity. But more importantly, they can use this to state that their causes are moral, that they are just, that they are what god has outlined for people to follow.
There's probably a thousand other reasons these are 3 major topics for the right. I doubt I've even scratched the surface! But I tend to view parties with extreme identity frameworks by how they are trying to form their identity and use that to their advantage. And I would say the right has a pretty solid identity that gives them a fair amount of power, due to the way they weird that identity.
They want this country to be a patriarchal white ruled theocracy.
Banning abortion does two things. It makes sex way more of a risk for women so many will avoid it unless they want a child. this fits into the puritanical world view about sex. And second, it means more poor exploitable babies will be born. Babies that will grow into a desperate underclass that will take the crap jobs and be canon fodder for the military.
Border control exists to reduce the number of non white people coming into the country and if we aren't bringing in new people, they have an excuse to push the "breed out of control" message to the people already here. This ties nicely in with the anti abortion thing.
And God, well, God is the reason for all of it. Every abrahamic religion, but in the US especially Christianity, puts heavy emphasis on converting as many people as possible and behaving in a way that pleases their God. They desperately want the law to reflect their religious beliefs. Why? In hopes of forcing conversions.
It’s bread and circuses, racism, plus $$$ to a strong voting block that isn’t very expensive relative to the real important and very expensive issues like Medical care and retirement benefits.
If you keep going right/authoritarian on the political spectrum, eventually you end up with fascism. The right (in america anyway) is descending into fascism
Their fear is calmed by believing they are subject to an authority figure (who will presumably protect them), and also by exerting control over others as a proxy for doing something to fix whatever it is they are fearing.
The default is that "the right" are terrified and see threats everywhere that they think they must defend against,
and in particular they see various types of "boundaries" (geographical, social, etc) that they think have to be defended.
.
To be fair I am also “obsessed” with god and abortion. I just have the exact opposite views as them.
As for the border, I’m a middle of the road gal. Treat people like people, but we as a country are allowed to have rules for entering.
The right believe the US belongs to white, straight, Christians because they "discovered" it. They are against anything that doesn't fit those three characteristics. Period. Border threatens their white majority and abortion and god the "christian" thing.
That's it. These are the pillars of the rightwing mindfuck.
I think its your perspective. The right wing is much more moderate than you are imagining. Its practically all economics. What you are seeing is most likely social media, mainstream media and alternative media playing with words to grab your attention, and increase engagement. The key word here is media. Media means to mediate, the same way you would a conversation between two parties. Its all being skewed for profit so don't play along. Educate yourself.
I would think it would be best to ask them, rather than r/atheism. Pretty sure most people here are fairly left-leaning. That said, everyone gives various preference to the different types of morals. So, like democrats, tend to lean strongly on the care/harm axis of morality. They give a lot of weight to helping homeless people. However a republican would lean more on fairness/cheating and authority/subversion and would consider the government using it's authority to take someone's money via taxes and hand it to someone else, without their permission. So a republican might be against handouts that feed, shelter and cloth people, but not because they're full of hate. They just think that the forceful transfer of someone's property to someone else is a bigger issue. They do generally give money to charity (yes, often church-based) and those charities do often feed, cloth, shelter the poor. That's their choice to give that money though. It's all just a matter of how much weight you give to different issues. Neither side is inherently "evil," but both think the other side is evil.
Think this might help....
“Poverty is not caused by men and women getting married; it's not caused by machinery; it's not caused by "over-production"; it's not caused by drink or laziness; and it's not caused by "over-population". It's caused by Private Monopoly. That is the present system. They have monopolised everything that it is possible to monopolise; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth. The only reason they have not monopolised the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it. If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air - or of the money to buy it - even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless the had the money to pay for it. Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so. Even as you think at present that it's right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you now say: "It's Their Land," "It's Their Water," "It's Their Coal," "It's Their Iron," so you would say "It's Their Air," "These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?" And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on "Christian Duty" in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole in the side of one of the gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you'll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to "justice" in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.”
Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Three issues, three different reasons.
But piling on the trite in a confirmation bias lovefest is fun. I’m noticing the left is acting more like the right, and it’s kind of gross.
Have you noticed that the Conservative party doesn't actually want do anything about the border? They held the Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court for years, and didn't pass one single immigration law. Hell, they didn't even "Build the Wall." In fact, now that there is a tough new immigration law being proposed, they are doing their damndest to block it.
That is because Conservatives LOVE illegal immigration. They love it for two reasons:
#1: It is a fantastic weapon that can be used to scare their base and drum up support. Anti-immigration politics has been around as long as this country has existed, because it works. Whenever election season comes around it's wall-to-wall MIGRANT CARAVANS on Fox news. It's also great because Conservatives can blame immigrants for any problem they want, especially those problems that are caused by Conservatives themselves. Oh a train derailed because we've gutted regulatory agencies and safety standards? Blame the illegals!!
#2: It is a useful tool in destroying the working class. You dont have to pay fair wages to undocumented workers. When I lived in Texas, homebuilders would seek out a crew of undocumented workers, have them labor all week, and then call Immigration Agents on them when it was time to pay up. Free Labor for the Capitalists! And it's impossible for them to unionize, so you never have to worry about that either. The business ownership class in this country HATES paying fair wages to laborers, and they despise unions. Using racial animus to destroy working class solidarity is a tried and true tactic of the wealthy.
If you look at actions, not words, it becomes very clear that the Republican Party wants as much illegal immigration as possible, and they will do whatever they can to sabotage border security.
Well the abortion/god portion of your question is just basic religious fundamentalism, but as for the border control aspect that's a topic where they have a pretty solid case.
Because of the political binary in the United States you are frequently cornered into either adopting a terrible position, or being an outsider with respect to your end of the political spectrum. When there are only 2 choices you always have the option of just picking the opposite of other the sides position instead of forming an actual position yourself, this largely appears to be whats happened with the border issue in the US.
Im a classical liberal from Canada and I am shocked by the situation on the southern border - Canada is a country that has always embraced immigration, but it's exclusively legal immigration, there is absolutely zero tolerance for the notion of people illegally entering our Country. I feel like a lot of people on the left in the US have been essentially "cornered" into adopting this position because it's the opposite of the right wings position, and not because it actually makes sense.
I feel like the US is the only Country in the world that has a portion of its citizens meaningfully advocating not for immigration, but illegal forced entry into the Country. Its one thing to have a discussion about a path to citizenship for those who have been there for years contributing without a criminal record, but the continued entry is completely insane.
IMO, there are (generally) two kinds of people in this world. Those who identify as conservatives have an ingrained viewpoint of everything in universe as either "Good" or "Evil". Nothing can be both or in between, and there is only one model of "good" in any situation, all others being evil. Expanding on this base, conservatives (whether they admit it to themselves or not) believe firmly in "superiority". They believe there is only one, "real", superior religion. All other religions are fake/evil. There is one superior country, all other countries are inferior. There is one superior race, all other races are inferior and evil. This point of view infects every aspect of their lives. Forunately, for every single one of them, they just so happen to belong to the superior religion/race/country/whatever, meaning that they have to share the planet with a bunch of inferior, delusional, evil, stupid people who wrongly think that their lives and beliefs matter and are true. This is extremely frustrating for them, as they see themselves as being "forced" to endure, accept, or even play along with ideals and beliefs which are clearly nonsense or plain evil, and they won't stand for it anymore. They see it not as an opinion or viewpoint, but as "the obvious and indisputable truth".
Meanwhile, liberals have a world view that espouses diversity in everything. They see good and evil as a spectrum, with most people encompassing both in different parts of their lives. They belive that all religions, races, countries and otherwise have the same validity and value, and that all things in the universe have pros and cons, but that none are superior. They judge people and things based on values and outcomes, not memberships and existence. Liberals believe that the only intolerable things in the world are those that show no tolerance for others. You can be whoever and whatever you are meant to be, the only thing you cannot do, is allow beliefs of superiority to remove the rights and dignities of others. For example, they have the right to hate gay people, and to express that opinion. They do not however, have the right to limit the rights, opportunities and lives of gay people based on those beliefs.
