I remember a few years ago, religious conservatives and social (i.e. not religious) conservatives seemed to be in agreement on countless issues. Hell, I remember having numerous religious conservatives approve of me saying that I may be a non-believer, but I would defend their right to worship how they chose, because we agreed on the important things. They shared the same views, they would just come at them from a different starting point (religious conservatives would come at it from the starting point of their faith, societal conservatives would come at it from a starting point of their own sense of right and wrong). But in the past few months I've noticed that religious conservatives have taken to attacking anyone--conservative, republican, or otherwise--who doesn't share their belief system and/or religion. I don't really understand this, as the only thing it's doing is driving people away from the conservative/republican side, and pushing them into either just abstaining from voting, or refusing to participate in any political discourse, which won't exactly solve problems, as we need every person that we can get to defend our society against the degenerates that are trying to destroy it.
Did Trump "losing" in 2020 really fracture the right that badly? I'm not sure that's the case, because this is something that I've only really seen come to the forefront in the past year or so.
I don't know what to make of it. It's honestly beginning to seem like some people on the right are laser focused on becoming the weird puritans of the 90s who were mocked to no end and did more harm to conservative values than they did to further them.
And before anyone accuses me of saying that religious people should embrace atheism or give up their own faith, that's not what I'm getting at at all. I'm merely saying that if we want conservative values and common sense to come back to society, we need to fight for that and not fight each other. If there needs to be any bickering between different "factions" on the right, I think we'd all be better off if we did that after the psychotic leftists are removed from the picture.
There seems to be this crazy purity spiral that's forming on the right, and I'm afraid that what's going to happen is that we're going to all become so focused on our own particular brand of conservatism that we're going to lose sight of the big picture, and we're going to end up losing our society to radical leftists.
I'm still dead set on fighting against the degenerate leftists in society. I don't foresee myself leaving this fight anytime soon, mainly because I don't need anyone's approval to stand up for the things that I believe in. But not everyone is like me, and if we drive those people away, we're never going to win another election, after all a vote is a vote. And then it doesn't matter if you were a religious conservative or societal conservative, your values are going to vanish from our society just like every other conservative/Republican's values.
It's because people are adapting to the current situation. Many conservatives used to be fairly libertarian in mindset where the belief was you do your own thing and they do theirs as long as everyone is free to do as they like. It has become obvious this doesn't work though and only can exist as a transitional period before some ideology starts to force itself on the other such as what we're seeing with the left and their woke-ism. Many religious conservatives see their religion as the solution to the problems we face today and see atheism as the reason things are so bad.
Ever read Dostoevsky? Specifically, his book Demons? Much has been said on it but an interpretation is that atheism is what leads to decadence. In short, the concept of God provides an ideal for people to strive toward and when you remove that ideal people no longer strive for anything and the nihilism that takes over leads to degradation. Many conservatives of the religious kind are turning to religion as a solution to the problems and truly believe this sort of idea that atheists are in fact the problem with society for this very reason.
I think you're a bit harsh on the religious conservatives because most are just trying to find something good to cling onto and believe in so that they feel there is a solution to the problems today. If the way the religious people won't accept you is what turns you away from "conservatism" then you don't have very good beliefs in the first place. If you aren't prepared to believe your beliefs no matter whether anyone accepts you for them or not then you need to rethink your beliefs. They are either the truth or not. Leftists are good at believing whatever they're told for social justice points. You don't want to be like them, do you? If your beliefs can be bought through induction into some social circle then you don't really have any beliefs. You're a mercenary willing to lend support toward whichever beliefs supposedly give you the most social acceptance. That's how many boys end up chopping off their penises.
I think that right there hits the nail on the head. Tired of compromising their values, they are asserting their view instead of capitulating to the left who aren't willing to do the same for them. "Conservatives" who just identify as not-left are part of the problem- see "right-wing porn stars".
We've shifted so far left, they think libertarianism is conservatism
I like this argument that you just wrote a lot because it cleanly cuts to the very core of the matter, arguing from the point of their own values and presuppositions.
'so what?'