Liberal culture wars: Why much of the right fears and hates liberalism and the Democrats

To try to avoid this from becoming one of my famous TL/DR posts, this post focuses on only three points that most conservatives and essentially all of the authoritarian radical right (the ‘collective right’) raise to exemplify the urgent threat that Democrats and liberalism present to America and democracy. I present no rebuttals, but just want to articulate in a neutral way how the collective right sees the threat, or claims to see it.

1. Polarizing liberal identity politics: Wikipedia describes identity politics: 

A political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these identities.  

Identity politics, as a mode of categorizing, are closely connected to the ascription that some social groups are oppressed (such as women, ethnic minorities, and sexual minorities); that is, the idea that individuals belonging to those groups are, by virtue of their identity, more vulnerable to forms of oppression such as cultural imperialism, violence, exploitation of labor, marginalization, or subjugation.

Some groups have combined identity politics with Marxist social class analysis and class consciousness—the most notable example being the Black Panther Party—but this is not necessarily characteristic of the form. .... Identity politics can be left-wing or right-wing, with examples of the latter being Ulster Loyalist, Islamist and Christian Identity movements, and examples of the former being queer nationalism and black nationalism.

Collective right criticisms of liberal identity politics tend to sound about like this from the Washington Examiner in 2020: 

‘A big night for identity politics’: 

Republicans slam Democrats’ ‘facade of unity’

The Democratic National Convention opened with the national anthem and an overtly Christian prayer, with a theme of “We the People” as the party emphasized unity on Monday night.

But Republicans argued that it is difficult to square American unity with identity politics and increasingly liberal policies.

“If the Democrats didn’t play identity politics, they would have no identity at all,” said Republican strategist John Feehery. “It’s their only hope.”

“There is no question the first night of the DNC convention was aimed toward highlighting a heavy dose of the diversity of voices within the Democratic Party — how else does one comport Michelle Obama, Eva Longoria Baston and Bernie Sanders?” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell. “But regardless of who spoke for the Biden/Harris ticket, the message was the same — irrespective of the faux plaudits employed — look at how rational and moderate we are. Nod, nod, wink, wink.”

“The central question is, can the Democrats keep this facade of unity going for an entire week when the only thing that truly binds them is their disdain for Trump?” O’Connell continued. “Chances are someone isn’t going to stick to script, and Trump will be able to take advantage. But only time will tell.”

A commentator criticized Democratic Party divisive identity politics like this in 2017:

Now into the arena comes a distinctly more conservative brand of liberal and Trump opponent, Mark Lilla, a professor of the humanities at Columbia, who, on November 18th, published an Op-Ed in the Times declaring, “One of the many lessons of the recent presidential election and its repugnant outcome is that the age of identity liberalism must be brought to an end.” His article, .... blasts “the fixation on diversity in our schools” and the “moral panic about racial, gender, and sexual identity that has distorted liberalism’s message and prevented it from becoming a unifying force.” Lilla is hardly indifferent to injustices against women, the L.G.B.T.Q. community, and people of color, but he claims that too many liberals and leftists, indulging in a politics of “narcissism,” are “indifferent to the task of reaching out to Americans in every walk of life.”

The Guardian wrote this in 2018:

How America's identity politics went from inclusion to division

When groups feel threatened, they retreat into tribalism. When groups feel mistreated and disrespected, they close ranks and become more insular, more defensive, more punitive, more us-versus-them.

In America today, every group feels this way to some extent. Whites and blacks, Latinos and Asians, men and women, Christians, Jews, and Muslims, straight people and gay people, liberals and conservatives – all feel their groups are being attacked, bullied, persecuted, discriminated against.

Of course, one group’s claims to feeling threatened and voiceless are often met by another group’s derision because it discounts their own feelings of persecution – but such is political tribalism.

This – combined with record levels of inequality – is why we now see identity politics on both sides of the political spectrum. And it leaves the United States in a perilous new situation: almost no one is standing up for an America without identity politics, for an American identity that transcends and unites all the country’s many subgroups.

2. The threat of socialism and attacks on wealth: One point that the collective right raise is the possibility of socialism displacing capitalism. Socialism is state ownership of the means of producing products and delivering services. A couple members of congress are socialists, e.g., Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A socialist group that collective right elites often target is the Democratic Socialists of America. Its description of itself (and here) includes this:

The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest socialist organization in the United States, with over 92,000 members and chapters in all 50 states. We believe that working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few.

We want to collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives, such as energy production and transportation. We want the multiracial working class united in solidarity instead of divided by fear. We want to win “radical” reforms like single-payer Medicare for All, defunding the police/refunding communities, the Green New Deal, and more as a transition to a freer, more just life. 

That sounds like real socialism. From what I can tell, the collective right generally describes the socialist threat about like this from 2020:

The Looming Threat of a Socialist America

As the far-left congresswomen known as the Squad celebrated their overwhelming victories in Democratic primaries earlier this year, far-sighted radical strategists were plotting to achieve their long-range goal—a socialist America governed by, in the words of the Marxist group Socialist Alternative, “a tested Marxist leadership.”

For those who say it can’t happen here, there are warning signs aplenty.

In New York, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not just turn back her well-known Latina challenger, CNBC anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, she crushed her, winning 74.6 percent of the vote. Representative Rashida Tlaib easily defeated Detroit City Council president Brenda Jones, 66.3 percent to 33.7 percent. Ilhan Omar won her Minnesota primary against a well-funded Antone Melton-Meaux with 57.4 percent.