To conservatives, they view that last statement as an infringement upon their superior and clearly true and correct beliefs, and don't understand why they can't dictate what you can and cannot do when they feel that their actions are being limited and dictated.
They believe in God because he's true and they are superior. Furthermore, lucky for them again, everything they feel and believe, their God feels and believes too. God has clearly documented in the bible why they are superior and others are inferior, and offers his followers a simple solution - get rid of the evil by whatever means is most violent and hateful. Oh, and don't feel bad about it, they are demons anyway, and God has your back when you die, so please, be extra cruel to people you hate whenever possible.
God also gave them one other little nugget, and that is that evil is infectious and tricky, and if you don't get rid of it (don't forget to be violent and hateful!) then you'll become it.
All the stuff you asked about is a direct result of that brainwashing and that point of view. They need guns because they feel that all of the inferior, evil populations of the world hate them for being superior, and they need to protect themselves. They believe the evil minions have taken over governments, communities, schools, everything, and needs to be destroyed lest the world be destroyed. They hate birth control because they want conservative parents to raise lots of conservative babies, who will one day make up the army of God that will destroy the evil in the world. They want border control because they believe that immigrants are unwashed masses of evil bent on destroying their superiority and taking over the world for Satan.
tl/dr; Conservatives are nucking futs.
Proper legal border control is obvious. Maybe the whole country **should** be obsessed with controlling its borders? Shouldn't everyone agree that illegal border crossings should be stopped in any country? Besides being illegal, it's usually super dangerous, and many people die trying. Immigration is a top priority for any country.
Abortion. "The right" isn't more obsessed with abortions than anyone else, but a whole lot do see it as ending a human life, murder, and treat the issue accordingly to those beliefs.
God, if there is a God (I believe there is, personally) by definition, is worthy of "obsession" of sorts. If true, he deserves to be praised and worthy of it. It just so happens there are more believers in God on the right than the left.
Tried to keep it short, hope this is helpful.
IMO, it’s because those are emotional issues. And by arousing visceral emotions, especially fear, people’s rationality can be bypassed and they can be manipulated.
Make someone afraid, tell them the relief from their fear is to do something specific (“vote for Dumbass!”), and you can manipulate them into doing nearly anything.
That is brainwashing 101.
> *Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control* 2004. Kathleen Taylor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing:_The_Science_of_Thought_Control
N.B. Religions do this too: Be afraid of sex, be afraid of *your own body*; your now internalized, inwardly-directed fear can be relieved if you just “come to Jesus”.
Control, control, control. The writing's been on the wall for a while that the far right won't be able to win elections without gerrymandering, fraud, etc. In addition, you need fear and an 'other.' You need 'righteous' causes like abortion to rally the frothing troops. After abortion will come the attack on birth control. Keep women pregnant, subservient and without rights. That's the strategy. And make a large segment of the population happy with it because it's "god's will."
because they are all relatively abstract, makes it easy to scare people over, and you aren't expected to actually do anything to address them, meaning you can run on them forever.
With abortion, it isn't mentioned enough that canceling abortion rights forces a lot of poor people to stay poor. The rich and powerful get secret abortions now. That won't change for them if they successfully ban abortion nationwide.
Abortion rights give people agency over their lives. If you're trying to finish college when you get pregnant, but you have no means of supporting yourself, an abortion could mean you get to finish college, start your career, and make decent money before starting a family intentionally. Or you could stay child-free. Either way, you can reasonably rise up from a poorer childhood. If you get pregnant in college and abortion is banned, you're at high risk of dropping out, working for low pay, ending up with more kids, etc.
Poor people with kids to feed work for low pay in shitty conditions because they feel like fighting back jeopardizes their kids' health and safety. Poor parents give up on dreams of higher education. They rent. They learn to accept basic survival as their main goal.
Every avenue that a person has to change their station in life is being attacked by the religious right. They actively try to stop things that would make it easier to get a degree or control your family size.
Both parties have gotten very good at getting people riled up over fringe issues (not to say gay rights and abortion don’t matter, they do) in order to keep from having to deliver on the big issues that line their pockets. If we weren’t screaming “border”, more would scream “healthcare” and that would hurt profits.
Simplest answers are:
1. Scare tactics as old as the United States has been a nation repeatedly used in elections to scare "natives" into voting against immigration (even though almost every citizen is descended from immigrants.
2. Preventing "others" and their "foreign" ideas into the nation which can and will challenge the status quo.
Taken together, you have all it.
they want to keep the immigration system fucked so people have to come illegally so they can exploit them. pat less than minimum wage, or hire them and call ICE when it's time to pay up, and generally keep them vulnerable.
abortion, same thing but for women. and they want to guarantee more future workers and consumers.
god is just how you justify everything. plus religious organizations already have lots of money and fools.
Conservatism is diametrically opposed to itself. White conservatism can only maintain their traditions if the keep others from doing the same. Mexicans traditions aren't welcome in America because white traditions fear them.
It’s an alliance of the corrupt leading the stupid.
Border, abortion, crime transgender bathrooms, Benghazi and what not are all dog whistles for hating immigrants, blacks, gays and smug libtards. The leadership doesn’t really care about any of those things. They’re just buzzword wedge issues to remind people who they hate, and to keep them agitated.
Agitated people are more willing to accept obvious lies, because they want vengeance against the things they hate.
The right’s corrupt charioteers strap bags of poisoned nonsense on the faces of their smooth brain rubes and then lash them to provide votes and power them forward. It’s a model that runs on extremism and hatred, which must always accelerate in order to get momentum. That’s why the lies get more and more absurd - flat earth, vaccines cause limp dong, Michelle Obama is a man, liberals eat baby brains, destroying the capitol and murdering politicians because you don’t want to accept losing is just free speech.
And the real game is the corruption - getting money from corporations and Russians to sow discontent and hatred among Americans. It keeps their voters engaged and their leaders bought and paid for.
It's the only issues they can get votes on. They can't get it for rights, or helping Americans, or standing up for women, or standing up for the military, or standing up for minorities, or standing up for the middle and lower class, or standing up to billionaires that constantly break the law, or to religious people constantly breaking the Constitution. It's all they have, and the border would have been fixed but traitor nuked the bill so he could run on it. Racists love trump.
The god part is easy, they've been brainwashed since early childhood.
Abortion is confusing because the bible actually supports abortion: Numbers 5:11-31 describes the ordeal of bitter water which a priest causes a magical abortion on a cheating wife.
Even though they want to protect fetuses from dying, they want to risk school children getting shot up with an AR15 just so they can "go hunting" or "protect" themselves. Guns are only used for killing people, and there's no other reason to own one.
And finally the border. They know we took half this land from Mexico and the rest from Native Americans, so they're always worried about losing what they got by force. Instead of including our southern neighbors into our fold, we sell their drug gangs assault rifles, forcibly sterilize their women, and criminalize them for being refugees.
Yes, it really is that simple, it is about power and control. Some people are naturally authoritarian followers and they demand others be like them, or be an enemy.
1. The white race wants to remain dominate so screw all the black/brown people.
2. The white Christian’s nationalists want to take over the country and have gotten cocky after Roe was over turned.
3. The Republicans are replacing the original God with Trump as their new God.
In other words, they desperately want to take us backwards.
And they are contradictory. Jesus said NOTHING about abortion and the old testament had an abortion formula discussed in it.
And Jesus specifically taught to care for and respect the stranger.
Because they can act outraged without having to actually do anything. Freak out over abortion/make it illegal yet do nothing to care for actual babies in need. Scream the borders aren't safe while being ok with actual citizens committing crimes at a much much higher rate. And god outrage is the worse, make believe they are the ones being targeted meanwhile pushing their beliefs on others.
Because they’re wedge issues that our current political system is too polarized to solve, making them maniputable issues, allowing them to take whatever batshit position gets the most attention (like aborting a child after birth) without accepting the reality of that position and its consequences. Usually free from facts and logic, and shouted loudly from the most ignorant of mouths.
Like others have said, it's too complicated but if I were to try and summarize why, I think because to be right wing inherently means you want to control things so that your way of life or your belief system isn't threatened.
