I think it’s always been there. I believe it’s only now that it has become “acceptable” to spew that poison. Trump in the U.S. is a perfect example: Mocking a disabled reporter; calling Mexicans drug dealers, criminals, and rapists; African Americans, "He was among the loudest voices behind a baseless attack on the legitimacy of the nation’s first Black president: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/every-moment-donald-trumps-long-complicated-history-race. Need I continue? Exactly when did misinformation become acceptable—and mainstream? Maybe when education became grossly underfunded? Maybe when “critical thinking” became excluded from our education? Hence the banning of books, that used to be required reading?
Birtherism gave Trunk national media attention over a prolonged period, leading to…what the US has now as a federal government
90,000,000 people in the U.S. didn’t vote in the last election. You can see how that’s working out for them. If you don’t want to become an American, don’t act like one. Get out and VOTE!!! 🇨🇦 🇨🇦 🇨🇦 Our sovereignty is at stake.
What else would they be trying to preserve? Notice they never tried to preserve strong unions, or high taxes for the rich.
tl;dr: US conservatives have been generally racist, sexist, xenophobic and homophobic, and those traits have become increasingly stronger in the past decade or so.
I saw an interview with Michael Moore around the time that Trump was becoming disturbingly popular. He said (not verbatim) “Trump is not the problem, he’s the symptom of what’s happening in the U.S.”. Wow. No truer words. I doubt he realized how the fever would overtake a country that was grown from immigrants, now demonizing immigrants.
That’s because the Overton window has shifted.
In most of the Western world, mainstream Democrats (neoliberals etc) align with the far right political groups.
Generalized prejudice is a minor subset of that group, except where it spans the political landscape.
And then there’s the Nordic countries. Not perfect, but free health, free education and consistently ranked the happiest in the world. Apparently they’re doing something right. You know, looking after their citizens.
Calling this “conservatism” is already a fig leaf.
How prejudiced /s
How presumptuous /s
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