We all know they are kinda racist. Deeply so in many cases.
But last time I was high, turned off the higher functioning parts of my brain I had a deep revelation about their views.
They think that minority XYZ suffers from worse outcomes because they are inferior.
Duh, you might say. They are bigoted, they are racist. But you aren't really thinking yet. They literally are unable to come to any other conclusion. It's not that they don't see the same world as we do, that they don't see the same data. Many of us try to convince them by explaining to them how certain biases lead to certain outcomes.
But the conservative brain is literally unable to do that. So go on a journey into the conservative mind with me. Turn off your higher thinking skills.
Imagine a world where your success truly boils down to how hard you apply yourself. Where the only thing that stands between you and success isn't luck, or the generational wealth of your parents. Just about the effort you put in. In this world the only difference between you, and the person next to you are the genes you inherited. You are able to get better grades in school? Must be your superior genes. You manage to have a better work ethic/be less prone to burnout? It must be your genes, because you believe everything else to be fair!
So if you notice group XYZ doing worse than the average, what is the only explaination left in a fair and equal world? It must be something genetic, because if it was sheef luck, it would average out. Everybody is treated fairly and is only judged by their merit. So if minority XYZ does worse it must be because there is something inherently wrong with them. And what encapsulates that better genetics?
Eugenics is not a bug in the liberal/conservative mind. It is a feature. It is an inevitable position if your assumptions are that the success of an individual person overwhelming rests on the qualities of that individual, of the work they put in.
I'm not making excuses for them, quite the opposite. I'm pointing out that they are not just believing terrible things, I'm pointing out that those terrible things are perfectly reasonable conclusion in their framework of understanding the world. Their base assumptions are so wrong that they are literally unable to come to reasonable conclusion.
Anyways. I needed to shut down my braincells with weed and booze to sink to that level and have that realisation. So roast me for it I guess.
I have this thought fairly often.
Liberals want to believe in the meritocracy, but reality shows that marginalized groups have shittier outcomes. Eventually, they must either confront the fact that their meritocratic ideals are a lie or they must become racist, sexist, classist, transphobic, etc. In my experience, they usually end up splitting the middle, harboring casual -ist views and deciding, "the system isn't perfect but it's fair on average". But there's always a risk of going down that reactionary path, the one where the system didn't fail, it can only be failed, and in these cases it's by the marginalized and it's their own fault and [fascist noises].