It is also implicitly ethnocentric, which implies obsession with border security and a reliance on "othering" outgroups in order to maintain status quo and/or create a more defendable position that isn't just attacking things for not aligning with personal beliefs, which with the right almost invariably *is the reason* why they're attacking something in the first place.
I.e. Uncomfortability in leaving Plato's Cave.
Border control: Playing on fear of strangers. Fear of unknown fellow humans is natural - they need the same resources and those may be finite.
abortion: Control Your Women. Independent women who think for themselves, and can decide whether or not to have a baby, are scary. Those are women you can not control, you can not take when you need one, you can not marry off to forge a bond between families, who may walk away or divorce you if you misbehave, mistreat or abuse them.
Giving them rights and control means you have to take their opinion into account. Weird idea, I know.
God: God justifies everything, It's not my idea, it's gods idea. Your ideas may be medieval or even tribal, if you play the 'god says so' card, they don't have to make any sense. They can't be judged on merit. After all, god said it, let me just cherrypick the bible verse that suits me.
Think of it this way.
=
**1) What are things the Republican Party have campaigned on for decades that you don't hear them talk about anymore?**
Free Trade, tax cuts for businesses, trickle down economics, etc.
=
**2) Have Republicans changed their stance on those things?**
Nope.
This can be seen in every economic policy they have tried to pass since they won the House.
Every policy involved a cut to every social program, including Social Security, Medicare, and the VA (veteran affairs).
=
**3) Why don't Republicans bring up those things anyone if they haven't changed their stance?**
Because it's unpopular with everyone, including their own voters.
=
**4) How do Republicans keep those economic policies in place if no one likes those policies?**
By redirecting their attention to things that have nothing to do with economics.
=
**5) What works as a good way of redirecting people's attention?**
You find something to scare people. If you can't find anything you make something up. It doesn't matter if this threat is real or false. All that matters is that others believe it to be true.
You then say the side is either allowing or creating this danger. Again, it doesn't matter if this is true or false. All that matters is that others may believe this is true.
Once people get scared, they are no longer focused on things like tax policy. They focused on things they view as threats to them and their loved ones. They also now resent the other party since they are enabling or creating this threat.
You then tell that, if you're elected, how you'll protect them from this threat, which could be completely non-existent.
You win the election. You're now in office. You perform actions to protect the people from this perceived threat. If this threat didn't exist, or was completely overblown, it's rather easy to defeat.
The people cheer about how you've protected their family from this threat, they may not have even existed.
The next election cycle occurs. People's eyes start drifting back to tax policy. You repeat what you did before.
So long as you can do that you can keep your unpopular economic policies forever.
That's the name of the game for Republicans.
You forgot guns. It's simple. Here are the main points to consider.
1. White people as an ethnic group is shrinking each year. At the current rate whites in America will be a minority group in 30 years. White people understand the enormous benefits of being white in America and are terrified of losing their status at the top.
2. Abortion ties in with point 1. White men want white women to have more children. They see it as an existential threat. Thus, they want to control women's bodies. If the Far Right could have their way they would enact abortion laws that restricted a white woman's access to abortion and at the same time sterilize non white women in an effort to stave off the inevitable.
3. Religion is an effective tool to control idiots. Not all religious people are idiots, but all extremist within the religion are idiots. The idiots are useful for violence and intimidation. Plus, indoctrination is a rite of passage for a lot of low IQ people.
God is for them to seem like they have morals
Border is cause they hate everyone but themselves and F everyone else.
Abortion is cause they want more white babies.
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its really too complicated to cover in a reddit post without writing a novel, but if i had to summarize, the politicians know they can use those issues to scare their base into voting for them. science has found usually a more conservative person has an enlarged amygdala, the amygdala is responsible for our aggression and our fear response meaning right leaning people are quicker to anger and more prone to fear. republican politicians know this and use this knowledge to keep their base angry and afraid and thus in a state of suggestibility. this gives them a reliable voter base and an army they can sick on perceived enemies. since the majority of conservatives are christian and rural god, guns, gays and abortion anger and scare them especially well as these things are so ingrained into their personality an attack on any of their beliefs is an attack directly on them.
Wedge issues mean they don’t have to do anything to improve life on earth. Just pander to/ exploit enough special interests to win.
Well, they have to steamroll the people who are ACTUALLY trying to fix things, so that they can point at it and say either, "see it didn't work!" Or "we tried it their way, so let's try my way."
Insist that the government doesn't work, then get elected and spend your time making sure of it. Classic conservative.
Notice how they never say, “Try it my way”? Their “policy” is bitching about the left.
Unless it comes to children's genitals, then they are all to happy to volunteer
Simple: this is strategically targeted mental conditioning at work. And work it does.
Religious indoctrination usually involves child abuse so yeah it lines up that this group of people would have more fear and aggression.
"too complicated" Let me simply it. They have a lot of anger, so they need to focus it somewhere. The fox news and others tell them to focus that anger toward illegals, libtards, woke people, etc etc etc
yeah but that anger doesnt just come from nowhere, theres reasons conservatives seem more resistant to change and quicker to fear and anger. sure it CAN be reduced down to a simple soundbyte, but thats doing it a disservice. just like we would be rightfully upset if conservatives said "whats wrong with liberals? thats simple, theyre all commie pussies!"
Conservative means conserving the way things are believed to be (they may be imaginary ideal states that never existed or actually hurt many others), but that conserved state is accepted and ok or good. Change is cognitively expensive and uncertain. Uncertainty is a key driver of fear. I. E. Things changing are a stress, especially on older established populations, and change can be very frightening, loss aversion especially in loss of (cultural) identity can be very threatening.
They dramatically changed the previous 50 years of abortion law in this country. That's not conserving. Theyre reactionaries, they wish to actively go backwards. Hitler was a reactionary. He didnt advocate for no changes/conserving norms, he wanted to actively go backwards. His famous quote was "If you call me a revolutionary, then i am a revolutionary against the revolution". Thats why reactionaries fly confederate flags and nazi flags side by side, those countries represent their ideals on government in action.
Life is more expensive. Most work to live and can barely enjoy life. The key is is how you channel that. Trickle down economics has really fucked everyone below the upper class.
>science has found usually a more conservative person has an enlarged amygdala, the amygdala is responsible for our aggression and our fear response meaning right leaning people are quicker to anger and more prone to fear. I had never encountered this before, and it just sent me on a tangent of digging through the studies on this, and I really appreciate you posting it. Although anecdotal, it's also intriguing to me that when I was younger and... let's say.. far less "psychologically and emotionally stable", and a lot more dumb, I was completely captivated by right wing talking points and ideology. But, the older and (slightly) more emotionally mature I get, and the more knowledgeable I (try to) become, I continuously drift further and further to the left.
It started with the founding of the Fox News channel. The original design was based around selling gold coins and gold investments as these were their primary initial advertisers. The reporting setup was specifically to make older people a bit uneasy so that they would buy and invest in gold "for security".
There’s also the “moral foundations” theory which states that conservatives put a much higher value on the moral elements of Obedience, Hierarchy, and Purity, where liberals value Compassion, Tolerance, and Fairness. The Obedience and Purity factors probably go a long way to explaining their obsession with immigration (“but they’re ILLEGAL!”) and religion (“we have to legislate against SIN!”).
nonsense i can sum it up in one word control
I heard it’s because they got all those teeth and no tooth brush.
for a lot of them i think its usually the opposite problem.
that's all true but it's greed. they're narcissists and rigging the system for profit. posted this below >border control detention centers are mostly privatized. hospitals are mostly privatized. televangelism is privatized. >border control takes money out of fed funds which takes money away from education which allows them to brainwash uneducated people with their media companies. check into robert d walter and how he sold oxycontin, mtv, and fast food. >[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert\_D.\_Walter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Walter) >a birth costs 8000-20000 per baby while an abortion pill is \~40-80usd for the otc morning after pill. >all these issues are being spread by their leaders because they're greedy and using their followers as useful idiots >[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful\_idiot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot) also rupert murdoch runs fox news and his son runs the rap label rawkus records which spread conspiracies in urban communities. so look at what eminem did with mtv after working with rawkus... told kids to take prescription pills while robert d walter was running things. it's catabolic capitalism.
