Remember when you were a child. Remember putting your first puzzle together, building that first Lego block house? Do you remember how upset you felt when your parent or older sibling helped you with those final pieces. How upset you were that they didn't let you finish on your own. How they robbed you of the satisfaction of doing it by yourself. Eventually you realized the help was benign, a gesture of good will, not one meant to steal your thunder. Well the problem with many of today's conservatives is just that, they never learned the lesson.
Conservatism by it's very nature stresses individualism, yet flies in the face of human development. We evolved into our current society because individuals joined larger groups and furthered our advancement. In conservative circles this fact is overlooked, ignored. If conservative ideology were around early in our societies development we would still be in the stone age, or thereabout. Individualism in some ways is anti progress, it is regressive or stagnant to say the least
This is where we are today, an ideology that is counter progress is actually dominating our lives on a daily basis. Case in point 48 y/o WM Republican laid off, goes on unemployment, actively pursues employment. None found in spite of diligence in search. Unemployment eventually ends as congress did not extend benefits. Yet said individual blames progressives for driving country towards imaginary socialism, deficit fears etc. Blames others for living on the public dole. Totally ignoring tax cuts to rich, out of control defense spending, corporate subsidies (welfare). Using catch phrases and ideological rhetoric as a reason why things are so bad, ignores reality. But creates his own realities to continue to work against his own self interests. Some would call this insanity. I call it the conservative mind manipulation. This person is a product of our current environment. This person courts an ideology that is detrimental to his self interests. Why? because he is conditioned by many factors. Some play on our human nature (as in Lego/Puzzle example), on preconceived notions, right wing feel good rhetoric and plain old conservative propaganda manipulation.
Just as this person wanted to finish the puzzle or Lego block house on his own as a child, he is taken advantage of by conservative conditioning. They turn up the volume on the message that says they should be their own island, they don't need any ones help. If they fall they should be able to get up on their own, they should need no one, especially big bad government. No handouts is the motto. After all this message on its surface sounds great, self sufficiency is a great talking point. Unfortunately it sometimes is just not possible or even counter productive. But the conservative message for individualism, self sufficiency is so powerful, so dominating it can cause rational people to overlook logic and embrace unhealthy emotionalism. To fly in the face of facts, needs and realty. All in the name of ideology. Whether that ideology is secular, religious, or both. Ironically some of the very people who live and feed their families on government assistance are some of the worst opponents of those very programs. IE: SSI, Medicare, unemployment benefits. Their blanket reason, it just makes people lazy or some other right wing talking point. Talk about being against your own self interests.
I focused solely on individualism in this diary, but there are many other conservative ideas, isms that are equally if not more harmful. Conservatives have the bigger microphones, scream the loudest. They play to fundamental fears, terrorism, socialism, government takeovers, abortions, guns etc. They use their superior financial advantages to get their message out to the masses. They use all the different hot spots that get a section of our population to respond to their ideology, regardless of the harm it may cause the majority of the truly affected conservatives. Yet consistently they vote against their self interests over and over again. Be it for the republicans or their blue dog contemporaries. The conservatives have figured out what issues strike emotional responses in their base. They use this to pull all the right levers, to fool people into believing they are doing the right thing when in reality the opposite is true. They have more money and access to an MSM that is looking to get ratings boosts. They've found the formula to keep people locked in to a self defeating cycle for disaster. People will some day wake up and realize how they have been manipulated. The question is how much damage will we all have to deal with from here until then?
We progressives should change our strategies and tactics from what we have been doing for about the last 30 years. This country has shifted from a center left country to a fully right leaning country in those same 30 years. We have gone from a country with a growing middle class to one where there will soon be no middle class. From a country that was the worlds manufacturer to one that manufactures almost nothing. Taking with it good paying jobs. The rich conservatives are winning this ideology battle and they are only doing it because people who should be on our side are helping them do it. People like my 48 y/o neighbor mentioned above who when denied Unemployment benefits based on the erroneous argument that we can't afford it, that we are broke and should mind the deficit applauded happily at the recent passing of almost 800 billion in defense spending. Ironic, the have nots actively deceived into supporting the best interest of the haves to their own detriment. We are in trouble, and if we don't get serious about combating conservative lies it will be a few generations until we can finally be rid of this counter humanity conservatism. Sometimes it seems like the last 8 years under Bush was a thing that happened 80 years ago, not just 2 years ago. We must never let people forget or else we are doomed. We can not count on elected officials in either party, they're just in it for themselves (most of them at least). This is something we have to do on our own, I know we can do it. We have to.