But they don't know it.
They hate the idea of a company deciding to not publish a book because that book doesn't sell and hurts their brand image
They hate the idea of a company requiring their employees to be vaccinated even though they also hate unions and are in favor of "At-Will Employment" laws which basically allow companies to hire and fire for any reason.
They hate that small towns are being de-populated because their children have realized that the best way to get a decent job is to go to the cities.
They hate the fact that small/ local businesses are being swallowed up by huge corporations.
They hate the fact that people are choosing to have kids later and later in life because of how expensive it is to live.
The American social conservatives actually hate capitalism more than almost any other large demographic in America, but because they don't have material analysis, they don't realize that Capitalism either creates or directly contributes to many of the aspects of American life which they despise.
So how do we harness the “capitalism failed” energy, and steer them away from fascism?
Probably we can't tbh. Half of their objections are basically insane shit. They're basically mad that the current free market encourages companies to pretend to be anti racist, and that the law of capitalist nations allows companies to tell people to wear a mask, and allows for women to get abortions.
We're not going to get them on our side by saying "capitalism is the problem" because once they realize that, fascism will be the obvious solution, not socialism; which will be actually anti racist and will still tell them to wear a mask and allow women to get abortions.
It's not like those racist dr Seuss books will be in every school after the socialist revolution
Thats all conservatives: Americans all think capitalism just means: markets + low taxes even though it has very little to do with either
You're right, but don't downplay the brainwashing they've suffered to hate the words socialist and communist, as well as about the poor and immigrants as the source of their complaints.
That's a big thing to overcome if that's the plan. It's generations of brainwashing.
i'm gonna ramble all stream of consciousness and probably say wrong things but I think about this a lot
Saying they hate capitalism isn't fully correct. They hate many of the effects of capitalism, but what they like is national, small town industrial capitalism as opposed to international, finance capitalism. They like capitalism until the illusion of constant upward mobility and bootstrap small business fades. They like it until there's a wider society that can make demands out of entrenched cultural institutions. They like the type of capitalism that existed in the US until the 1880s or so, where if you were a white person struggling in a large city but had enough gumption and knowhow, you could move out west, kick some natives off their land, start a tannery, and soon enough have your own plot of land and no one to tell you how to live. Maybe even start a town and name it after yourself. Who cares. Do as you please, since America belongs to you and you're blessed by the lord.
What they hate is that was a temporary state of affairs and capitalism eventually washes away the illusions of agency that 19th century white small business owners felt. Eventually your isolated towns have to form supply chains with the outside world. Eventually you'll be doing business with other nations. You can't hide forever. Those sinking rates of profit demand that you continue to connect into all available outlets for cash. Eventually you'll realize your stupid small business simply can't compete with the huge corporations and you'll declare this unfair. What happened to my god given rights as an American? Why does the federal government give them special treatment and not me?
Then they have to come up with completely wrong answers to fill that void, since they can't blame the very thing they're standing on. It's not capital and markets, no, it's capital and markets being used incorrectly by the bad people who cater to foreigners and the lazy.
yeah I guess that summarizes it
conservatives are the cultural flotsam of the material interests of the petty and national bourgeoisie who have misidentified the source of their rapidly shrinking influence and profit, or they've properly identified it and are effective con artists, or they're both
Right. I think this is basically in line with what I'm getting at. They hate many of the inevitable effects of capitalism. Of course, none of them realize that these are effects of capitalism. They want to go back to some prior state of affairs (that's the essence of MAGA, let's try to go back in time to an imagined idealized past), but capitalism doesn't work that way. Its inhernelt unstable, dynamic. constantly changing in response to material circumstances. There's no going backward. That's part of the deal with capitalism.
Lmao as someone who grew up in a super conservative environment this could not be farther from the truth
I grew up in a rural county with apopulation of less than 15 thousand that voted ~75% Trump in the 2020 election.
I have lived most of my life there, literally surrounded with social conservatives on all sides. We were a household that had fox news and rush Limbaugh on literally every day.
My observations here are based upon conversations with family and other people I know from there.
How are these people employed? What is their class background? Are any of them Black or non-white in general?
Basically no one is non white. My home town is like, I dunno, 90% white or more. It was even more white when I was growing up. I think I was like 6 or so the first time I saw an asian person lol
In terms of social class, I dont really see a lot of differences in social attitudes across classes. I mean I dont have polling data in front of me, but like, I'm trying to think of people I've known. Even walmart workers regurgitate capitalist propaganda, (I'm thinking of a specific man I know, a white baby boomer Walmart workerwho was once ranting to me about how socialized medicine would destroy America)
I'm thinking of specific individuals I know who are farmers, mechanics, land lords, electricians, hair dressers, small business owners, nurses, cops. The opinions dont really range that far.
Idk, like I can only go off anecdotal data. But like I said, it was like 75% trump voters, but I'm not even talking about like, voting behavior, because a lot of these people dont even vote, but like, they still have socially conservative outlooks. They go to church and they take that kind of stuff seriously. They dont like abortion, they dont like gay marriage, they think sex before marriage is sin, etc. This applies even to the dudes who say things like "I dont vote because both parties are the same: filled with corrupted politicians" and so on." Those dudes still tend to be fairly conservative in their outlook.
Yeah, they hate the taxes on their jet ski dealership and the fact they have to pay their employees minimum wage and offer them healthcare. This dumb ass romantic notion of the "American Conservative" as some rustic former coal miner or factory worker is stupid.
What I'm saying here is not at all a "romantic notion" I grew up in rural trump country. I know exactly how they think and what they believe because I heard it every day for the first 20 years of my life, and I still hear it every time I go back home to visit them and I see it when I open up Facebook.
The "conservatives" I know all live in McMansions in the suburbs and worship people like Joel Osteen.
Those people are real and they do form the back bone of the GOP, but let's be real, it doesnt describe all conservatives. Trump got millions of votes from low income, rural counties also, and the rural white working class conservative is not a fictional character.
I feel like the people you are describing - the ones who are not materially well off - tend to fall into two categories:
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Folks who may dislike the things you describe but are too exhausted to care about it and feel like nothing can be done about it anyway.
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Folks who "hate capitalism" and what you describe, but those concerns are way down on the list of things they care about. They care way more about cultural war bullshit (itself usually a proxy war for things like white supremacy).
Personally, I think working class folks with some conservative leanings but have largely given up and checked out (basically that first group) are actually "reachable" for us. That second group... not so much or at least not to the point where we should put our energy in to winning them over. I'd argue working class liberals (and yes, despite what Amber says not all liberals make six figures as psychotherapists or environmental lawyers or whatever) are more reachable than they are.
Edit: oh and I left out that I'm a big fan of Settlers and I think that book has a lot to say about this. Basically white folks lack class consciousness because they have always been granted special status by the capitalists - they have been given special favor in exchange for helping prop up capitalism.
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this is why I call myself a conservative communist. it confuses their lizard brain. "wha? good thing AND bad thing?"
