(This post is part of a series, links to the rest of which are on the right side of the web page, about this web site's use of the categories "Left" and "Right," as distinct from "Loony Left" and "Rabid Right." Rightists...)
* Came from good families and tend to believe that all families are basically good, that even dysfunctional families are better environments for children than anything government could do.
* Feel satisfied with traditional religious identities, affiliations, or practices.
* Don't want their freedom to be based on the denial of anyone else's freedom, or their wealth to be based on less than fair and honest trade with other people, and vigorously resist any claim that it does, even when...to some extent...some of it...well...sort of does. (If they agreed that factual evidence supported the claim that modern Britain still had any wealth stolen from India, rather than having lost it all in the struggle to save the world from the more racist and oppressive Third Reich, they'd feel that reparations were owed. But they don't agree that modern Britain has such wealth, and they think it's petty and mean to doubt that Britain has been more than fair in inviting people from ex-colonial countries to live in Britain and be British.)
* As a result of this sense of justice, are disproportionately delighted by the fact that Indigenous American groups that have received less federal handout money tend to be better off economically than groups that have received more.
* Do not hate any particular ethnic group, (It's not that White or Black Rs hate the other color group, believe that they personally ever could participate in the oppression of the other group, or would want to oppress any group if they could; it's that, in the absence of the rituals of tokenism that both Black and White Rs despise, they expect hostility from the other side of the color war and don't know how to make friends on the other side. They want to have friends on the other side. They kvell over any evidence of friendliness, neighborliness, or even individual pity--as for a disability--from people by whom they expect to be hated. I have seen older Rs, male and female, shed tears when people in what they used to believe were hostile groups have claimed them as friends.)
* May, if they grew up long enough ago, harbor strange, quaint ideas about groups different from them. And probably will say things that gravel the souls of their first few friends in those groups. But are deeply hurt, and vehemently enraged, by having this ignorance confused with what they remember of real racism.
* Actively try to show good will toward people from different demographic groups--while remaining wary of tokenism, which they know their counterparts in those groups loathe. (Through several presidential elections now, Rs have nominated candidates from ethnic minority groups, and a similar pattern has been observed: Most Rs were interested in the minority-type candidates but, after reading more of those candidates' stated positions and watching them in intra-party debates, decided to back rich White men anyway, citing pragmatic reasons such as concern that the richest White men, e.g. W Bush or Donald Trump, would sabotage the candidates they might have found more likable.)
* Probably live in homogeneous neighborhoods and attend homogeneous churches. However, if their churches are part of worldwide denominations, they welcome foreign members, and if they happen to take jobs or go to school in big cosmopolitan cities, then their circles of friends may be as diverse as other Rs wish their circles of friends were.
* Usually--pace Pat Buchanan--think a little cultural appropriation is an excellent thing, a way to open the door to inter-group friendship. ("A little" remains a keyword. They do have their own traditions to preserve. John Verney's satire of a frivolous teenager expressing interest in Italy in terms of shoes and spaghetti, though British, was accurate for some Rs--but, like Verney's teenaged character, most of those Rs have lived and learned.)
* Had grandparents or great-grandparents who were taught to hate or at least fear some group or other, as enemies during a war or disease carriers during the plague years. (Hello? Unless they were Black Americans, that would have happened before 1945. How many of that generation are still alive?)
* Were taught, in their traditional religious groups, not to hate demographic groups.
* Prefer peace to war, but prefer not to mention this at times when it might be construed as showing a lack of Support for Our Troops. Believe that failure to Support Our Troops is treason.
* Aren't going to flip the beliefs they learned early in life. If loving our flag and our Declaration of Independence was good in 1976, it'd be best to forget about trying to rebrand patriotism as a bad thing or market any "Declaration of Interdependence" now...even if there were any objective evidence of any good reason to make such efforts.
* Basically tend to feel that civilization reached perfection in the United States in 1950. Acknowledge the necessity of some changes, e.g. that President Eisenhower had to retire, and didn't notice that the presidential administrations they liked, e.g. Reagan's or Trump's, enabled other changes some of which were undesirable. Can be reminded that the world depicted on old TV sitcoms was always fictive and that many things needed changing in 1950, but even after being reminded, they still feel, deep down, that everything was better in 1950.
* Have always tended to agree with "progressive" socialists that changing some things would be progress in the right direction, then withdraw support for what merely represents "progress" toward socialism. (Women needed and deserved equal employment opportunities, equal pay...and men deserved equal rights, along with women, to pursue more "liberating" self-employment, or work in smaller businesses, rather than indenture themselves to huge corporations, including federal or even state-level government.)
* Take the benefits of living in a democratic republic for granted. (The Tea Party movement lost momentum when people realized that it was going to call for radical efforts, such as, well, spending our online time following the state legislature rather than friends' blogs and football scores.) Resist awareness that opposition to political movements that are organized into actual jobs may take some thought and effort too.
