One of the problems for self-styled Rightists is a shocking ignorance of Leftism. I'm not even talking about the centuries long historical perspective, but simply Leftism over the past century - back to the time of my grandparents.
A common consequence of this is the common wrong Rightist idea that Leftism is a religion.
Now, of course there are some respects in which Leftism is somewhat like a religion - but the falsity of the idea that it was a religion would be obviously untrue to anyone who knew what Leftism was like in the early Twentieth century as well as knowing what it has been (increasingly) like in the past fifty years.
It was not so daft to regard Communism as a religion - and like a real religion, the first generation of communists were often very highly motivated to the point of extreme courage and self-sacrifice.
This early type of Leftism was economic, at root. It was about the distribution of wealth and income, economic planning, the ownership of the means of production and so forth.
In Britain (which is where Leftism was invented) many early Leftists (socialists) were Protestant nonconformists of extremely strict morality: sexual morality, and they did not lie, gamble or drink alcohol. Many were skilled native working class men - the Trades Unionists - dedicated to self-improvement by education in the sciences and high art: they founded lectures, libraries, funded colleges, promoted literacy...
Old style Leftism was wrong, and contained the seed of greater wrongness - but it had many good qualities, and many admirable people leading it.
Compare this with Leftism now. It is almost completely different in almost every respect: no longer based on economics but instead on identity politics, femimism, antiracism, promoting the sexual revolution. It was post-mid-sixties Leftist parties in Britain which most aggressively promoted the culture of gambling, drinking, promiscuity, marriage-and-family destruction, native population replacement, hype & spin (ie. systematic lying).
Leftist politics is now something which would have been utterly revolting to the old style, high minded communists, Christian socialists and Trades Unionists.
Religions don't behave this way. They are far more stable, and their decline is characterised by corruption and apostasy; but not near-total ideological and social reversal in the space of a generation! (say 1945-75 - of course the generations overlapped and blurred the phenomenon).
Indeed, one has to look deep to discover the commonality of the Left throughout its evolution - it is there, but it is not a surface feature, and not captured by a single core aim. (Indeed, I believe the Left can only plausibly be explained as a consequence of supernatural, demonic leadership - working gradually and incrementally to demoralise, corrupt and invert people over multiple generations. Human agency is incapable of such long-termism.)
I was brought up as an old style Leftist through my extended family; and avidly studied the history of the movement in my teens - and also, time-lagged, participated in the transformation of the Left as it happened from the middle sixties. So I can see that it is not any more a religion - it does not do what a religion does for people; in sum Leftism is now almost wholly oppositional.
A religion must have some fixity of metaphysics, doctrine, scripture, goals, tradition, church structure... something! Time has revealed that Leftism has no positive content - it is merely oppositional, inversional; and ultimately what Leftism opposes is The Good.
That is its only unity.
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For more argument on these lines see my book Addicted to Distraction:
http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk
