Why Is the U.S. the Most Conservative Developed Country Compared to Other Developed Countries in Terms of Social Issues and Healthcare?
November 2, 2017
Alex Henderson, Periodista and Technical Writer
The hard right is powerful, prominent and influential in the United States, much more so than in Europe, Australia, New Zealand or Japan. And the American hard right is very invested its mythology, including the “rugged individualist who pulled himself up by the bootstraps.”
To a degree, I identify with the rugged individualist part myself. I love the idea of the independent software developer who starts a small business in their bedroom, grows that business and ends up creating five or six new jobs. But the painful reality is that the modern-day U.S. is not an environment that encourages entrepreneurs or “rugged individualists.” It has come to resemble an industrialized banana republic of the 1%, by the 1% and for the 1%. The U.S. punishes its self-employed at every turn.
Let’s say that an entrepreneur or would-be entrepreneur has, through no fault of their own, the misfortune of being born with Type 1 diabetes or asthma. Before the Affordable Care Act of 2010, aka Obamacare, that person’s “reward” for starting a business was being denied health insurance and living with the never-ending threat of medical bankruptcy. Even with the protections of the ACA, that person is insurable but still faces punishing premiums. And Republicans are still longing to overturn the ACA and kick small business owners in the gut for having the “audacity” to be born with Type 1 diabetes or asthma.
If you don’t believe in universal healthcare, you’re no friend of small business owners. Europeans and Australians understand that, which is why a diabetic, asthmatic or cancer survivor in Stockholm or Brisbane can start a business without the fear of medical bankruptcy.
As for the social issues part, the modern-day Republikkkan Party has a cruel, mean-spirited Calvinist streak that views the poor and the lower middle class with absolute contempt. Not all of Christianity is like that, of course. A black AME church in Philadelphia or a Lutheran congregation in Amsterdam is worlds apart from the extreme fundamentalist, authoritarian, white nationalist school of Christianity favored by Pat Robertson, Focus on the Family or the Family Research Council.
I’ve known some progressive AME pastors who are very involved in liberal politics and social programs for the poor. But it is Christianity’s lunatic fringe, not AME pastors or Mainline Protestants or moderate Catholics, that the Republican Party caters to. And for some insights on how the GOP-allied “Talibangelicals” think, I recommend reading Chris Hedges’ book “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” Hedges is spot on in his analysis.
The far-right movement in the U.S., including the Christian Right, is way beyond conservative. It’s flat-out fascist.
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