This is the end of the series about the way this web site uses the terms "Right" and "Left," as opposed to "Rabid Right" and "Loony Left." Right-wing extremists are rare, but people do keep reporting evidence that they exist. They...
* Really do not like or trust any foreigners at all. Accept the benefits of peace but think we might be better off to build an empire.
* Often don't like or trust other parts of the United States either. Stereotype States to their North, South, East, and West with reckless abandon. May seriously think secession, or dividing the Union in some other way, would be a good idea.
* While it's easy to exploit racism, it's not so easy to practice it. Even Hitler found it necessary to enter into alliances with people who, urgh ick, were not German. Rabid Right people might spout hate of some demographic group or other while having active and prominent members in their own groups who have come out of the group their group supposedly hate. This type of person, typically a young man, is thinking clearly about what he feels--hostile energy--and what he wants--a good rumble, "good" being defined as one he or his gang will win. He is not so clear about whom he wants to fight with and why. He may form a pattern/habit of picking fights with other young men in town, in the expectation that the young women they date will talk them out of fighting before they actually come to blows.
* If not physically predisposed to brawl, may find other ways to cling to race prejudice, even though racism is hard to practice in real life because it is unrealistic. What they really feel is infantile fear of strangers. They cope by telling themselves that people who look or talk like them in some way are part of their "family" category of people, often a dangerous mistake, and people who don't are the ones they can safely fear and reject, often an expensive mistake.
* Deep fear of other people, in adults, comes from distrust of oneself. People who are not afraid of strangers don't believe that everyone is a friend, but do believe that they'll be able to take care of themselves if they find themselves talking to, working with, car-pooling with, or even living with people who prove to be enemies. People who are afraid of strangers sense that they don't have any skills for coping with other people's undesirable behavior except hitting, kicking, and biting, all of which are likely to lead to fights they are likely not to win. This makes Rabid Right "racists" very undesirable as neighbors even for members of their own official "race" group.
* Deeply dislike, distrust, and fear the effects of overpopulation but, due to their twisted thinking about people inside versus people outside whatever groups they may identify with, may cling to the idea that their having more children will give them more allies in the constant struggle against other people. Worry a great deal, if White, about the trend for White people to be leading the world away from the dysfunctional old idea of having multiple children.
* Believe things they've heard from Old Left propaganda--e.g. that all Black Americans are poor and this poverty is what makes them violent--and react to those things in the way the propagandists didn't want--e.g. believing that all Black Americans are violent and need to be cowed by displays of superior force.
* Once led into that critical mistake of thinking that life's conflicts consist of "my group against other groups" instead of "my ability to defend myself against harm," may fall for any number of additional fallacies, though these vary from year to year and not all of them are likely to be present in the same individual. Take war propaganda and campaign rhetoric literally. Believe that
** All men are violent bullies who believe might is always right and brawling is the ultimate solution to everything.
** Women (or women other than the Rabid Righty's mother, sisters, and/or daughters) are good for only one thing and should not be really trusted even in regard to that.
** The old take away more than they give to the young.
** Today's young are more clueless than today's adults were at their age. (This is possible?)
** One's own religious beliefs are altogether true and divinely guided, and all other religious beliefs are false insofar as they differ from one's own and of satanic origin, and therefore people of other faith can be considered decent human beings only after they convert to one's own school of thought.
** Alternatively, in some religious beliefs, people of other faith can't convert to the One True Faith because it consists partly of physical descent from the right ancestor, and there are no good people outside the tribe. Or, as in medieval Jewish writings, there are exactly 36 righteous Gentiles scattered around the world.
(This kind of beliefs usually come in matched sets for back-and-forth hostile exchange.)
* So, favor censorship as long as it's "our" kind of censorship. Ignore the probability that "our" kind of censorship will be taken over and used against "us" by "them."
* Favor technological espionage and "social credit" systems, on the same reasoning, or lack of reasoning.
