All of what passes for conservatism in post-9/11 America is, first and foremost, about fear. The grievance-mongering, the repetitive claims of victimization, the constantly simmering hate and anger that is periodically dialed up into fits of mass rage, and the epistomic closure of conservative minds, all of them are just manifestations of the ever-present sense of fear and anxiety that is constantly stoked, constantly fed and openly coordinated and orchestrated by right wing media and politicians.
It’s all very convenient. The oligarchs create a pervasive sense of economic insecurity through thirty years of policies intended to redistribute wealth upward, then they use a fraction of that wealth to direct the fear and anxiety their class warfare has created against those who pose the greatest threat to the new economic order. That’s always what racism has been about and it’s what’s behind the willing belief in liberal conspiracies to steal from, disenfranchise and oppress lower middle class and working class whites and the attribution of ever more fantastical and facile cartoonishly evil motives to “liberals.”
Once you understand that all the constant outflow of hate and rage and jaw-dropping irrationality from rank and file conservatives are the ravings of people who have been driven more than half out of their minds by fear-inducing propaganda, it becomes a lot easier to set aside your anger and pity them. But damned if I know how you can make people who’ve become addicted to fear to pull the needle out of their arms and grow some fucking courage.