Right-wing: why do you think left-wing people think as they do? Left-wing: why do you think right-wing people think as they do?

[Anonymous]

[sawno]

I think its pretty evident why left wing people think the way they do. They are told to, its enforced by all mainstream sources. Its people who were thought that world view from a young age, and who generally have a high trust for authority.

May sound very odd since its the same people "protesting authority" and stuff, but ultimately they tend to agree with what is in the mainstream news and "what the experts say". They are in power as far as narratives go after all, so its very easy for them to find proof of their claims since that proof even if its false proof will be front and center and easy to find. They were given all the material on why discrimination (which they call equity) and socialism are a good thing and just never really deviated from it. Why listen to right wingers? They are dumb and ignorant after all, what matters is the people who went to university and actually thought how to analyze and think critically because those are the ones making the difference!

Meanwhile right wing people came into contact with conflicting information they did not dismiss. They tend to be a "Whatever argument holds up" kind of people. So you can have an obscure source, if the obscure source debunks the mainstream narrative and the mainstream narrative has no answer to the obscure source then they will take the obscure source over the mainstream one until proven otherwise. And once you see one thing doesn't line up and one side saying the truth about those things and coming up with solutions for those things, your going to be more likely to believe what that side has to say.

So I ultimately see it as do you trust authority or do you follow logic no matter what the source is? Left wingers trusting authority will cite a prominent study, a right winger will cite the pre-print that properly debunks it all but out of sheer convenience wasn't reviewed yet until years after that mattered.

So if you want to convince a right winger you simply present them evidence counter to their source. But this will be difficult for you since chances are that they have already seen what you present and deemed it not credible, or already encountered a source that debunks your material that you try to debunk them with. Because what right wingers like to do is watch critique of mainstream narratives. So they are very familiar with the mainstream stuff they simply already heard why its false.

Convincing someone on the left I actually have no clue about. They aren't open to arguments a lot of the time because the arguments don't come from a source they consider authoritative. They will just debunk whatever you say with a source that is mainstream simply because "the experts" agree with their view. There's no winning against that because we aren't in control of those "experts". Even if the majority of experts doesn't actually agree, if the media can present it as if they do and cherry pick / promote the convenient sources higher in search engines then its easy to create the illusion of consensus.

[goaded]

By coincidence, I just came across these articles. There's more to ithem, but I'll cut to the chase:

"Understanding the wild oscillations of MAGA dogma only makes sense when you understand the Republicans mythos being served by those lies: a mythos that long pre-dates the rise of Trump.

And it's really pretty simple. As simple as the earliest Westerns. Their world is a world of Black Hats and White Hats. They -- white Conservative Christian nationalists and their fellow travelers-- are the White Hats and pretty much everyone else are the Black Hats.

They're the real Americas. They are "righteous" in the original meaning of that word: just, upright, and in accord with divine law. And since, to MAGA, this is all self-evident -- that they and only they are properly aligned with God's moral order -- then it follows that whatever they feel to be true and good must be true and good.

Instead of "Cogito ergo sum" -- "I think therefore I am" -- the MAGA way is (pardon the rough Latin translation) "Sentio ergo est" -- "I feel therefore it is".

It's a pre-Enlightenment way of thinking, where faith doesn't merely beat facts all day long, but facts that conflict with the One True Faith are the darkest heresy. Something to be rooted out and destroyed.

For decades Conservative media and Republican politicians have been making fortunes and winning elections reinforcing this mythos by feeding the base an endless supply of Black Hats to hate and vote against. Liberals. Mouthy women. Brown people who don't know their place. Urbanites. The gays. Immigrants. Unions. Trans people. Pointy-headed intellectuals. Government employees. Hollywood. "Rootless cosmopolitans". Socialists. You know the drill. "

https://driftglass.blogspot.com/2026/01/maga-is-genre.html

"“You are away from home, separated from your families, no longer at a civilian job or at school and many of you are risking your very lives,” the pamphlet explained, “because of a thing called fascism.” But, the publication asked, what is fascism? “Fascism is not the easiest thing to identify and analyze,” it said, “nor, once in power, is it easy to destroy. It is important for our future and that of the world that as many of us as possible understand the causes and practices of fascism, in order to combat it.”

