this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Why not both? Far right movements, at least as far back as the transition of the Tories into the conservative party in the early 1800s, have been lead by the interests of the ultra rich. Far right "philosophy" has always been to their service, whether its regressive "economics" of Malthus or the complete fiction of scientific racism. Almost definitionally, there isn't a far right movement without a ruling class that it supports and is supported by; that's what they are trying to "conserve".
Part of this is having a permanent underclass. Or more than one. Just as the "middle class" is under the ruling class, the under class must be beneath them. This is part of the conservative mindset, which again is created and nurtured by the ruling class for this purpose. The difference between garden variety conservatives and fascists, in this regard, is simply that fascists want the elimination of the permanent underclass.
the whole point of conservatism is to preserve and reinforce the social order.
it's not progress.
Fair enough. I just get pissed when people like OP suggest bigotry only exists because Economically Anxious^TM people are being manipulated by The Elites^TM. Anyone who's interacted with well-off people for longer than a few minutes knows being economically secure doesn't magically make you not a bigot anymore.
And I hate the implication bigotry is somehow "less important" an issue than economic inequality. Especially since the two are so intimately intertwined, especially in the US, it's impossible to make progress tackling one without tackling the other.
I'm not LGBT or anything so I do have a bias, this is mostly something I observed from my time with the upper-middle class. Up until maybe 2014, while these people were far from saints, they seemed to be far more passive about social issues beyond the economics. Then the misinformation age hit and their opinions went from 'I don't want to pay the medical expenses of the poor' to 'I don't want to pay for someone's gender reassignment surgery'. The bigotry seemed to be at the forefront once the billionaire controlled media told them it should be. While yes I'm sure there's a lot of pure bigotry, I'd expect there to be less if billionaires weren't around to sway.
This is just a chicken and egg situation on the cause so sorry if I was underplaying the bigotry aspect.
Yes, because in 2015 gay marriage was legalized.
I guarantee these people were absolutely as shitty about LGBTQ+ issues before 2015, they just talked about them less frequenly around you since they didn't have to think about gay people too often. But I guarantee they were just as horrible towards gay people back then-- if not moreso, since they thought they could get away with the toxicity since no one cared-- as they are today.
Source: was woman with a ton of LGBTQ+ friends before 2014. Bigotry hasn't gotten any worse since then, just louder. (And the good news is the reason the bigots have gotten louder is because more normies are becoming tolerant or accepting of LGBTQ+ people, causing the remaining bigots to realize they're losing control of society and flip the hell out!)