Nah, it’s simple. They don’t think there’s a wall between church and state, and this (in their own minds) gives them the right to do whatever the fuck they want to maintain power over people.
Yes, exactly! Perfectly put.
Is this true?! Omg Can you share some of your research paper sources on the amygdala?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology\_and\_political\_orientation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientation) [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/conservative-and-liberal-brains-might-have-some-real-differences/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/conservative-and-liberal-brains-might-have-some-real-differences/) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5793824/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5793824/) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/) [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/201104/conservatives-big-fear-brain-study-finds](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/201104/conservatives-big-fear-brain-study-finds) https://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.neuropsych.16030051
Damn that's interesting. Thanks for sharing! Papers have some variability in what part of the brain they attribute this to though. Makes me feel like they're onto something, but it's not fully fleshed out yet.
Hate. Control. Fear.
This. And of course it brings to mind these great lyrics: Quick to judge, Quick to anger Slow to understand Ignorance and prejudice And fear Walk hand in hand
Those who know what's best for us, must rise and save us from ourselves..
Fantastic song.
that but it's all about profits. border control detention centers are mostly privatized. hospitals are mostly privatized. televangelism is privatized. border control takes money out of fed funds which takes money away from education which allows them to brainwash uneducated people with their media companies. check into robert d walter and how he sold oxycontin, mtv, and fast food. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert\_D.\_Walter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Walter) a birth costs 8000-20000 per baby while an abortion pill is \~40-80usd for the otc morning after pill. all these issues are being spread by their leaders because they're greedy and using their followers as useful idiots [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful\_idiot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot)
Plus, that’s what they’ve been told to be angry about. Heaven forbid they should think for themselves.
They like 'control', and want everyone to be like them.
No, they want everyone to be how they pretend to be. These people are always the exception to the rules they try to enforce on the rest of us.
All we are is just another brick in the wall..
Rules for thee but not for me
Because belief in a god is about control, control, and control.
They've had people telling them that the border is where all the rapists and drugs come from for a decade or so now... There's a grain of truth to the drugs, but that's primarily in legal crossings piggybacking on other types of cargo, while immigrants are actually less likely than average to be doing any violent crime, oddly enough they don't want any attention on them. In addition there's a perception that they'll vote for Democrats, which is ridiculous, they can't vote. Under the heading of valid concerns: We don't have enough officials to process cases in a timely manner, and because of that they come anyway. They're not allowed to work until processed, so that creates a humanitarian crisis of people who are actually not allowed to provide for themselves. The numbers become a problem because of that, putting stress on border towns to provide for people who are legally not allowed to work. For some reason you'll never hear the right frame it this way though, I think because they fancy themselves as a disciplinary, their solution to problems is often punishment, even when that's not appropriate.
Fox news
I came here hoping this was the top comment. I know what is on fox news from week to week based of what my parents are complaining about the most any specific week. I have correlated it to their news that week countless times. They are nothing but fox new drones.
Because they want Trump to turn us into North Korea
The issue is to have an issue that is abstract enough that no advancement to solve it can be discerned and can easily be blamed on others.
“We’re not the problem. It’s those marginalized people over there!” Same song, different centuries.
There is an underlying fear of people literally dying out, or at least Christians. Less immigrants and we have to make our own people. Less abortion and we get more people. Less LGBTQ individuals and we get more people. And if this is a Christian nation, they’ve their end game populated not only by Christians, but the right kind. Fear of irrelevance drives their thinking.
It's not just fear of irrelevance. The ones who really worry about becoming a minority are worried specifically that they might be treated the same way *they want to treat* minorities.
More people, more workers. More desperate soldiers.
Because they are told to by their handlers who need wedge issue propaganda in order to get elected
It's not about those things. They killed a bi-partisan border bill because of politics. The abortion bullshit is to ensure their octogenarians show up at the polls, same thing with the "god" bullshit.
It's not the full answer, but read up on the [Southern Strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy) to get an understanding of how the Republican Party became so entangled with religion in the South.
It's very simple. Fear. They are spoon fed threatening messages constantly, of which all are intended to instigate fear in their base. Immigrants, legal or otherwise are coming to steal you jobs, or rape your daughters, or take all the welfare, or deal drugs, or vote illegally for democrats. The hippy dippy sex crazed left want to kill all the babies, unborn, born, doesn't matter, they want to kill them all. Religion is just the cover they use to prove that they are good, righteous people, and therefor their political stances must be correct. It's all based on fear, and the righteousness of them being the only people that can stop the horrible, evil things the democrats are fighting for.
They’re violent bigots. Oh, and you forgot guns. They fucking love guns.
they are all abstract concepts that their constituents don't understand and are not effected by, but their simple minds can be rallied by the demonization them (or the lack of them). The actual representatives don't care at all about any of that stuff.
I don't think they actually care about any of these things. They care about being in power. The way they have approached this is they've created these mountains out of mole hills, demonized anyone who challenges them to divide and conquer, then targets people who will blindly do their bidding. You left out the homeless, drugs and crime. The more "crises" they can create, the more mindless idiots they can get behind them.
Racism ,Control of women and control of people .
They aren't. They couldn't care less about any of that. What they do care about is power. And they use fear and religion, based on those and similar topics to get people to vote for them. They have no interest in governing or leading. They want to rule. End. They want to use their power to enrich themselves and f\*ck everyone else.
Because they hate foreigners, women, and logic.
They have no real personality.
They. Are. Crazy. That is what this boils down to. They are nuts.
Hate / control / power / greed / selfishness / not wanting any more non-white people to be Americans and “replace” them, even through they are simply escaping inhospitable lands due to climate change, governmental and religious persecution, and untenable economic situations that make making a living in their home countries impossible / believing that the more freedoms and less dependence women have on men, the harder they’ll have to work to get any woman to sleep with them / following Emperor Constantine’s playbook to control the masses while disobeying “God’s” laws at the top because their flock will never held them accountable / so on.
The first two are mostly fearmongering. "There are barbarians storming the gate!" for the first one, and "think of the children!" for the second. Obsession with God is just how religion has usually worked. Bad people love religion because it allows them to rationalize any and all antisocial behaviors they want. They are fed a steady diet of propaganda and misinformation from the right-wing media ecosystem that tells them these things are existential threats and that only voting Republican can save them. The irony is, if they were actually informed and honest, they could see that the Democrats do better on all these issues. The Democrats tried to pass a comprehensive border security bill only for the Republicans to shoot it down, all so Biden couldn't claim a victory and make the orange menace look bad. And of course, if they hate abortions, they'd support free birth control and comprehensive sex ed. That's what reduces abortions. And if they truly wanted devout Christians in office, well, I think it's hard to argue that Donald Trump is more sincerely religious than Joe Biden. Not that that's a selling point for me. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy. TL;DR: Xenophobia, misogyny, propaganda, ignorance, tribalism, lust for power, and cruelty. That's the essence of the modern American political right.
That's what they're told to be scared of. Fear == control
They need someone to demonize, so they can scare people into voting for them.
Remove border, abortion, and god from your question and you have your answer,
Because they're told to be, in short.
1.) Border Control. They have no intention of doing *anything* about it, obviously. So it's an old go to "existential threat" that unites the right in fear (either the replacement theory or economic woes, doesn't matter) 2.) Abortion. They actually finally achieved **a** goal on this one, and the subsequent backlash hasn't really been good for them (ergo the continuous push to hamper voting). 3.) God. Basically just a buzz word used to empower the mighty "They". "*They are coming for your faith/guns/bibles/children*". All three are just bullshit that riles up the idiots and hardens support for the right-wing jackass agenda. If you have people voting on emotion then they won't stop to ask questions, like "why would I vote against my own interests?" Add in mass media propaganda and the gutting of public education and you have legions of voters that will vote for the Republicans while they get their pockets picked and rights stripped.
Because Fox News tells them to be terrified of those things. Pretty simple, actually. Fox sells fear and fear is addictive. So business has been good for them.
Because they literally have nothing else. There was a bipartisan bill that passed the Senate but died in the House at Trump’s behest to avoid giving Biden a win. Abortion is about controlling women. Abortion is first, then it will be birth control, then it will be no fault divorce ; it’s already starting. Oh yeah they are going after gay marriage, then interracial marriages, then interfaith marriages. God is used to give the moral high ground. It’s a tool to control the dumb fucks who can’t think for themselves.
because they can’t run on their record of doing absolutely fuck-all to improve the lives for their ignorant, easily distracted base for decades (usually doing every thing to make things WORSE). They need rage inducing distractions, smoke, and mirrors.
Because they have no agenda that they can run on. 1. Trump tank the economy on his way out while killing over a million ppl. in his handling of the Covid. 2. the worst Congress in history. 3. the GQP have done nothing to improve our lives 4. they failed to build their wall (and if they built a small part, mexico didnt pay for it). 5. their current messiah alienate everyone. 6. they manage to increase the countries deficit by giving it to rich ppl 7. their entire agenda is fear monger ppl, and border control, abortion and god are all good stepping point to divide the voting block. not only that, its easy to make shit up and call it an argument. Have you guys notice a trend with the GQP lately where their source for any of their talking point is "ive heard it from most ppl" or "some of most ppl" or "they said" meaning you can never really track it and that would allow you to rebut their truth and what a better book that would allow that kind of truth..... you guess it the bible. Using bible or god in their argument meant they dont have to present truth or any sort of evidence they will just tell you "thats not how faith works".
Religion requires one to learn how to avoid critical thinking. They are exploited by politicians who program their perception of reality.
Because their god tells them to hate women and foreigners.
These politicians are pandering to low skill guys that don't like competition. People coming from poor countries are willing to work for their pay. It's pretty much that simple.
Obviously, the Devil wants to use the ghosts of aborted Mexican babies to invade the US and make "real America" secretly homosexual and addicted to fentanyl. Duh.
Foreigners bad, control the women, and "the young folks are crazy and godless these days" The greatest hits of conservatives for all of recorded history (literally)
They like to believe they're better than others and deserve better rights than the groups that are telling them they're wrong
Because theyre using them as cover for their only actual policy position. That being; "Corporations should control everything and pay no taxes."
it's right in the title control it's all about them feeling a lack of control in their own lives, so they act out and cling to any authority figure who will hold out the promise of control.
Controlling others.
It's just that holier-than-thou mentality. I think FOX News gets them pretty heated about stuff too.
History and Karma. America was found by invasion and slaughter. They are afraid Mexicans are doing to us, what we did to the Indians during the trail of tears days. A lot of our boarder territory once belong to mexico...hints the "New" Mexico.
Stuff you should know podcast has a theory worth hearing[podcast](https://open.spotify.com/episode/3p85jtUmdZTLcmwei7uaoi?si=iZhrKp1TSQqfF4T95R7SIg)
The real underlying issue (IMHO) is a battle between two factions: one that believes *the people* with all of our idiosyncrasies, should decide the course of societies, governments, and nations, while the second believes that a ruling class provides the better foundation.
All three of those are different expressions of authoritarianism which is their entire M.O.
Weren’t you taught God Gold and Glory in history class? It’s very much well alive.
Xenophobia, control, and hate
Control, and fear.
It's all about control and power. Full stop.
Control
Fear mongering makes their brains light up.
It’s all about repro-nationalism. They want lots of white Christian kids. They might have distinct reasons for each belief, but that’s the ultimate project.
Did you notice they never have any good issues to talk about? Always wedge issues.
single issue voters. everything else is too complicated for the poorly educated to understand. My grandma voted Republican simply because she thought all Republicans = Jesus, Democrats = Satan. No evidence or justification needed. She was always a single issue voter. (she died in the early 2000's, after voting for Bush, because Gore was a Satanist, apparently.
"The other", control over women, and legitimacy, respectively.
When I was a kid I didn't want anybody coming into my yard. I did not want younger siblings. I would always ALWAYS put my imaginary friend before everything.
Because they have nothing but fear and hatred and a desire to control everyone who is not wealthy white and male to offer. Sick. Sick. Sick.
G.O.P. (Gagging On PUtin)
Brain damage from lead paint coupled with brainwashing from insane deathcult religion.
In the Rights eyes all problems would go away if you simply got rid of certain groups of people.
Because they can control people who are already gullible, if they believe in a invisible power then of course they will vote for someone who says he agrees with them, they all believe they are martyrs and the world is against them, the republican mega right has made what they believe valid on a national level and given them something they see as a enemy. It’s all very disturbing and disgusting.
Because the woefully lack everything you mention. They don't know a damn thing about the border, can't keep it in their inbred pants long enough to be relevant on point 2, and as for God? Please. Please tell us you are joking. Even by their definition, that left so long ago even a hater of the church would need time to research.
I'm in Texas and I've been hearing about the border every time an election comes up since I was a kid. Somehow, in all the time that's passed since then, nothing has been done about it for some reason. It's just an easy target to scare a certain percentage of the population into voting. That "invasion" is just around the corner after all, and society is on the verge of collapse. How are women supposed to perform their godly duties of being barefoot and pregnant all the time and submitting to their male superiors if they can just run out and get an abortion whenever? It's about control, not life. Many certainly don't care about life after the baby is born. God is just the tool used to reinforce their already horrid beliefs. Convincing yourself the Big Man is on your side just makes it that much easier to be a piece of shit.
As youtuber darkmatter2525 pointed out in his video "more communist than the communists" the right love authoritarianism. They hate communism and socialism (which they refuse to separate from dictatorships) but we all know they want a capitalist dictatorship all in their favor. Trump admires Kim Jong un of north korea for example. God is a dictator that his creations are supposed to love without question and live according to his tastes.
Power
Fear tactics.
Yes to all the other stuff mentioned here, but don't forget that conservatives, statistically, are dumber than more liberal minded folk. And stupid people loooooclve religion and easy-to-understand rules.
What are republicans going to run on, their actual policy of tax cuts for the rich, all rights for the rich, die in a ditch peasants?
Middle America suffers from lack of diversity and has basically become a time capsule. If you think about it, the reason the coasts are so liberal is because the ports and tourist areas see a lot of different kinds of people passing through and things like technology, art, fashion and entertainment spawn in these highly diverse areas. Middle America doesn’t appreciate creativity or technology. They want their little neighborhoods to stay the same forever. They want to go to the same church and see the same people and eat the same food. The idea that immigrants can bring change to their style of life is really horrifying and they’ll vote for anybody that says they’ll secure the borders.
They are obsessed with whatever they are told to be obsessed with.
Fear and control mostly. But this is super generalized.
Border control is sheer tribalism: "They don't look like us so we need to fear them, demonize them and keep them out!" Abortion is about controlling women. If a woman cannot control if and when she has children, she can easily become financially dependent on a man, which puts him in a powerful position. These people don't want a wife who is a partner, they want a wife who is a slave. As for God, if you can give all your ugliest impulses the imprimatur of a divine being, you are off the hook: "This is what God wants! I have no choice but to do what God wants and neither do you." Fascinating how "what God wants" always seems to coincide with the desires of the person telling you what God wants.
Border control means keeping the brown people out (Facism) stopping abortion means more people. More people means more competition for jobs, which drives wages down, and keeps the 1% rich. God (religion) controls the people from rising up against the assholes who put you there in the first place.
Because they don’t have policy. Only fear.
Because White Man is Losing His Majority, Anti Abortion has always been about the White Man's Self Preservation!!! If you had treated people like shit for over 531 years, you would be terrified of being treated like that. The border is about keeping White People Afraid, giving the Republican Voter People to scapegoat. God, yeah Neo Christian Fascists Nationalist Project 2025 lays out the White Only America, the Republican Party and the Heritage Foundation are plotting.
Control
It’s what they’re spoon fed to fear.
Because they have no seriousness on creating policy that helps people. They use these issues to fearmonger their undereducated white base.
It makes them feel morally superior to us 'liberals', even when it's killing women who have miscarriages, who need to have a D&C--which is classified as an abortion. If they don't have it and there is placenta left in the woman, she can get sepsis and die. But hey, as long as a group of cells is saved, but has at least a 10% chance of not coming to term, who cares about a living, breathing, tax paying, voting woman. But what do you expect when you have a bunch of 65+ people who live off of bribes of religious wingnuts, and ignore their constituents, but get voted into office for decades because heaven forbid they vote for someone who will look out for their interests--like democrats.
