Are They Nuts? Conservatives Deconstructed

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Have you ever wondered about those ubiquitous conservatives?
Why do they support tax breaks for the rich when so many of their fellow citizens are in dire straits? Why do they applaud John Ashcroft and his post-9/11 curtailment of civil liberties? Why do they oppose laws that address historic wrongs and enforce constitutionally guaranteed rights? Why do they respond to a societal drug problem with incarceration and expanded prison construction? Why do they gut regulations that are meant to protect the environment? Why do they invest more than half of our tax dollars in the military? Why are they so meanspirited? In other words, why do conservatives do what they do? Are they nuts? (clip)

The authors acknowledge what has long been assumed by sociologists, economists, and political scientists: people adopt conservative beliefs to serve their own self interests. They agree that this helps explain the conservatism of "upper-class elites." However, the authors hold that the personal need to "reduce fear, anxiety, dissonance, uncertainty or instability" better explains why a vastly greater number of people who are not part of the elite, and particularly those who are disadvantaged or from low-status groups, "might embrace right-wing ideologies."

Thus the right wing succeeds by creating fear, uncertainty and doubt among the uninformed. Then they portray themselves as the answer by opposing change and promising tough law and order policies to combat the threat to the status quo. The OWS movement must scare the hell out of the conservative elite.