some philosophy behind the current political situation
Okay this might be everywhere, a universal human cognitive bias, but I tend to associate it with us southerners, because this was very much how I grew up. I can talk about how I broke out of this later.
Anyway, we perceive being accused of error as a deeply personal attack. We have to double down; what we believe has to be objectively good, what we oppose has to be objectively bad. We want what we want, like everyone else, but we have to back it up (and double down).
The worldview ties into how if someone's bad then they can be harmed so say, you don't go to jail or have an abortion because you made a mistake at some point, you're straight up A BAD PERSON. The only way you can turn it around is by doing something officially recognizable as good, like coming to Jesus or joining the military.
I feel like this ties into the faith vs works nature of Christianity, too you don't need to *act* any particular way, but you do need to really lean into your religion. It has to be the greatest good, otherwise you wouldn't be practicing it, would you?
Because all of this is really rooted in being right at all costs there just doesn't have to be any consistency. The consistency is that you're right, because you're good.
This embraces a lot of dogmatism - would fighting the ACW for States' Rights or only two genders determined by external genitals be something you were taught, if it had been wrong?
Like, say, the officially good party supports Trump and he's prosperous as well as saying the right things, so he's gotta be the good guy, right, despite being theoretically everything a (actual or perceived) working class southerner HATES. It's just great that the Supreme Court, packed by judges whose only qualifications were being right wingers, isn't consistent about investigating Clarence Thomas vs THE HORRIBLE LEAK. The Constitution is good, example gun ownership and so clearly the Republicans support the Constitution which is practically holy writ, they say so right?
Etc etc, you see where I'm goin' with this?
re: some philosophy behind the current political situation
oh hey; this also explains some of the utter horror at things a lot of left-leaning types take for granted
Like you can't just say, oh hey I was born with a penis and testes, but I'm pretty sure I'm a girl (or sometimes I'm more of a girl, sometimes I'm more of a boy) and hey this doesn't really change your world at all - I gotta back that up. A Mr. Rogers type of worldview, where you're valid simply because you're around, is utterly antithetical to this. The idea that someone might study rainforest ecology or Chinese literature because it's cool and fun is utterly horrifying. The idea that you might make non-realistic art because that makes you happy rather than it's OBJECTIVELY GOOD ART, is utterly horrific.
Am I making any sense in explaining this?
re: some philosophy behind the current political situation
@Leucrotta You are making sense, but I'm much less willing to chalk it up to some kind of universal human factor. It seems more likely to me that it's something that has spread through the population from a single source. What that source might be is beyond me, though my initial sense is to investigate the more toxic branches of Christianity and their roots due to how prevalent that behavior is in spaces where that mindset is dominant.