Eric Cantor was one of the "young guns" of the Republican Party until 2014, when he was suddenly deemed insufficiently conservative and lost to a fellow named Dave Brat in a primary challenge. Today, in the Washington Post, Cantor warns that Republicans are in trouble because they aren't willing to tell their constituents the truth. But it doesn't have to be this way:
If the majority of Republican elected officials work together to confront the false narratives in our body politic — that the election was stolen (it wasn’t), that there is a QAnon-style conspiracy to uproot pedophiles at the heart of American government (there isn’t), that a Democratic-controlled government means the end of America (it doesn’t; it may produce worse policy, but the republic has survived 88 years of Democrats occupying the White House) — all Republicans will be better off. If instead most elected Republicans decide to protect themselves against a primary challenge through their silence or even their affirmation, then like the two prisoners acting only in their own interests, we will all be worse off. (The same holds true for Democrats.)
Cantor is right: there is a widespread belief among rank-and-file Republicans that Democrats are deliberately trying to ruin the country because they hate America. This needs to stop if our political system is to have any chance of thriving.
Of course, Cantor doesn't mention why so many Republicans believe this. Maybe he still has too many friends who like to appear on Fox News.
I got lost at the end, there, with the "same holds true for Democrats" bit.
What is the Democratic version of QAnon, supposedly? That a shocking number of Republicans believe in QAnon?
Yeah. Progressives always do. As with the right, the left has an inability to see anything crazy in the things they believe. Like the vast Big Pharma conspiracy to poison us with vaccines. Or the notion of microaggressions, that everyone needs to be insulated from everything that might offend them. That is an idea that leads to cancel culture. The right has taken that idea and run with it but that does not mean it does not exist. There is a strong anti-liberal tendency on the left to not just disagree with someone but to shut them down and then prance and crow about it. I'm a college prof. This sort of thing is endemic at colleges. It evinces a level of intolerance and hatred that is indistinguishable from what you find on Fox.
How about voter fraud? 36% of Democrats believed Bush committed fraud in 2004 compared to 37% of Republicans who believe Obama did it in 2008. Republicans are just as likely to believe Obama was born in Africa as Democrats are to believe 9/11 was an inside job.
Is climate science unappealing to conservatives? So are genetic modification and nuclear power for liberals. BTW, in the remote chance we do address climate change, nuclear will be part of it. Conspiracy theories? How about the 52% of Democrats who believe Big Oil is conspiring to destroy the world for money?
Being progressive or conservative influences not only which conspiracy theories you see but also which ones you don't see as you are in the midst of them. Progressives reject science as much as conservatives, just regarding different things. I say this as someone who has been a scientist for 30 years.
It is possible to be either progressive or conservative and be a liberal. All you need to believe in is free speech for everyone (so no safe spaces or cancel culture), that people who disagree with you are not trying to destroy America, that living in a complex multicultural society necessarily involves getting some of what you want but not all of it, not right away, that divergent viewpoints should be tolerated and reasoned with, not treated as the spawn of Satan.