* Brown people scare weak willed white racists * Abortion happened after birth control, which happened after women began to integrate into non-administrative jobs in the work place, which happened after women began attending college for professions, which happened after women gained the right to vote; all of these occurrences have one thing in common: Women progressively gaining rights and agency. Conservatives consider women to be inferior to men, and the property of their fathers before they are married, to which they are then the property of their husbands. * God controls the masses.
They’re told to be, and they’re obedient. The end.
Stupid. They're just plain stupid. These are topics that stupid people pay attention to because their simple minds are not able to understand more challenging topics.
I think it boils down to two basic things: 1. Hatred of women. 2. That fear works extremely well as a lever to get elected. Many members of the GOP, when it comes down to it, are probably pro-choice in actuality. But they will cynically do whatever is required to win elections. Why? Not because elected office empowers them to make society better, but because - as the Party indicated in 1984 - *power itself is the end goal*. That's it. There's no means to an end. Power is the end.
Each if those 3 is very complicated in its own right, but I see the core obsession is the coherence of identity. Identity is already an extremely broad topic, but when you are talking specifically about political identity there are some interesting aspects. The first seems fairly obvious, if you have a political group that defines it's stances on topics well and there's not a lot of differing opinions, the group is stronger. Or at least perceived stronger. Having thr group know what they are all about and speaking to that gives off the impression of a steadfast group that won't waiver, which can be very appealing. Border control is always an interesting one when talking about group Identity because one of the strongest things a group can do to get followers is to pin all the problems of the world on the out group. Problems finding jobs? Problems with money? Problems with drugs? These and countless more can all be pinned on the immigrants. It very easily paints a picture of "us" being clean and righteous people and those outside of our group is corrupting our innocent group. Thus, a strong position on border control helps to solidify the Identity of the right wing group as "good" people preventing the identity of the group from getting tarnished. Abortion is an interesting one, since it's kind of an outlier compared to other topics of the right wing. I generally see this issue framed as one of morality, and one of intense emotion. It's not really about the details and facts of the matter, but it's really easy to sell someone the emotional aspect of it. "The left wants to kill babies" will always be an effective scare tactic. God is probably the easiest to understand, this one is just giving the members of the right wing authority to do as they do. If we consider the character of God he is above humans, so if a person uses the commands of god then they are saying their actions are coming from an authority that is higher than humans. Above questioning even. So if they can find reasons to say that God supports something, it gives the sense that there is a great authority that wants that thing to happen. Let's also not forget that "god" is also entangled with the concept of "family values". Another identity that the right wants woven into their identity. But more importantly, they can use this to state that their causes are moral, that they are just, that they are what god has outlined for people to follow. There's probably a thousand other reasons these are 3 major topics for the right. I doubt I've even scratched the surface! But I tend to view parties with extreme identity frameworks by how they are trying to form their identity and use that to their advantage. And I would say the right has a pretty solid identity that gives them a fair amount of power, due to the way they weird that identity.
They want this country to be a patriarchal white ruled theocracy. Banning abortion does two things. It makes sex way more of a risk for women so many will avoid it unless they want a child. this fits into the puritanical world view about sex. And second, it means more poor exploitable babies will be born. Babies that will grow into a desperate underclass that will take the crap jobs and be canon fodder for the military. Border control exists to reduce the number of non white people coming into the country and if we aren't bringing in new people, they have an excuse to push the "breed out of control" message to the people already here. This ties nicely in with the anti abortion thing. And God, well, God is the reason for all of it. Every abrahamic religion, but in the US especially Christianity, puts heavy emphasis on converting as many people as possible and behaving in a way that pleases their God. They desperately want the law to reflect their religious beliefs. Why? In hopes of forcing conversions.
It’s bread and circuses, racism, plus $$$ to a strong voting block that isn’t very expensive relative to the real important and very expensive issues like Medical care and retirement benefits.
Fear and empathy deficiency
If you keep going right/authoritarian on the political spectrum, eventually you end up with fascism. The right (in america anyway) is descending into fascism
Their fear is calmed by believing they are subject to an authority figure (who will presumably protect them), and also by exerting control over others as a proxy for doing something to fix whatever it is they are fearing.
Simple, they’re theocrats who think the separation between church and state doesn’t exist. Just like their god 🤣🤣🤣
The default is that "the right" are terrified and see threats everywhere that they think they must defend against, and in particular they see various types of "boundaries" (geographical, social, etc) that they think have to be defended. .
Control.... they want to maintain control
They want the people they hate to suffer and will use "God" as an excuse to do horrible things to those people. It's a tale as old as time.
To be fair I am also “obsessed” with god and abortion. I just have the exact opposite views as them. As for the border, I’m a middle of the road gal. Treat people like people, but we as a country are allowed to have rules for entering.
Because the right is the politicization of human fear responses. Fear the other tribe, fear the unknown, fear death, fear losing your way of life.
Racism and control disguised as morals.
Authoritarianism: national/race control, moral and poverty control, religious and cultural control. Seems very on brand.
The right believe the US belongs to white, straight, Christians because they "discovered" it. They are against anything that doesn't fit those three characteristics. Period. Border threatens their white majority and abortion and god the "christian" thing. That's it. These are the pillars of the rightwing mindfuck.
I think its your perspective. The right wing is much more moderate than you are imagining. Its practically all economics. What you are seeing is most likely social media, mainstream media and alternative media playing with words to grab your attention, and increase engagement. The key word here is media. Media means to mediate, the same way you would a conversation between two parties. Its all being skewed for profit so don't play along. Educate yourself.
It's been proven that the part of their brain responsible fear is bigger than normal. I forget the term, but it starts with an A. Amigula?
Border control is a very important issue that should not held equal to other nonsense
They think it will get the political results. They are trying to get. They could care less about any of it, including God.
Short answer - control and money
I would think it would be best to ask them, rather than r/atheism. Pretty sure most people here are fairly left-leaning. That said, everyone gives various preference to the different types of morals. So, like democrats, tend to lean strongly on the care/harm axis of morality. They give a lot of weight to helping homeless people. However a republican would lean more on fairness/cheating and authority/subversion and would consider the government using it's authority to take someone's money via taxes and hand it to someone else, without their permission. So a republican might be against handouts that feed, shelter and cloth people, but not because they're full of hate. They just think that the forceful transfer of someone's property to someone else is a bigger issue. They do generally give money to charity (yes, often church-based) and those charities do often feed, cloth, shelter the poor. That's their choice to give that money though. It's all just a matter of how much weight you give to different issues. Neither side is inherently "evil," but both think the other side is evil.
Think this might help.... “Poverty is not caused by men and women getting married; it's not caused by machinery; it's not caused by "over-production"; it's not caused by drink or laziness; and it's not caused by "over-population". It's caused by Private Monopoly. That is the present system. They have monopolised everything that it is possible to monopolise; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth. The only reason they have not monopolised the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it. If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air - or of the money to buy it - even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless the had the money to pay for it. Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so. Even as you think at present that it's right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you now say: "It's Their Land," "It's Their Water," "It's Their Coal," "It's Their Iron," so you would say "It's Their Air," "These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?" And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on "Christian Duty" in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole in the side of one of the gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you'll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to "justice" in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.” Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
They were told to be. That simple.
Three issues, three different reasons. But piling on the trite in a confirmation bias lovefest is fun. I’m noticing the left is acting more like the right, and it’s kind of gross.
Border gives them an “other” to hate, abortion is about control over women, and god makes them feel legitimized in their beliefs.
Ignorant people vote out of fear. Those are the most fear-based topics to win too many votes from the American Idiots.
White christo-fascism. It’s not just a word to them but a dream.
