Moderate conservatives pretty much don’t exist anymore. I had a “fiscally conservative” and “moderate” acquaintance tell me that the world would be better if there were no sexual or gender minorities
Horrifying. I only have to hope that when it comes down to it, more people than not will realize internally ‘i am not actually willing to hurt people, i just wanted to say those things, and I’m kind of embarrassed about it now’ and then go back to being quiet bigots. I need to believe this about my fellow humans to get through the day.
There’s a pretty big difference between “I want to murder all sexual minorities” and “I wish there weren’t any sexual minorities”. The former is an actionable thing whereas the latter is picturing some sort of a utopia. Of course, if the latter leads to inaction when somebody else is doing the former, then that’s no good either.
He’s the sort of person who probably wouldn’t at least say out loud that they want to murder minorities, but I can tell you completely without any doubt that were some political party here to actually start doing it, he would be more than happy to see it happen – he’s convinced that white hetero men are the most repressed “minority” right now, and he’s literally said that the mere existence of sexual minorities is “polarizing” and “adversarial”.
This is pretty much how it is with all “moderate” conservatives. They might not outright say they want to murder minorities, but they would absolutely approve of others doing it.
