who secretly hate themselves and their lives and are desperately looking for someone to blame? Rush, Hannity et al. do exactly that.

nm

They appeal to a fundamental tribal mentality and the fear of or need to somehow think there is SOMETHING out there that is nefarious.

That is it a nutshell.

Also, increasingly over time, this has doubled down to also help people absolve their own personal responsibility.

They either have a moral justification or get to point at someone else to excuse their behavior.

Most want their policy ideas handed to them so they don't have to research the facts.

Also they are very sports team oriented, blindly following what ever the Heritage Foundation tells them.

They're not mental heavy lifters.

individualistic, to only be concerned with one's own self interests, to be self absorbed and simplistic.

So yes, it's much less work and thus more appealing to be conservative.

If people tend to believe that human nature is essentially bad and selfish, then that's how they justify being conservative. One thing conservatives always say is that life is not fair and will never be fair. That's how they justify mistreatment of others. That's how the eugenics movement justified their racism. That's how Richard Hernstein and Charles Murray justified The Bell Curve: claim that there are people who are inherently inferior, that way you justify their mistreatment, cutting social programs that help the poor. Get people to believe that some are more deserving of others; that way, again, looking down on the 'undeserving' doesn't make then feel as guilty.

Then, demonize liberals, the word liberalism and everything associated with it. Begin 45 years of anti-liberal, anti-government rhetoric, much of it steeped in racially-coded symbolism and language. Then purchase media outlets and get power elites to repeat the propaganda over and over again until even liberals themselves begin to co-opt their own sense of inferiority...now calling themselves 'progressives' rather than what they are: LIBERAL STALWARTS!! (hence, my handle name).

Aaron Sorkin wrote this line for either The American President or West Wing.

At least you don't have to choose between choices!