Stop assuming all conservatives are right-wing extremists

Conservatives — those nasty, bible-thumping, xenophobic, insensitive, fascists. To some it may seem like the battle for North America has begun. Liberals v. Conservatives, pitted against each-other in a battle of good versus crony capitalism and logic versus inclusion. Reality is a little different.

Groups are commonly identified by the most extreme views held or associated with their perceived categories. For example, Conservatives hate women, are anti-science, and are secretly or not so secretly racist. The extreme right exists. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that; however, they are too often used as the lens from which conservatism is viewed as a whole, and as the model we believe conservatives pull their arguments from. Unfortunately, extremist voices tend to be the loudest. Their rationale is easily refuted because of their obvious and inherent bias, but more logical and understandable rationale which may call for a similar outcome is harder to disagree with. In order to reinforce confidence in our own perceived grouping and values, cherry-picking obviously flawed arguments is easier than understanding and discussing the more moderate opinions of people in the opposing group. These, mixed with our generation’s tendency to equate disagreement with enmity creates a perfect storm for prejudice, ignorance, and misunderstanding.

Social media has exacerbated this problem in two ways: firstly, by offering a lack of accountability for commenters who betray the rules of civil discourse, and secondly, by allowing you, at the click of a button, to unfollow or unfriend people whose opinions make you uncomfortable or who you don’t agree with. This creates an echo-chamber that one-sidedly disparages alternative perspectives and leads to extreme beliefs. How many of you have ever labelled or had the urge to label someone as ignorant after seeing some thinly veiled political propaganda you disagreed with? How many of you has this happened to?

The truth is that the political spectrum is just that, a spectrum. Conservatives and liberals can be qualified and split up by many categorizations, authoritarian, libertarian, social, fiscal, etc. The difference within the groups can be just as large and ideologically diverse as between. For example, if you think that all conservatives are going to bat for Trump, you’ve got another thing coming. The list of anti-Trump anti-alt-right conservatives begins with Ben Shapiro, a Jewish-American journalist, former Breitbart editor and conservative speaker; Condoleezza Rice, an African-American political scientist, diplomat, previous Secretary of State, and National Security Advisor; Ted Cruz, a Hispanic-American politician, attorney, and previous 2016 presidential candidate; and goes on ad infinitum.

Conservatives don’t always agree about the rationale for their shared beliefs or even have the exact same opinions. Some groups within the umbrella term of conservatism absolutely cannot stand each other and don’t want to be tainted by association. There is almost nothing more frustrating than people you see as stupid or uninformed agreeing with you, no matter who you are. Examples of these are environmental policies on climate change, how stringent immigration policies should be, the abortion debate, the effectiveness of affirmative action, and the scope of necessary government responsibilities. Put five conservatives in a room and you’d have more disagreements than you can count on two hands. I could write article after article about why I see huge problems with current affirmative action policies, abortion, etc. each that have sophisticated science and statistics-based arguments. All which have nothing to do with secretly hating women, religion, or being racist. But would you listen?

So if we know there is variability in beliefs and rationale, and the fact that many conservatives are in fact women and/or minorities, why is this anti-conservative cloud hanging over our heads? Why do most of the university students I talk to have an immediate negative association with conservatism? Why do we see the banning and disinvite of conservative speakers on university campuses? The quiet repression of the pro-life perspective? The recent ironic anti-freedom of speech showing at the U of T? We’ve stopped listening, and if we do listen, it’s to reply and not to understand.

The reality is that regardless of political leaning, by and large, people desire equality and inclusion, to erase racism and poverty, and a better world. They just have different perspectives on how to achieve these goals. Throughout this mess of politics which is North America I have yet to discover that either political leaning has a monopoly on bias, logic, stupidity, reality, or the truth.