We like to say that they're the same, but there seems to be some kind of difference. In the USA, a liberal will usually prefer wine, foreign cars and food and media, basketball, CNN and The New York Times. A fascist will prefer beer, American cars and food and media, football, and Fox News. One votes for Democrats, the other votes for Republicans. One is obsessed with Russia, the other with China. One at least pays lip service to LGBTQ+ folks, the other wants them in concentration camps. One is happy to have people of color in positions of power, so long as they toe the capitalist line, while the other rages against this. One tends to have a college education, the other doesn't (although plenty of chuds work in tech or are engineers of some sort). One tends to work in offices, the other tends to be a business owner and/or landlord, although American labor unions are full of liberals and conservatives (it's the same for non-unionized blue collar workers). Liberal business owners tend to be in the service industry (especially restaurant owners, in my experience), while conservative business owners are more concerned with resource extraction or anything related to fossil fuels. Liberals tend to be more articulate (with notable exceptions), while conservatives can barely form sentences, even when they're just speaking.
What makes a person a liberal or conservative? I'm defining these people here as anyone who participates in federal elections in the USA, roughly half of the people trapped in the USA. They tend to have at least have some money and property. I guess a white male cis born in the countryside is likelier to become a fascist, while a similar person born and raised in cities will probably be more liberal. But there are plenty of exceptions. Epstein and most of his friends are kind of difficult to classify here. It seems that it's easier to tell these people apart when they're in the labor aristocracy / petite bourgeoisie, not in the haute bourgeoisie.
We determined awhile ago on Hexbear that most of the posters here come from liberal backgrounds, so what pushed us out of liberalism into communism? (We've also had this discussion several times, sorry for reviving it.) Dialectically, the contradiction of the individual versus society determines this, along with subjective factors. I remember noticing homeless people when I was five; I was drifting toward communism in high school because I was so unhappy with the pointlessness of my education, but in college I was much happier and veered back toward liberalism again, and stayed that way for years. As an adult I taught overseas, used universal health care many times, then made the mistake of returning to the USA, got involved in politics, and discovered that I was playing for the wrong team, because liberals (especially the richest and most powerful liberals) are so rabidly against universal health care, despite the fact that it costs them so much more money and so many more years of their lives to be this way. This basically radicalized me permanently. But even now, so many liberals are planning to vote for the blue genocide pedophile party over the red genocide pedophile party, it seems like nothing except years of re-education (+ the total destruction of the USA) will ever change their minds. The same for conservatives, of course.
Just some thoughts I've been meaning to post here for awhile, I'm posting for critique.
i've noticed the same things you have, so it's nice at least to have some confirmation. the professional-managerial class tends to vote more liberal, and the petty bourgeoisie tends to be more conservative. obviously the lines there are far from firm. i would think it has something to do with how democrats are more concerned with giving concessions to workers, especially wealthy ones, and republicans are concerned with taking things from workers. democrats make it slightly easier to unionize (if your union doesn't rock the boat too much) and republicans make it harder. the pmc benefits from unions or at least doesn't care, and the petty bourgeoisie is scared shitless of unions.
same for other policy. the petty bourgeoisie, as we know, forms the material base for fascism, because any change in existing property relations would completely destroy their already precarious class position. the pmc is similar in that they also benefit from the current state of things, but they don't need to be nearly so wary of property in particular.
the petty bourgeoisie sees someone shoplifting from walgreens and their stomach drops out of their ass. the pmc sees shoppers prevented from accessing their treats by cages or guards or whatever, and they get upset. or maybe they have more sympathy for the shoplifter. accordingly, democrat-run states tend to be more lenient on petty property crimes, and republican-run states tend to be incredibly harsh.
the petty bourgeoisie sees in immigrants an easy scapegoat for why they haven't become patrick bateman yet, whereas the pmc sees their housekeeper or the line cook who works at their local restaurant. both love ice, the petty bourgeoisie because they love deportations, and the pmc because they love the threat of deportations, which keeps their housekeeper and line cook from unionizing. although as you mentioned, some industries have different relations to immigrants than others, which certainly affects both subclasses.
in terms of less-material stuff, the dems love their smarmy harvard graduates with big credentials, and the gop loves their plain-talking klan members. this makes sense to me because education is a bar to entry into the pmc and not the petty bourgeoisie. dems love shit-talking people with no college education, and the gop loves shit-talking these self-important douchebags. the pmc loves the cerebral masturbation of The West Wing, and the petty bourgeoisie loves the brutal fascist violence of whatever police procedural slop they have on right now.
i had to think about this for a bit and i'm not completely satisfied with my analysis. i'd love someone else to point out my mistakes, because i suspect i made a few.