Paingod wrote:I welcome the thoughts and corrections of anyone who has a better understanding of what it means to be a real Conservative in today's world.
I can speak to what made me a conservative for 25 years.
The biggest core principle that I adhered to was "personal responsibility." Most of my life I was raised by a single mom working minimum wage. We weren't on welfare, we weren't on food stamps. We scraped by.
Through that, it was ingrained in me very early that if you're willing to put in the work, you can support yourself without relying on the government. That extended to all aspects of life - my school work, etc. It also extended to making mistakes. If I broke something, my mom expected me to fix it or replace it. While she was always there for my brother and I, she was not there to shield us from blame. If we screwed up, we paid the consequences.
Now combine that with a regular Christian upbringing. Church every Sunday and sometimes Wednesday night if the mood struck. Vacation Bible School in the summer. In the church world, there are no shades of gray. You're either on the path to Jesus or you're a sinner going to Hell.
When you combine this all together, you get the recipe for someone who A) Sees the world in black and white, with a grossly oversimplified view of "how things should be" and B) Assumes "taking personal responsibility" is equally as easy for all people.
That last point - privilege - is the piece that took me the longest to wrap my head around. I had left the religious stuff behind long ago, which is why I no longer adhered to most of the conservative social agenda. However, in everything else I believed anyone - given the right work ethic - would achieve equal success. And why should the wealthy be punished? They earned their money. If you're not a millionaire, then it's because you haven't worked hard enough at it.
I only broke out of that mentality because the social issues kept dividing me from the party. When the GOP agenda became more about which bathroom you used than tax policy, I started questioning what I was actually supporting. I don't know how you create that divide with people who are still strongly religious. That's not a switch you can turn off and on. Religious belief is built on "faith" IE - I don't care if there's no evidence, I'm going to believe it anyway. Is it any wonder the same people have no problem denying climate change, or Covid, or anything else they don't like?
That said, I no MANY people who are spiritual and are regular church goers who are proud Democrats. But they're also really compassionate people who care about others. I think the compassion and empathy is what's missing from the modern conservative party. It's tribalism taken to its most extreme, and if you're not a straight white Christian then you can GTFO.
