There’s a joke that conservatism is a mental disease. There is a truth to that. Not all diseases are pathogenic and deteriorative. Humans can be persuaded (and self-persuaded) into a conservative mental state. Some people have a strong natural immunity and others are very susceptible.

Throughout much of human history conservatism had a use. Wandering tribes that had a strong powerful leader, who resisted changes to behaviour or custom, tended to survive. Examples of conservatism could be not mingling with distant tribes, right down to not eating an unknown plant or animal.

Today’s world is different. With 8 billion people we have essentially become one tribe. What was a useful strategy for millennia, has become a liability. Now our prosperity and survival is intertwined and interconnected globally. The richest among us eat food picked by the poorest among us, who may live thousands of miles away. We rely on each other across all lines of class, race, religion, sex, and worth.

In times of stress, humans are wired to reach into our instinctual toolboxes and pull out seemingly useful approaches. The conservative mindset is one. Humans prefer simple answers to complex problems. Throughout human history, most problems have been rather simple: meat, shelter, water, or fire. These days the earth and humanity has a host of very serious and complex problems that need complex solutions. Retreating into a conservative mindset is a knee jerk reaction, to simplify the problem, to assuage the inner stress. So the conservative blames the immigrant, or proclaims that whatever happened was “god’s plan”, or claims the Creator will fix all.

And this mindset is antithetical to humanity’s survival.

But your average conservative rube is only indirectly to blame for the world’s woes. Humans have another troublesome trait: the desire for power. Those who have amassed power have learned to exploit conservatives in order to maintain power and expand it. In this regard, true conservatives are “useful idiots”. No matter how much their best interests are destroyed or trodden, they can be counted on to support whatever their leaders want, because their leaders have perfected the art of tapping into the disease.

We have reached a point where the best interest of the planet and humans is in direct opposition to the immediate interests of a (relatively) small faction of powerful.

And many leaders among the powerful are conservative in proclamation only. Simply to retain approval of the rubes. It is estimated that maybe 1% of the right-wing legislative branch believe the rhetoric they spout. All the flip-flopping, hypocrisy, dog whistling, quiet parts spoken, is horseshit. They know it’s horseshit. But horseshit is the currency they spend to retain power. And once that currency is worthless they’ll abandon it.

And the scary part is that once the currency of horseshit becomes worthless the only way left to retain power is by fascism.