Regarding the right’s aversion to “cancel culture”, I’d say it’s a reaction to their sense of marginalisation. Why they feel marginalised is a little more complex, but I suspect social psychology plays a big role here.
For anyone who isn’t familiar with it, I’d highly recommend reading up on in-group/outsider biases and psychology. In a sense, conservatives are conservatives because they identify as conservatives. People feel a strong sense of affinity to others they feel are in their “group”, and an aversion to outsiders. So, if a group member comes under attack from an outsider, we instinctively rush to their defence. Insiders can also include people who have been dead for a very, very long time.
Self-identifying Republicans have the misfortune of identifying with a party that’s backed more than a few dead horses* over the years, to the point where they’ve lost so much credibility they’re now exposed to open ridicule. But because the human brain strongly encourages social cohesion over all else, it’s hard for them to jump the aisle so they double down instead and keep digging.
This is an inherent trait of humans, and has nothing to do with conservatism, although conservatives do have the disadvantage of identifying with past pioneers and leaders and whatnot who were pretty racist by modern standards (even amongst conservatives themselves). Democrats, on the other hand, have plenty of thoughtless reactionaries as well, but a lot of that knee-jerk reaction is directed towards legitimate Republican delusions so it doesn’t look as bad. Had history unfolded differently, with Democrats retaining the South and holding closer to their blue collar union supporters, we’d have a very different political landscape today.
An excellent counter example is conservatism in Japan. They have a ton of baggage with their historical animosity with Korea and China, but you don’t see the anti-intellectualism or anti-environmentalism you get with US conservatism. European conservatism is different again.
To put it another way, a lot of politics is driven by reactionaries reacting to reactionaries on the other side, with a few thoughtful people shuffling between the camps trying to fight the tide.
*Incomplete list of dead horses championed by the Republican Party and their associates:
- Climate denialism
- Biblical literalism and the evolution wars
- Trumpism
- Confederacy apologetics
... I tried to exclude things that the Democrats were also complicit in, such as the reckless deregulation that enabled the opioid crisis. This left the list a lot shorter than I was initially expecting. Still, they’ve managed to score some pretty big duds that fail in clear, obvious and objective ways, unlike some of the more nefarious duds with bipartisan or exclusive Democrat support. So, their failures are very obvious, which no doubt adds to their anxiety and cognitive dissonance.
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