In each case, the socialists defeated liberal Democrats who were attractive, organized, and had plenty of money. It didn’t matter—an overwhelming majority of Democratic primary voters endorsed the OAC-Tlaib-Omar vision of a socialist America, including the multitrillion-dollar Green New Deal.  

Socialism is indeed riding a wave of momentum when more Texans than Californians view it favorably.  

Given the electoral gains cited above, are we certain that a socialist America is impossible—especially when 70 percent of Millennials say they would vote for a socialist? We cannot depend on someone else to step forward. We must go on the offensive, disseminating the truth about socialism and the free-enterprise alternative.

3. Public school social engineering to promote and enforce outcome equality: At present, the radical right is emphasizing and bitterly criticizing liberal social engineering efforts including teaching critical race theory and gender issues. The conservative group Moms for America describes CRT like this:

Critical Race Theory Teaches Our Children to Hate 

Their Country, Neighbors, and Themselves

Critical Race Theory isn’t new. It has been craftily injected into our societal thought behind closed doors for decades. It has held many labels from “Diversity Training” and “Black Studies,” to “Reconstructing Curriculum,” but the objective has always been the same; and though many people have penned the “curriculum” there is only one author.

Most reasoned people recognize it for what it is.

What we don’t understand is the “why” of it all. Why would someone purposefully try to make freedom bad, truth a lie and the American dream wrong? Why would anyone want to convince people they are either oppressed or an oppressor because of their gender or color?

Professor O was a professor of Black Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His “training” consisted of instructing the room full of teachers how to teach their students to recognize they are either racist or the victims of racism.

Professor O told the teachers that epistemologically the world will always be White privileged because all of our values, morays and culture are based on the moral judgements of White, European, heterosexual, theocratic Christian men. Because of that he said, we will always be a racist, sexist, homophobic culture even though we don’t realize it.

Professor O spoke of the need for free college because White privileged males are the ones that can afford it. He talked about time having no relevance, values being relative and White privilege permeating our culture.

That’s what a lot of parents are wondering as they show up en masse at school board meetings to protest this pernicious, agenda-driven “curriculum” being thrust on our children.  

Moms are realizing this is a war for the hearts and minds of our children but those trying to harm our children underestimated the powerful force of mothers defending their young. Mama Bears have been poked and Marxist Teachers Unions and government overlords have no idea what they’re in for. This is just the beginning.

An critical analysis of CRT by two conservative (radical right?) researchers see CRT as akin to a religion. They write:

Yes, Critical Race Theory Is Being Taught in Schools

A new survey of young Americans vindicates the fears of CRT’s critics.

Motivated by the work of Manhattan Institute senior fellow and City Journal contributing editor Christopher F. Rufo, many on the right allege that CRT-related concepts—such as systemic racism and white privilege—are infiltrating the curricula of public schools around the country. Educators following these curricula are said to be teaching students that racial disparities in socioeconomic outcomes are fundamentally the result of racism, and that white people are the privileged beneficiaries of a social system that oppresses blacks and other “people of color.” On gender, they are being taught that gender identity is a choice, regardless of biological sex. But are the cases Rufo and others point to representative of American public schools at large—or are they merely outliers amplified by right-wing media?

The response to these charges from many on the left has been to deny or downplay them. CRT, they contend, is a legal theory taught only in university law programs. Therefore, what conservatives are up in arms about is not the teaching of CRT, but the teaching of America’s uncomfortable racial history.

Whatever one thinks of these ideas, they are hardly “settled facts” on the same epistemic plane as heliocentrism, natural selection, or even climate change. To the contrary, they are a moral-ideological just-so theory of group differences, an all-encompassing worldview akin to a secular religion, whose claims can’t be measured, tested, or falsified. They treat an observed phenomenon (disparate group outcomes) as evidence of its cause (racism), while specifying causal mechanisms that are nebulous, if not magical. Their advocates have not refuted counterarguments; they’ve merely asserted empirically unverified statements about the nature of group differences.

Publicly funded schools that teach and pass off left-wing racial-ideological theories and concepts as if they are undisputed factual knowledge—or that impart tendentiously curated readings of history—are therefore engaging in indoctrination, not education. The question before us, then, is not whether or to what extent public schools are assigning the works of Richard Delgado, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and other critical race theorists. It is whether schools are uncritically promoting a left-wing racial ideology. 

To answer this and other related questions, we commissioned a study on a nationally representative sample of 1,505 18- to 20-year-old Americans—a demographic that has yet to graduate from, or only recently graduated from, high school. .... For the CRT-related concepts, 62 percent reported either being taught in class or hearing from an adult in school that “America is a systemically racist country,” 69 percent reported being taught or hearing that “white people have white privilege,” 57 percent reported being taught or hearing that “white people have unconscious biases that negatively affect non-white people,” and 67 percent reported being taught or hearing that “America is built on stolen land.” The shares giving either response with respect to gender-related concepts are slightly lower, but still a majority. Fifty-three percent report they were either taught in class or heard from an adult at school that “America is a patriarchal society,” and 51 percent report being taught or hearing that “gender is an identity choice” regardless of biological sex.

This briefly summarizes (only touches on) just three of the main issues that terrify, enrage and polarize the collective right and sets them in bitter opposition to Democrats, socialism-communism and liberalism generally. Other topics probably about as important in collective right messaging, and belief to many or most on the right, are downplay or denial of climate change, and opposition to gun safety law, abortion and government regulation of businesses. 

Qs: 

1. In view of the foregoing brief summaries, what is the greatest danger to (i) American democracy, (ii) civil liberties and the rule of law, and (iii) economic and environmental sustainability, the right, the left, about both equally, and/or something else?

2. Is this post TL/DR?