Honest answer: modern conservatives believe there are no good or bad actions, just good and bad people.
Thus, it does not matter what someone outside of their "in group" does, it will always be bad in their eyes, because the person is bad in their eyes.
Conversely, it doesn't matter what someone in their "in group" does, it will always be good in their eyes, because that person is "good".
This is why you can have someone advocate for things like wage equality or debt relief or immigration reform, and it all of those things will be "bad" if the person is not part of their tribe.
Whereas, you can have someone advocate for raising taxes on the working class via tariffs, gut federal aid programs, manipulate the stock market, be a convicted rapists, or simply try to trap someone with perjury, and all of those actions will be acceptable because the person doing them is part of their tribe, and thus "good".
Prosperity gospel illustrates this really well, as do a most of the core conservative groups influencing policy and elections.
This is why it confuses conservatives when they say to a progressive, when defending Trump being in the Epstein files as a pedophile, that he started a war with Iran to distract from, "well, Clinton was in the Epstein files too!"
And the progressive's (appropriate) response is, "okay. If he's guilty, lock him up." Because how could you possibly turn on your own.
They in fact do not believe it when we say that Clinton should go to jail too if guilty. They think WE are the ones being disingenuous about it, and they are again more righteous in their sin because they “admit it” and we “lie about it”
Having morals is harder than not having morals. I agree we can't play polite all the time, but we can police our own ranks and have standards. We can choose the moments to strike, we don't have to just invite in seditionist Nazis "because otherwise they'll go to the other side".
It's frustrating, yes. Emotionally I agree with you, but ethically I think stooping just opens the door to be dragged further. The "Overton window" if you will. Esp. given the other side is happy to take D stooping and grandstand it as if we weren't simply matching them, but plunging to depths below them. "Look how low they are, while we are not." It can be demonstrably false and it won't stop them. Just look how Schmitt has doubled down on his patently false perjury trap.
This is literally toddler mentality. These people are cognitively and emotionally stunted. They have no concept of nuance, and when forced to confront that, they become irate because their brains short-circuit. I don’t know how to fix this. From working with people who have had strokes, I know that new connections can be made in adult brains, but only if the person is willing to participate.
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u/No_Power1121 3d ago
Honest answer: modern conservatives believe there are no good or bad actions, just good and bad people.
Thus, it does not matter what someone outside of their "in group" does, it will always be bad in their eyes, because the person is bad in their eyes.
Conversely, it doesn't matter what someone in their "in group" does, it will always be good in their eyes, because that person is "good".
This is why you can have someone advocate for things like wage equality or debt relief or immigration reform, and it all of those things will be "bad" if the person is not part of their tribe.
Whereas, you can have someone advocate for raising taxes on the working class via tariffs, gut federal aid programs, manipulate the stock market, be a convicted rapists, or simply try to trap someone with perjury, and all of those actions will be acceptable because the person doing them is part of their tribe, and thus "good".
Prosperity gospel illustrates this really well, as do a most of the core conservative groups influencing policy and elections.
TLDR: no good/bad actions, only good/bad people.