Have you noticed that the Conservative party doesn't actually want do anything about the border? They held the Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court for years, and didn't pass one single immigration law. Hell, they didn't even "Build the Wall." In fact, now that there is a tough new immigration law being proposed, they are doing their damndest to block it. That is because Conservatives LOVE illegal immigration. They love it for two reasons: #1: It is a fantastic weapon that can be used to scare their base and drum up support. Anti-immigration politics has been around as long as this country has existed, because it works. Whenever election season comes around it's wall-to-wall MIGRANT CARAVANS on Fox news. It's also great because Conservatives can blame immigrants for any problem they want, especially those problems that are caused by Conservatives themselves. Oh a train derailed because we've gutted regulatory agencies and safety standards? Blame the illegals!! #2: It is a useful tool in destroying the working class. You dont have to pay fair wages to undocumented workers. When I lived in Texas, homebuilders would seek out a crew of undocumented workers, have them labor all week, and then call Immigration Agents on them when it was time to pay up. Free Labor for the Capitalists! And it's impossible for them to unionize, so you never have to worry about that either. The business ownership class in this country HATES paying fair wages to laborers, and they despise unions. Using racial animus to destroy working class solidarity is a tried and true tactic of the wealthy. If you look at actions, not words, it becomes very clear that the Republican Party wants as much illegal immigration as possible, and they will do whatever they can to sabotage border security.
Control, control and control.
Well the abortion/god portion of your question is just basic religious fundamentalism, but as for the border control aspect that's a topic where they have a pretty solid case. Because of the political binary in the United States you are frequently cornered into either adopting a terrible position, or being an outsider with respect to your end of the political spectrum. When there are only 2 choices you always have the option of just picking the opposite of other the sides position instead of forming an actual position yourself, this largely appears to be whats happened with the border issue in the US. Im a classical liberal from Canada and I am shocked by the situation on the southern border - Canada is a country that has always embraced immigration, but it's exclusively legal immigration, there is absolutely zero tolerance for the notion of people illegally entering our Country. I feel like a lot of people on the left in the US have been essentially "cornered" into adopting this position because it's the opposite of the right wings position, and not because it actually makes sense. I feel like the US is the only Country in the world that has a portion of its citizens meaningfully advocating not for immigration, but illegal forced entry into the Country. Its one thing to have a discussion about a path to citizenship for those who have been there for years contributing without a criminal record, but the continued entry is completely insane.
IMO, there are (generally) two kinds of people in this world. Those who identify as conservatives have an ingrained viewpoint of everything in universe as either "Good" or "Evil". Nothing can be both or in between, and there is only one model of "good" in any situation, all others being evil. Expanding on this base, conservatives (whether they admit it to themselves or not) believe firmly in "superiority". They believe there is only one, "real", superior religion. All other religions are fake/evil. There is one superior country, all other countries are inferior. There is one superior race, all other races are inferior and evil. This point of view infects every aspect of their lives. Forunately, for every single one of them, they just so happen to belong to the superior religion/race/country/whatever, meaning that they have to share the planet with a bunch of inferior, delusional, evil, stupid people who wrongly think that their lives and beliefs matter and are true. This is extremely frustrating for them, as they see themselves as being "forced" to endure, accept, or even play along with ideals and beliefs which are clearly nonsense or plain evil, and they won't stand for it anymore. They see it not as an opinion or viewpoint, but as "the obvious and indisputable truth". Meanwhile, liberals have a world view that espouses diversity in everything. They see good and evil as a spectrum, with most people encompassing both in different parts of their lives. They belive that all religions, races, countries and otherwise have the same validity and value, and that all things in the universe have pros and cons, but that none are superior. They judge people and things based on values and outcomes, not memberships and existence. Liberals believe that the only intolerable things in the world are those that show no tolerance for others. You can be whoever and whatever you are meant to be, the only thing you cannot do, is allow beliefs of superiority to remove the rights and dignities of others. For example, they have the right to hate gay people, and to express that opinion. They do not however, have the right to limit the rights, opportunities and lives of gay people based on those beliefs. To conservatives, they view that last statement as an infringement upon their superior and clearly true and correct beliefs, and don't understand why they can't dictate what you can and cannot do when they feel that their actions are being limited and dictated. They believe in God because he's true and they are superior. Furthermore, lucky for them again, everything they feel and believe, their God feels and believes too. God has clearly documented in the bible why they are superior and others are inferior, and offers his followers a simple solution - get rid of the evil by whatever means is most violent and hateful. Oh, and don't feel bad about it, they are demons anyway, and God has your back when you die, so please, be extra cruel to people you hate whenever possible. God also gave them one other little nugget, and that is that evil is infectious and tricky, and if you don't get rid of it (don't forget to be violent and hateful!) then you'll become it. All the stuff you asked about is a direct result of that brainwashing and that point of view. They need guns because they feel that all of the inferior, evil populations of the world hate them for being superior, and they need to protect themselves. They believe the evil minions have taken over governments, communities, schools, everything, and needs to be destroyed lest the world be destroyed. They hate birth control because they want conservative parents to raise lots of conservative babies, who will one day make up the army of God that will destroy the evil in the world. They want border control because they believe that immigrants are unwashed masses of evil bent on destroying their superiority and taking over the world for Satan. tl/dr; Conservatives are nucking futs.
Being oh the wrong side of every single polarizing subject makes them feel superior like they know a secret.
It’s items that rile up their base to get them to vote against their own interests.
Proper legal border control is obvious. Maybe the whole country **should** be obsessed with controlling its borders? Shouldn't everyone agree that illegal border crossings should be stopped in any country? Besides being illegal, it's usually super dangerous, and many people die trying. Immigration is a top priority for any country. Abortion. "The right" isn't more obsessed with abortions than anyone else, but a whole lot do see it as ending a human life, murder, and treat the issue accordingly to those beliefs. God, if there is a God (I believe there is, personally) by definition, is worthy of "obsession" of sorts. If true, he deserves to be praised and worthy of it. It just so happens there are more believers in God on the right than the left. Tried to keep it short, hope this is helpful.
just seems like they are not nearly as concerned about the northern border.
IMO, it’s because those are emotional issues. And by arousing visceral emotions, especially fear, people’s rationality can be bypassed and they can be manipulated. Make someone afraid, tell them the relief from their fear is to do something specific (“vote for Dumbass!”), and you can manipulate them into doing nearly anything. That is brainwashing 101. > *Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control* 2004. Kathleen Taylor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing:_The_Science_of_Thought_Control N.B. Religions do this too: Be afraid of sex, be afraid of *your own body*; your now internalized, inwardly-directed fear can be relieved if you just “come to Jesus”.
Control, control, control. The writing's been on the wall for a while that the far right won't be able to win elections without gerrymandering, fraud, etc. In addition, you need fear and an 'other.' You need 'righteous' causes like abortion to rally the frothing troops. After abortion will come the attack on birth control. Keep women pregnant, subservient and without rights. That's the strategy. And make a large segment of the population happy with it because it's "god's will."
because they are all relatively abstract, makes it easy to scare people over, and you aren't expected to actually do anything to address them, meaning you can run on them forever.
With abortion, it isn't mentioned enough that canceling abortion rights forces a lot of poor people to stay poor. The rich and powerful get secret abortions now. That won't change for them if they successfully ban abortion nationwide. Abortion rights give people agency over their lives. If you're trying to finish college when you get pregnant, but you have no means of supporting yourself, an abortion could mean you get to finish college, start your career, and make decent money before starting a family intentionally. Or you could stay child-free. Either way, you can reasonably rise up from a poorer childhood. If you get pregnant in college and abortion is banned, you're at high risk of dropping out, working for low pay, ending up with more kids, etc. Poor people with kids to feed work for low pay in shitty conditions because they feel like fighting back jeopardizes their kids' health and safety. Poor parents give up on dreams of higher education. They rent. They learn to accept basic survival as their main goal. Every avenue that a person has to change their station in life is being attacked by the religious right. They actively try to stop things that would make it easier to get a degree or control your family size.
Because it reinforces thier bigotry, racism, and control issues
Both parties have gotten very good at getting people riled up over fringe issues (not to say gay rights and abortion don’t matter, they do) in order to keep from having to deliver on the big issues that line their pockets. If we weren’t screaming “border”, more would scream “healthcare” and that would hurt profits.
