I'm largely of the "hell is other people" mindset around Christmas, from the overtly fascist elderly relatives to the incomprehensible demands of immediate family. I would love just one Christmas like that!
I think people tend to fascism as they age, the more they've done and seen and accumulated, the more conservative they get and the more their personal experience of the world must be maintained, protected.
Talk to them about their youth, when they were wild and rebellious. Find out what trouble they caused. Remind them, and it just might crack the encrusted exterior a little bit.
See, i believe this is generally trueish for the current moment, has it always been true though? For example, I've already passed the time in which my father _insisted_ I would become conservative and have very much not developed anything like the conservative values of modern America. Though, maybe it's just that conservatism has drastically changed since the 70s. For instance, i certainly have become less insistent on things like UBI and more realistic about single payer Healthcare, but i have not developed disdain for illegal immigrants, the desire to force birth, anti-gay marriage, anti-trans, etc. Were these perquisites to be conservative in the 70s? I'd say im fiscally slightly left, but socially i simply cannot understand the rights positions, it just sounds like hater shit to me
Are you conflating fascism with conservatism? Stalin was a socialist, a fascist and a conservative in the sense in which the 'c' word indicates 'maintenance of the status quo'. Certainly conservatives like to conserve & we hope that means saving that which is generally considered worth conserving though opinions differ when it comes to the details. Hitler was a national socialist and most definitely a fascist. Unregulated powerful elements in any society will always tend towards a degree of compulsion to maintain their status and we're not short of examples in the West.
'and the more their personal experience of the world must be maintained, protected.' is merely an assertion which you choose to believe. I'm sure examples can be found but also plenty of counter examples. You can't generalize.
