Getting an outside perspective can provide fresh eyes to a situation that has been muddied by conformity and biases. Sometimes people are too invested to be objective about the reality of their situation, and it requires an outsider to shine a light on the dark gaps in their knowledge.
As a former Democrat, I tend to see things on the political right differently than my conservative counterparts. I haven’t spent my entire life in conservative circles, so my perspective on the political world that I’m entrenched in is vastly different than many of the “lifers” I encounter.
Because of my former affiliation, I’m also able to compare differences and similarities in strategies as to how they galvanize their voters and speak with their constituents when others don’t have that point of reference.
An interesting similarity is that both sides think the other side is always in unison and organized, which is quite hilarious to me. Much of the verbiage is similar: Democrats want to save democracy; Republicans want to save America.
However, there’s something that’s markedly different between the political wings and that’s in abundance on the current political right: an industry of nihilism.
In the beginning, I believed that it was just outlier pessimistic individuals whom I was coming across during a politically tense time because I understand that stress can push a normally rational-minded person into a nihilistic downward spiral.
However, as time went on, I realized that this negative view surrounding the cultural and political landscape wasn’t a temporary visual impairment but a familiar set of right-wing bifocals.
Conservatives expect to lose and are shocked to win, and this is something considerably different than what the left portrays. Liberals and progressives have plans for what they want to do and identify who’s trying to stop them, but conservatives tend to be fatalistic about strategy, especially if the odds are slightly against them.
I love the aspects of conservatism that embrace personal responsibility and advocate for overcoming your unfortunate circumstances, but I don’t find that they’re being applied to conservatives’ political framing nearly as often as they should. For example, they would rather spend more time talking about voting booths than actually increasing their voting pool. I mean, why bother campaigning when they’re going to cheat anyways, right?
I said before that this is an industry of nihilism, and it was a realization that took me a while to understand. This wasn’t just some coincidence among people of the same affiliation across the country but a byproduct of fatalistic and grand narratives perpetrated by some in the pundit and politician class.
Political pundits create narratives with abstract claims surrounding insurmountable corruption with no plan of action to combat it. Conservatives are supposed to hyperventilate when the “deep state” is brought up, yet they’re encouraged to somehow defeat it.
I’ve witnessed well-intentioned conservatives get swindled by people who I would call chaos agents, who are bent on profiting off everyone’s confusion; they fall for those people’s emotionally manipulative tactics that lead to one end result: giving them money.
Where the political left has victimhood narratives to emotionally manipulate segments of their followers to seek out saviors, the political right has an industry of nihilism that encourages the praising of the bare minimum effort, and they’re lulled into accepting the status quo, even if it has repeatedly failed them.
When I was on the left, even when they used manipulative tactics of weaponizing victimhood, there was always optimism about how they would incrementally achieve their goal. Until this crop of progressives infiltrated the Democratic Party, liberals spoke in specifics as to what they wanted and strategized to get it.
However, on the right, everyone talks about why they can’t do something and waits for others to do it for them. Republicans could be out campaigning and strategizing, but they would rather assume that Donald Trump’s name recognition is enough to get people excited to vote. In one breath, they discuss wanting a wider tent of voters for their party, and in the next, they say why bother, nothing will ever change.
You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge, and conservatives need to acknowledge that they can be the party of ideas all they want, but it doesn’t matter if they aren’t also the party of implementation.
You need to start looking at every pundit and politician with skepticism about what value they’re providing for you. Are they providing strategy and substance or are they encouraging a loser’s mentality with their hands out?
Political nihilism is inevitable failure masquerading as a coping strategy. No one progresses by finding the reasons why they’re unable to succeed.
