Contrary to the left’s self-ordained status as exemplars of intellectualism, individualism, and ‘free thought’, there is actually more intellectual and ideological conformity among the the ‘left’, versus the ‘right’.
From Identity, IQ, and Incoherence of the Alt-Right:
This incoherence is due to three factors: the ‘right’ generally being smarter and less conformist than the ‘left’ (more willing to challenge authority, more open-minded, better-educated about history, political science, and philosophy); second, the ‘right’ being more diverse, ideologically, than the ‘left’ (Liberalism is analogous to those 8-color Crayola crayon boxes kindergartners use. Conservatism is like the 100-color deluxe box.); and third, ego, which has less to with ideology and more to do with status-seeking.
Liberalism comes in only two flavors: ‘welfare liberalism’ (or more broadly, the ‘regressive left’) and ‘classical/neo liberalism’. The former is an amalgamation of Marx/Foucault exploitation/power ‘theology’, and includes the following sub-groups: SJWs, BLM, feminazis, socialists and syndicalists, black bloc anarchists, berntards, La Raza, and so on–all under that single ideological umbrella. The same goes for liberal professors, who are equally conformist and enablers of these sub-groups (although some professors are finally rejecting SJW-liberalism and ‘special snowflake syndrome’). The far-left’s ‘religion’ centers around power, exploitation, and oppression.
Classical liberals, although they are intellectual minority of the left (except, thankfully, online on Reddit and 4chan as evidenced by the post-2013 SJW backlash), at least understand that a society that suppresses its talent and spreads all its wealth will have neither, and understand that ‘free speech’ includes the freedom to be offended by someone else’s exercise of free speech than freedom from ever being offended. These sensible liberals are the mercy of the regressive left, and face severe professional consequences for not conforming to far-left exploitation orthodoxy as we saw with the pillorying of Larry Summers in 2005 for merely observing and reporting biological reality, and many other examples.
Compared to left-wing ideology, right-wing ideology is many magnitudes more diverse and multifaceted. There are so many variants—you have ‘small government’ conservatives (paleoconservatives, libertarians, and anarcho-capitalists) but also large-government conservatives (neoconservatives, right-wing civic nationalists). Some support ‘natural law’ (republicanism, constitutionalism); others don’t (monarchists, reactionaries). Some care about the ‘zog’ question (white nationalists); others don’t (neocons). Some are theistic (Christian right; reactionaries, paleocons); others not (libertarians, atheist conservatives). Some are highly individualistic (neocons, libertarians); others less so (reactionaries, Christian right, paleocons). Some on the ‘right’ are moderates; others less so; and some are very far-right. Some want more defense spending; others support isolationism. Some support free trade; others support protectionism. Whereas the ‘left’ are unified in ‘maximizing equality’, the ‘right’ is torn between issues such individualism vs. collectivism; states’ rights vs. federalism; materialism (looking at the world through the lens of economics) vs. idealism (through the lens of spirituality, culture, religion, etc.); ethno-nationalism vs. neocon globalism; big government vs. small government; etc. For libertarian-leaning republicans, economics and markets are very important; for traditionalists, religion, ethnicity, and culture are more important.
To quantify this disparity of intellectual diversity and richness between the left vs. the right, the Wikipedia page ‘Conservatism in the United States‘ weighs in at over 29,000 words, but the page Liberalism in the United States is just 5,000 words. Wikipedia makes a small distinction between the Progressive Era and the ‘Modern Liberal Era’. If you include the section Modern Liberalism in the United States, you get another 12,000 words.
A screenshot of the Wikipedia portal ‘Liberalism in the United States’ is not only much smaller than the Conservatism portal but shows just two varieties of liberalism:
The Wikipedia portal ‘Conservatism in the United States’ is significantly larger and has between 6-8 varieties:
Online, discussions on right-wing communities often have much more philosophy, economics, and history than left-wing ones, the latter which usually gravitates to simple talking points, binary ‘good vs. bad’ thinking, and animalistic ‘rallying cries’ than any sort of deep intellectual inquiry. From: Clinton crashing and burning as vote nears:
From personal experience on both left-wing and right-wing communities, the latter are more informed of the issues and less susceptible to groupthink. There is much more conformity on ‘left’, whereas on the right’, if you read the comments there is always arguing and nitpicking over loose ends (about God, government, philosophy, history, etc.), which you don’t see as often in left-wing blogs and communities, which tend to focus on simpler things, not complicated stuff like philosophy. The ‘left’ has a tendency to reduce issues to a simple good-bad dichotomy, whereas the right (at least online) understands that these terms are ill-defined and subjective, and that something that seems ‘good’ often carries an opportunity cost or externality. The left says we need free stuff for all, but the ‘right’, who are better informed and incredulous, ask ‘Who is going to pay for it?’ The left appeals to ‘low information‘ voters more so than the right, although all major parties have a lot of uninformed voters. Far-left variants of liberalism, such as Marxism and democratic socialism, rely on the uneducated masses for support and have anti-intellectual bend to them. Although some leftist intellectuals support Marxism and socialism, in practice such ideologies are anti-intellectual.
The intellectual diversity among the far-right, especially, can sometimes lead to internecine conflict and episodes of ‘punching right’, from Alt-Right War of Words:
Another problem may be the tendency to ‘nitpick’ and ‘concern’ among the ‘right’, whereas on the ‘left’ there is more group-think. This is probably symptomatic of the greater intelligence, independent-mindedness, and critical thinking ability of the right compared to the conformist, low-information left. If you read comments on alt-right blogs, they are imbued with history and philosophy, as well as criticism and dissent, but left-wing comments tend to not be arguments but rather are incantations or affirmative chants such as ‘spread the wealth’, and so on. Your typical berntard is way more conformist than the average alt-righter. But sometimes it can get out of hand, as I poke fun at in the post I Can Tolerate Anything Except Factual Inaccuracies.
After Trump won, the alt-right–conceived in 2015 in opposition to the so-called ‘cucks’ (moderate conservatives that are too soft on immigration)–split, expelling many of the ‘brandos’, bloggers with large brands that some on the alt-right perceived as appropriating the alt-right ‘label’ during the election for monetary gain and to steer the alt-right in an unproductive, moderate direction after the election. Milo and others were expelled, although Milo was never really considered alt-right anyway. And then in January alt-right members of 4chan doxed an alt-right website, apparently for not being alt-right enough. The far-left succeeds because it’s single-minded and unified–a hive mind united by a singe goal: the destruction of western civilization. But the far-right is so much more intellectually diverse and smarter than the far-left, and sometimes this need to be correct can override the broader ‘mission’: preserving western civilization. It’s like the schism in Ireland between Catholics and Protestants but magnified by a factor five.