* Often aren't very active or demonstrative in support of their churches or charities, either.
* Support a strong military presence, not because if we must fight wars we should give our troops as much protection as possible, but because they seriously believe fighting wars solves problems.
* Seriously imagine that if women aren't able to have abortions either those women or someone else will want and love their babies, who will be born healthy and brought up happy, and everyone will live happily ever after.
* May believe that verbal abuse is part of healthy relationships among people who never seriously question their value to the family, the social group, or society as a whole. Thus ethnic slurs, or even references to physical quirks or disabilities, can become nicknames people use with pride. (Mary Daly, who was not on the right wing, was referring back to her traditional-Catholic-Irish-American roots when she wrote that "[the sentence] 'She is a Revolting Hag' would never be mistaken for 'She is a revolting hag'.")
* May have grown up with other cultural traditions that are dysfunctional; feel defensive about these dysfunctions and don't want to reexamine or discuss them. For example, if they didn't grow up with a strong extended family in a neighborhood with a solid sense of community, they may tend to underestimate the benefits of those things.
* Are well off but not super-rich. Appreciate the value of money. Understand that respect for private property is the foundation of civilization.
* Know what it means that our Constitution describes us as a Sovereign Union of Sovereign States and that three of those "States" actually call themselves "Commonwealths," but soft-focus on these things and don't insist on maintaining the sovereignty of the States and Commonwealths or the difference between them.
* Admirably recognize gender and ethnicity as necessities not virtues. May underestimate the value of women's and minorities' struggle to overcome bigotry. May give too much weight to men's ego defenses and pay serious attention to claims such as "women commit just as much domestic violence against husbands as men do against wives."
* May be in denial about the effects of overpopulation and overcrowding on humans.
* May be in denial about the root cause of overpopulation and the only reliable, ethical method of preventing it.
* May actually have pulled themselves up by their own proverbial bootstraps, at some time in their lives, and consequently fail to realize that big strong central governments have deprived other people not only of proverbial bootstraps but of proverbial boots. Grossly underestimate the harm welfarism does to communities and individuals.
* Believe in being prepared for self-defense. Typically own a few firearms and shoot for sport once or twice a year, which may mean the weapons in their collections are cleaned, loaded, and used once in a decade or less often. Think the idea that having firearms predisposes people to use them violently is laughable, because nobody they know well has ever had Prozac Dementia.
* May believe that things themselves, rather than individual reactions to those things, "are safe." If it's safe for me to shoot, drive a car, drink alcohol, pop Prozac, or work on roofs, it's safe for anyone else to do those things. This can be a fatal mistake.
* Probably let themselves be peer-pressured into adopting the belief that nobody has time to walk to work, school, shops, church, or social events, and that people who walk to these places do so because there's something wrong with them that prevents them being able to drive to these places. Distrust the idea that it's healthy to walk, or harmful to form a habit of driving short distances, because they've heard things like that coming out of the mouths of Lefties. Are shocked, sometimes into uncharacteristic rudeness, when they hear a "conservative" argument that it's liberating to be able to walk...here I stand to testify!
* Fully sympathize with real women's demand for self-employment that permits quality time with their babies. Not necessarily so sympathetic when men want the same thing. Wouldn't have questioned my Dad's machismo when he was saying he wanted it, but might now question the machismo of young men who want it today. (Nature did not intend that all of us would be big strong polio survivors. Short White guys can be Real Men too.)
* May believe that forcing people to "compete" and "meet challenges" to get the jobs they want is good for the people, the jobs, or society.
* Grew up with the belief that it's built into the teachings of the major religions that we should respect each other's right to practice our religions. May have attended some of the more public celebrations of religions other than their own. May earnestly believe that, if you were brought up to be something other than a Christian, then Jesus wants you--and they want you--to be a good, faithful whatever-else-you-are, at least until you receive a religious "vision" or "guidance" showing you a way to accept Jesus as your personal Savior while continuing to be a faithful whatever-else-you-are. (This is why they feel so indignant when anyone suggests suppressing any traditional expression of their beliefs in the name of tolerance of others. The followers of other religions they know are comfortable with the same system of etiquette they are comfortable with.)
* Expect people to be adults and settle their differences like adults. Don't think the United States should be responsible for intervening in other people's disputes.
* Believe that, if one does start fighting, one has to win. (We didn't withdraw from Vietnam "in peace with honor," in this way of thinking; we lost. So, well, we'd jolly well better not lose in any subsequent wars...which is why the prospect of our getting into a conflict with any nuclear-armed nation is so ghastly.)
May not question, review, or update their beliefs every fifty years, but they're easy people to like, certainly not violent or hostile or even prejudiced in the way Ds like to think.
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