I guess when you’re convinced to be fighting a noble war to defend “real” (read: white Christian patriarchal) America against the insidious forces of leftism and “wokeism,” it all makes perfect sense!
https://twitter.com/jeffsharlet/status/1491901932394500098
It’s worth reflecting on why so few people on the Right consider these inconsistencies a serious problem, and why they’re evidently not a dealbreaker for most conservatives, neither intellectually nor politically. It’s all about what rightwingers consider the “Higher Truths.”
These Higher Truths to which conservatives subscribe: That “real Americans” are being victimized constantly, made to suffer under the yoke of crazy leftist politics; that woke Libs are out to destroy “real” America; that “We” are entitled to rule, and “They” must be stopped.
Anything that conforms to these Higher Truths - and paints “Us” (the in-group) as the sole proponents and heroic defenders of “real” (read: white Christian patriarchal) America while demonizing “Them” (the out-group) as an Un-American enemy - is enthusiastically embraced.
Judged by this rubric, the incoherence that @JeffSharlet rightfully criticizes is immediately resolved: By the standard of factual evidence and consistency, the various dogmas that are circulating on the Right don’t hold up; but they certainly do adhere to these “Higher Truths.”
https://twitter.com/jeffsharlet/status/1491901932394500098
The Canadian trucker convoy is the best example: How do the same people who declare protesters “outlaws” for the unspeakable crime of blocking a street, as codified in Republican “riot” laws, turn around and celebrate the “heroism” of blockading critical infrastructure?
Describing this as “hypocrisy” is entirely correct while at the same time missing the larger point: Calling for the law to treat different groups differently is hypocritical only if you believe in equality before the law. Conservatives very clearly don’t.
In this instance, the “rioters” are seen as a radical faction pursuing a fundamentally illegitimate (leftist, woke) cause of destroying America - while the truckers are supposedly representing the true will of the people, the Volk, i.e. the part of the population that counts.
It is this fundamental difference between “Us” and “Them” that is at the heart of all of the Right’s “Higher Truths”: a clear political, social, and cultural hierarchy that justifies and actually necessities differential and discriminatory treatment.
If we start from the premise that some groups are worthy of protection and privilege while others are dangerous and need to be kept in check, all of this is entirely consistent. That’s the conservative position.
We see the same logic play out all the time. Republicans railing against absentee voting / voting by mail while many of them have been doing it themselves - hypocritical, bad-faith cynicism? Sure. But the interesting question always is: How do these people justify their actions?
What do they tell themselves? Something like this: “The concern with absentee voting / voting by mail is that the *wrong people* get their votes counted, elevating an illegitimate political opponent; since I’m not one of those *wrong people*, this obviously doesn’t apply to me.”
The obvious hypocrisy is disregarded because the actions are fully consistent with conservatism’s higher principles: If it helps to entrench white Christian patriarchal rule, it can’t be wrong; if it undermines the power of traditional elites, it must be illegitimate.
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