The right wing is smarter than the left right now, but don’t get all smug.
It’s easy to see. Hang out in both spaces and you’ll find plenty of dumbarsery across the political spectrum. Plenty of clever people, shallow arguments, tired memes and genuine attempts to fix the system.
But the typical right-wing discourse is much smarter, more informed, more practical and even more respectful. It’s not even close.
Most conservatives will jump to a favourable conclusion here. They’ll say that of course that’s the case – they aren’t confused about basic facts of economics and biology like those traitor commies are.
Sure.
But plenty of folks believe the right thing for bad reasoning. Heck, if your culture instils good values then this should be the default. You want folks to be courteous, plan for the future and work hard, even if they only do that because their fairy tales told them to.
Not everyone has the time to tease out morals and good lessons. And just look at academia – not all those with time and intellect will get the right answer.
My point is that even if the right-wing is objectively better than the left, always and in every case (questionable – there’s more to politics than a single spectrum) that doesn’t explain why smart people have gravitated to it recently.
There are a few factors at play.
One is that being right wing is countercultural. It cracks me up when the woke think they’re revolutionary. They only have all of entertainment, education, HR departments, bureaucrats and the legal system on their side. But opposing them is The Patriarchy – a mythical collection of vapour that does nothing, oppresses nothing and resists nothing.
Anyone willing and able to get every patriot fired, blacklisted and shunned is neither good nor oppressed.
The typical nationalist – and even centrist – can’t talk about politics at the office. They definitely couldn’t wear a red baseball cap. But left-endorsed symbols of genocide are A-OK.
That sort of environment weeds out most of the intellectually weak and lazy. It takes effort to go against the power.
But this won’t last forever. Everything runs in cycles. There’ll come a time when it’s mainstream to be a nationalist, just like how it’s mainstream to espouse woke talking points now.
When that happens, the mentally lazy will swing over with them.
Many of them will try to censor their political enemies.
Many of them will vomit up political opinions that manage to contradict themselves within a sentence.
All the I Support the Current Thingers will come knocking at conservatives’ doors once the rolls of history make right wing stances The Current Thing.
And folks who are conservatives now will defend these drooling idiots because they’re on the same team.
I’m not looking forward to that.
Maybe it’ll be good for society, but it’ll strangle the creative spark of the movement.
Anyway, I’m not sure it matters unless you tie yourself up with labels.
Go where Truth is treasured, topics get debated and nuance is explored. Then you’ll be immune to the swings of culture.
Anyway, none of that impacts your life. That’s all big picture and in the future.
Instead, here’s something real and for your present growth: