[Disclaimer] - I am not an American and I consider myself atheist, I am Caucasian and born in a pre-dominantly Christian country.
Based on my limited knowledge of Christianity, it is all about social justice, compassion and peace.
And I was always wondering how come Republicans are perceiving themselves as devout Christians while the political party they support is openly opposing those virtues and if this doesn’t make them hypocrites?
For them the mortal enemy are the lefties who are all about social justice, helping the vulnerable and the not so fortunate and peace.
Christianity sounds to me a lot more like socialist utopia.
Conservativism is not an ideology, it is narcissism wearing the skin of a stoic. They believe they are inherently virtuous, and therefore anything the conservative thinks, does, says, or wants will be righteous.
Christianity feeds this by reinforcing the idea that the conservative is personal friends with the Almighty Creator of the Universe and Final Arbiter of Absolute Justice. They claim to speak for the divine, and therefore they are divine.
This is all the justification a conservative requires for whatever they want to do. Bigotry? No, God is the one passing judgement. Selfishness? No, it is God’s plan for me to hoard wealth. Violence? My arm is the right arm of the Lord. And when I sin, I shall be personally forgiven by the only person who matters: myself.
It is not possible to be a hypocrite, because whatever the conservative does is justified by their identity. When they do something, it is good, and when they do not adhere to their own stated ideology, it is good. When the “other” does anything, it is bad because the other is not the self and the self is good. So therefore the other is evil.
When the other does the same thing as the self, it is bad when the other does it and good when the self does it.
You don’t have to be religious to be a conservative, but it helps.