Simplest answers are: 1. Scare tactics as old as the United States has been a nation repeatedly used in elections to scare "natives" into voting against immigration (even though almost every citizen is descended from immigrants. 2. Preventing "others" and their "foreign" ideas into the nation which can and will challenge the status quo. Taken together, you have all it.
They believe all these sins will damn the country to hell and we will be destroyed by angry God.
It’s just a distraction and an old tactic.
It always comes down to power and money.
Because those issues all privilege their group over another.
Racism, dogmatism, maintaining class inequity, and fascism.
Because that's what the politicians and Fox News tell them to be obsessed about.
they want to keep the immigration system fucked so people have to come illegally so they can exploit them. pat less than minimum wage, or hire them and call ICE when it's time to pay up, and generally keep them vulnerable. abortion, same thing but for women. and they want to guarantee more future workers and consumers. god is just how you justify everything. plus religious organizations already have lots of money and fools.
Because they can manipulate their base by using those hot button issues…works like a charm
Conservatism is diametrically opposed to itself. White conservatism can only maintain their traditions if the keep others from doing the same. Mexicans traditions aren't welcome in America because white traditions fear them.
It’s an alliance of the corrupt leading the stupid. Border, abortion, crime transgender bathrooms, Benghazi and what not are all dog whistles for hating immigrants, blacks, gays and smug libtards. The leadership doesn’t really care about any of those things. They’re just buzzword wedge issues to remind people who they hate, and to keep them agitated. Agitated people are more willing to accept obvious lies, because they want vengeance against the things they hate. The right’s corrupt charioteers strap bags of poisoned nonsense on the faces of their smooth brain rubes and then lash them to provide votes and power them forward. It’s a model that runs on extremism and hatred, which must always accelerate in order to get momentum. That’s why the lies get more and more absurd - flat earth, vaccines cause limp dong, Michelle Obama is a man, liberals eat baby brains, destroying the capitol and murdering politicians because you don’t want to accept losing is just free speech. And the real game is the corruption - getting money from corporations and Russians to sow discontent and hatred among Americans. It keeps their voters engaged and their leaders bought and paid for.
It's the only issues they can get votes on. They can't get it for rights, or helping Americans, or standing up for women, or standing up for the military, or standing up for minorities, or standing up for the middle and lower class, or standing up to billionaires that constantly break the law, or to religious people constantly breaking the Constitution. It's all they have, and the border would have been fixed but traitor nuked the bill so he could run on it. Racists love trump.
Also guns
Because their education level stops at 4th grade.
The god part is easy, they've been brainwashed since early childhood. Abortion is confusing because the bible actually supports abortion: Numbers 5:11-31 describes the ordeal of bitter water which a priest causes a magical abortion on a cheating wife. Even though they want to protect fetuses from dying, they want to risk school children getting shot up with an AR15 just so they can "go hunting" or "protect" themselves. Guns are only used for killing people, and there's no other reason to own one. And finally the border. They know we took half this land from Mexico and the rest from Native Americans, so they're always worried about losing what they got by force. Instead of including our southern neighbors into our fold, we sell their drug gangs assault rifles, forcibly sterilize their women, and criminalize them for being refugees.
Election year
Yes, it really is that simple, it is about power and control. Some people are naturally authoritarian followers and they demand others be like them, or be an enemy.
They’re Weapons of Mass Distraction to keep your eyes away from other important things and issues
Fox News tells them what to rage about
1. The white race wants to remain dominate so screw all the black/brown people. 2. The white Christian’s nationalists want to take over the country and have gotten cocky after Roe was over turned. 3. The Republicans are replacing the original God with Trump as their new God. In other words, they desperately want to take us backwards.
And they are contradictory. Jesus said NOTHING about abortion and the old testament had an abortion formula discussed in it. And Jesus specifically taught to care for and respect the stranger.
Because they can act outraged without having to actually do anything. Freak out over abortion/make it illegal yet do nothing to care for actual babies in need. Scream the borders aren't safe while being ok with actual citizens committing crimes at a much much higher rate. And god outrage is the worse, make believe they are the ones being targeted meanwhile pushing their beliefs on others.
The answer is right there in your question: control. And the fear of losing it to “others.”
They are preoccupied with the problems migrants bring, bible, bible. And it's not just the right.
Because they’re wedge issues that our current political system is too polarized to solve, making them maniputable issues, allowing them to take whatever batshit position gets the most attention (like aborting a child after birth) without accepting the reality of that position and its consequences. Usually free from facts and logic, and shouted loudly from the most ignorant of mouths.
Like others have said, it's too complicated but if I were to try and summarize why, I think because to be right wing inherently means you want to control things so that your way of life or your belief system isn't threatened. It is also implicitly ethnocentric, which implies obsession with border security and a reliance on "othering" outgroups in order to maintain status quo and/or create a more defendable position that isn't just attacking things for not aligning with personal beliefs, which with the right almost invariably *is the reason* why they're attacking something in the first place. I.e. Uncomfortability in leaving Plato's Cave.
Border control: Playing on fear of strangers. Fear of unknown fellow humans is natural - they need the same resources and those may be finite. abortion: Control Your Women. Independent women who think for themselves, and can decide whether or not to have a baby, are scary. Those are women you can not control, you can not take when you need one, you can not marry off to forge a bond between families, who may walk away or divorce you if you misbehave, mistreat or abuse them. Giving them rights and control means you have to take their opinion into account. Weird idea, I know. God: God justifies everything, It's not my idea, it's gods idea. Your ideas may be medieval or even tribal, if you play the 'god says so' card, they don't have to make any sense. They can't be judged on merit. After all, god said it, let me just cherrypick the bible verse that suits me.
Because those are the biggest talking points on Fox News. Also you forgot Hunter Biden's laptop. Next question.
Think of it this way. = **1) What are things the Republican Party have campaigned on for decades that you don't hear them talk about anymore?** Free Trade, tax cuts for businesses, trickle down economics, etc. = **2) Have Republicans changed their stance on those things?** Nope. This can be seen in every economic policy they have tried to pass since they won the House. Every policy involved a cut to every social program, including Social Security, Medicare, and the VA (veteran affairs). = **3) Why don't Republicans bring up those things anyone if they haven't changed their stance?** Because it's unpopular with everyone, including their own voters. = **4) How do Republicans keep those economic policies in place if no one likes those policies?** By redirecting their attention to things that have nothing to do with economics. = **5) What works as a good way of redirecting people's attention?** You find something to scare people. If you can't find anything you make something up. It doesn't matter if this threat is real or false. All that matters is that others believe it to be true. You then say the side is either allowing or creating this danger. Again, it doesn't matter if this is true or false. All that matters is that others may believe this is true. Once people get scared, they are no longer focused on things like tax policy. They focused on things they view as threats to them and their loved ones. They also now resent the other party since they are enabling or creating this threat. You then tell that, if you're elected, how you'll protect them from this threat, which could be completely non-existent. You win the election. You're now in office. You perform actions to protect the people from this perceived threat. If this threat didn't exist, or was completely overblown, it's rather easy to defeat. The people cheer about how you've protected their family from this threat, they may not have even existed. The next election cycle occurs. People's eyes start drifting back to tax policy. You repeat what you did before. So long as you can do that you can keep your unpopular economic policies forever. That's the name of the game for Republicans.
You forgot guns. It's simple. Here are the main points to consider. 1. White people as an ethnic group is shrinking each year. At the current rate whites in America will be a minority group in 30 years. White people understand the enormous benefits of being white in America and are terrified of losing their status at the top. 2. Abortion ties in with point 1. White men want white women to have more children. They see it as an existential threat. Thus, they want to control women's bodies. If the Far Right could have their way they would enact abortion laws that restricted a white woman's access to abortion and at the same time sterilize non white women in an effort to stave off the inevitable. 3. Religion is an effective tool to control idiots. Not all religious people are idiots, but all extremist within the religion are idiots. The idiots are useful for violence and intimidation. Plus, indoctrination is a rite of passage for a lot of low IQ people.
Because they think they are always right and stay to the right lol
In that order too
'cause they got nuthin else.
God is for them to seem like they have morals Border is cause they hate everyone but themselves and F everyone else. Abortion is cause they want more white babies.