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.
It really is something. One realization I’ve had now that I’m a few decades into life is that i previously assumed everyone kind of constantly accumulated knowledge. But it seems like a significant amount of people are either beaten down or just comfortably content without intellectual curiosity. Sad really.