* Believe nothing can be learned from history and we're all doomed to repeat it endlessly in any case.
* Seriously believe that the world, or at least some part of it, was a better place when women weren't hired for most full-time jobs and "racial" groups were segregated. There is usually something in the way of a base for these beliefs; some South Africans can make a plausible case that some ethnic groups in that country have reacted badly to the official policy that grants them equal civil rights, some people feel very bitter about their early family lives, etc.
* Claim to revere the Bible or whatever portion of it their religious group accept as valid, but do not study it in depth. Want to believe that everything in the Bible boils down to whatever subset of simple rules and doctrines the individual was taught as a child. Never take a bite of the "strong meat" of biblical teaching for adults.
* Probably don't believe that ethnic groups recognized today can be traced to those mentioned in the Bible but, if they do, hold rigid and judgmental beliefs about those groups. Memorable barbs aimed at the policies some groups or leaders were taking, by contemporary preachers, must be accurate descriptions of the way every member of those groups will always be. (People who think this way try to ignore the implication that even the apostolic Christians of pure Jewish descent were "children of Hell.")
* Distrust radical, "fanatical" followers of their own religious traditions and may persecute them as viciously as some Jews did Jesus or some Christians did Luther. (Deep down they do feel called to follow the same radical practices these reformers do, even if it is true that, as with Ann Lee and lifelong celibacy, it's feasible for only some people to be called to practice certain disciplines. But liberal believers who simply don't feel called to lives of celibacy, or communalism, or evangelism, don't feel a need to throw stones at those who heed such calls. The haters who do throw things at the radical believers are really fighting against a feeling of inferiority because they either have not had such callings or have rejected the callings they had.)
* Really yearn, because of their fundamental inability to rely on themselves, to follow a leader who they expect will be able to make everything better. (No matter how blatantly flawed a man may be, if he gets into a leadership position and is then able to use the talent and experience he has to make some improvement in the organization or the nation, these people want to believe that just keeping him as a leader will make everything better. Thus the widespread support for Trump in 2024, ignoring the fact that Trump's age was already working against him in 2020 and the probability that he'll be physically unfit for the presidency by 2024, as well as the number of things he did that were unwelcomed even by Republicans and were counterproductive for the nation. Trump briefly reversed two major D policy mistakes, therefore Trump must be the savior of the nation.)
* While only a few can fairly be called neo-Nazis (radical rebels in the U.S. who believe that even the German Nazional-Sozialist party at least corrected some Marxist Communist mistakes), this kind of Rabid Right thinking is compatible with other versions of fascism. The American Rabid Right can usually see clearly where Hitler, Mussolini, and Saddam went wrong but they may think that Francisco Franco's approach to government has possibilities.
* And it does not go by ethnicity alone, but these people are substantially more likely to have German or Slavic rather than English or Celtic names; the Rabid Right don't come from old established families, or have much appeal for those who do. They tend to be closer to Eastern Europe, where feudalism led directly into socialism without people having had the benefit of a better political philosophy. One can see how that would tend to make fascism look good, or less bad.
One more...
* Are subject to parody by moderate Rightists who don't take the Rabid Right seriously. Thus, after certain memorable outbursts of political hate from the Left, bloggers who had previously identified as centrists or moderate Rightists started adopting screen surnames like "Deplorable," "Ultra MAGA," "Terrorist Domestique," "Pirate," and "Refusenik" (that one was in regard to coronavirus vaccines). So far as I've been able to determine by following them on Twitter and at forum sites, most of these people are retirees whose online activity is more social than political.
The Rabid Right are so incompatible with the socially liberal, libertarian, individualist thinking found at this web site that we tend to forget that they exist. They are a small minority not represented in our part of the world. They are human beings too, and deserve to be loved and educated...but other people are more likely to be able to love and educate them than we are. I usually write to Righties because that's the largest recognizable category of this web site's readers, but I wouldn't know what to say to the Rabid Right--if they'd even listen to a biracial woman, which I doubt.
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