Fascism, the U. S. government document explained, “is government by the few and for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state.” “The people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people.”

“The basic principles of democracy stand in the way of their desires; hence—democracy must go! Anyone who is not a member of their inner gang has to do what he’s told. They permit no civil liberties, no equality before the law.” “Fascism treats women as mere breeders. ‘Children, kitchen, and the church,’ was the Nazi slogan for women,” the [March 24, 1945] pamphlet said.

Fascists “make their own rules and change them when they choose…. They maintain themselves in power by use of force combined with propaganda based on primitive ideas of ‘blood’ and ‘race,’ by skillful manipulation of fear and hate, and by false promise of security. The propaganda glorifies war and insists it is smart and ‘realistic’ to be pitiless and violent.”"

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-9-2026

The parallels to today are almost endless.

[Kaneki05]

Hmm some are just assholes who have idealism about us going into the past because they think the world was better ruled by fascist dogma and white picked fences ignoring the harm it caused.
The other is those who've been pushed to be conservative because there is lefts without any rational and think somehow they're living in a dictatorship in one of the most free countries on earth. And they act like Karens when something that has nothing to do with them happens.
I am very far left but my views sound conservative half the time because I point out that other lefts are being crazy like with the whole caring about George a known criminal who threatened a pregnant woman with a gun and took drugs while driving dying... which makes me understand why their is more independents or those who've lent into conservative.

[Dargil]

Right wing people think the way that they do because they are Right. When you remove all the labels that left has thrown at them, You will find that there's not much to complain about. Somebody came up with the absurd idea that leftists and rightists switched ideologies years ago. That is nonsense. Rank winners have never had slaves. Never created concentration camps. And never killed the population. Left wingers have done all of that. And make no mistake about it. The Nazis were left wing, not right wing.

[DonaldDarko]

Part of it is apparently due to leftists being less able to sense when something is disgusting. They don't register disgust as much. Being dirty or stinking or being around disgusting behavior that would repel others won't affect them. Basically it's like if you were hanging out with someone who had lost his sense of smell and came across a vile animal carcass that was making you retch and he's picking it up and looking at it, handling it. He can't smell a thing. That's how you get gay this and trans that and "minor attracted persons". They can't feel a thing about these people's behavior.

[unending]

Left wing people do not think. They are collectivist. They follow orders from dictators. Hive mind narratives and brainwashing drive their decision making processes. Their leadership exploit their insecurities and low intelligence to emotionally manipulate them via propaganda. I'm an independent. Left wing collectivism is very dangerous for humanity. There are more thought processes occurring in right wing circles and varying levels of intelligence and emotional reactions. There is broader debate within their circles. Some get manipulated by psyops, others are stronger critical thinkers. Overall the right wing doesn't have a unified thought process.

[sawno]

And the fun part is none of us agree which the psyops even are, but that's actually a good filter. It encourages debate and fact checking.

[unending]

@sawno Individualism tends to drive debate and competition in general.

[sawno]

Yup, its a great safe guard. When its individual ideas and the ones that work survive its a much better way to make a society thrive. If its top down it only takes one mistake to cause massive damage for everyone.

[FunkyMonkee]

The problem is, the left CAN'T think!! You've heard of people that are hard of hearing? Well, the left are hard of thinking and only do or think what others of their ilk tell them to do or think. They don't understand facts, at all!! They're so thick that, once they get their programming, they refuse to budge!! Stubborn as a mule!!

[Anonymous]

It's various things for various people, but some of the more notable things is that they're more emotional than logical (which is not always a bad thing, I don't necessarily mean that derisively). I also think that a large portion of them are easily moved by things that sound nice at first glance but have issues upon further inspection. Kind of like they fall for a pretty lie rather than the ugly truth.

[beefcakebradybatson]

Righties are largely dull-normal, fugly, racists, homophobes, misogynists, xenophobes who lack compassion for those unlike them.

[blackeagle007]

Righties aren’t right in the skull

[Pterodon]

Because they’re brain damaged

[noohair]

I pity the fool.