My most recent thought on understanding the difference between US liberals and conservatives (posting it here cause kinda random):

Liberals are dinner party fascists/imperialists. "We don't talk about that," "you're upsetting people," "let's just try to be nice forced smile."

Conservatives are schrodinger's douchebag fascists/imperialists. "We should totally do something evil, ha ha, just kidding, unless...", "[insert racist stereotype] just a joke tho, if challenged on it, but is deadly serious," "saying that thing that was threatening to you or a minority group was just a troll, a prank, lolol."

But what they have in common as attitude: Both love to shift blame; it's anyone's fault but their own. Both love to downplay or deny atrocities committed by their 'team', or pin the atrocities on some other group (e.g. "it was ackshully the communists who were so bad, ackshully have you considered what Russia is doing when you say colonialism bad?"). Both think it's never the right time to take an ethical stand, unless their party leader tells them it's time to (and they project, accusing other countries of being leader worshipers) and then it's through a warped lens of colonizer binary good/evil, with their "ethical stand" being "we are the civil against the savage."