I don't know why the right is so terrified of/hateful towards liberals?

And before any of the MAGA crowd start their idiotic screeching about "liberals" being far left revolutionaries set on destroying "western culture" and so forth, at least read to the end of this first. This has been floating around in my brain for a while now, so hopefully writing it all down will get it out. Also note that this is based off my experiences and observations, so generalisations will be rife.

First of all, we need to understand the political meaning of the term liberal. Traditionally and in an ongoing economic sense, it refers to laissez-faire* economic practices, including limiting or outright abolishing regulations and anything else that prevents free trade; the "invisible hand of the market" colloquialises this concept, and is why policies most associated with Reagan and Thatcher are called 'Neo-Liberalism.' In more modern terms, it tends to mean a laissez-faire approach towards societal norms; this most commonly manifests as equal rights and opportunities at least in principle for women and minorities.

I've spoken to a lot of liberals, both left and right wing, and it's always bugged me that the right is so vitriolic against them when what they seem to dislike (at least according to their public statements) are leftists - this is most apparent when they use liberal and Marxist to refer to the same people. Liberals are effectively centrists, believing in social progress but ultimately upholding the underlying systems in place in society today. Such a person will vehemently support capitalism as a whole, and where any issues may become apparent will support incremental change at most to "solve" that one issue as opposed to overall systemic reform - this is the difference between a liberal and a leftist. Such people tend to be a majority or very large minority within liberal democracies historically, and only cease to be so when demagogues are involved or the system they live in becomes so horrifically broken as to be irreparable - an example of the latter would be places like the Russian Empire/Soviet Union at the beginning of the 20th century.

So why do the right, which appears at least online to consist of Trump supporters (henceforth referred to as MAGA for ease of typing), along with far right groups such as fascists and white supremacists, hate liberals so much? It may have something to do with right wingers slowly shifting further right over time; as a result, liberals and "Marxists"* start appearing to amalgamate - the best way to think about this is looking in a rear view mirror of a car as you drive away, those in the background getting less distinct over time. This isn't a new phenomenon by any means, as the Cold War saw the Western world shift further right as a reaction to the spread of communism (real or imagined, as in Joseph McCarthy's case).

But this raises the issue of why they dislike anyone who would push for even the most minor 'plaster over' change. This is due to the nature of MAGA as a fascist movement. I do not use the term fascist lightly, nor wish to unless truly necessary, and there will be those (almost guaranteed to be all MAGA) who proclaim it not to be fascist for myriad different reasons. But in the simplest terms, fascism is a nationalist ideology which believes in a mythic past and traditionalism tied to it, defines in- and out-groups based on race, religion, etc through the lens of a plot, and revolves around a strongman demagogue. For the most famous example of this, we look at the Nazis:
- Germany and the Germanic people are superior (nationalism)
- Germany was great before being forced into losing World War 1 (mythic past)
- believed that the Germans were being held down by the out-groups (plot)
- hated Jews, communists, and non-Germanic people in general (in-/out-groups)
- believed Hitler and the Nazi Party were the only one who could save Germany and restore it to greatness (demagogue)
Now let's compare this to MAGA:
- America is the best nation (nationalism)
- America was once great, but had since lost that greatness (mythic past)
- Mexicans, Muslims, and other outsiders hate America (in-/out-groups)
- Donald Trump and the GOP are the only one(s) who can restore and maintain America's greatness (demagogue)

*Marxists gets thrown around a lot by people on the right, but because of the First Red Scare in 1919/20 and the subsequent Cold War, America doesn't really have many Marxists at all any more. There are those who believe in communism, but it's most assuredly not the much maligned liberals. If anything they'd side with MAGA against communists.

This does not mean that those who follow Trump are necessarily fascist themselves, but by buying into this rhetoric they do give tacit approval through voting for Trump. And this is not meant to denigrate others either, so long as all are civil and don't just use buzzwords and insults.

Hopefully this makes sense, because it took 30 minutes to write and I'm going to be miffed to have to edit things for clarity. And sorry if it's a slog; it was a slog to type too.

DarkMoon · 22-25, M Best Comment

Fundamentally.....if you're going to persuade people to vote against their own interests (eg low paid voting for an anti-minimum wage party) you need to scare them. They're coming for your guns, they'll ban the national anthem, they want a race war. Ooh and don't forget Venezuela. Anything to distract from the liberal policies that would benefit them and their family.

hartfire

Are you British?
If so, that would partly explain your confusion about the way Americans use the term "liberal."

You'd be even more confused by Australia, where the term Liberal refers to the centre-right conservative party. Aussies avoid using the word liberal, meaning broadly permissive, for fear of being mistaken for referring to amoral, dry-right, economic rationalism.

The idea of liberalism goes back further in time to its originator, John Stuart Mill, 1806-73.
In his book, On Liberty, he argued for why society should permit as wide a cross-section of freedoms as possible, with the proviso that no actions would be permitted to cause harm.
His argument runs roughly this way. All humans are fallible. All humans are capable of making mistakes and not knowing it until much later. Just as each individual can err, so can any group of people, including an entire society. Because we cannot know what works best until much later, we need to allow the freedom for people to live as they see fit. This enables them to learn from their experiences, but it also means we can learn from one another. En masse, this gives society the freedom to continually evolve and improve.

Sometime later, around the time of the Tolpuddle Martyrs,
Parliament became very alarmed at the rise of workers' strikes and unionism.
The Conservatives wanted to crack down and prevent the development of workers' rights.
A centrist Liberal Party formed. These were lords who believed that if measures were too strict it would incite rebellion, possibly civil war, and their ways of life would die as did that of the aristocrats of France during the French Revolution. They argued that expanding the rights of workers would remove the threat of rebellion and help maintain the status quo.
This is the origin of the Liberal Party as centrists in England.

But in America, which has always been much further right in its politics, the Democrats are the only party which supports the use of taxpayers money to support a wider social safety net: improved free education, better quality medicine available even if someone is too poor to pay, and social services for the mentally and physically disabled or disadvantaged. Right-wing Americans regard this as a "leftist" or "socialist" policy, in part because they haven't a clue what Socialism actually stands for. But the other part of it is disingenuous. The right-wing think tanks have promoted this idea as a spin with which to demonise the Democrats. The idea is to create an enemy mind set and to cultivate party identity and loyalty. This is why they attack the liberal-thinking person, not the ideas.

To be fair, there are also US liberals who attack conservatives - and their spin and vitriol can sometimes be just as vicious and personal. Personally, I've seen this far less often. The liberal attacks tend to be milder.
They'll call the enemy a "Baby-Trumpist": the right will call their enemy a "dumb-fuck-cunt PC fanatic."

SW-User

@hartfire I'm from New Zealand, so familiar with Australia's Liberal Party. But that is very interesting and good to know. Never thought of things like that before :)