this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
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To be fair, that's another thing that we seem to have allowed the right to take from us, just like the Gadsen Flag. Plenty of people use the term "common sense" without using it in the way recently popularized by US fascists.
I don't think it's just that recent. Appealing to "common sense" has always implied that there's a true way of evaluating the situation that is just obvious without the need to think about it. It's about going with your first reactions and thinking no further. That is quite clearly a reactionary tendency and it has always been a driver of conservative politics. After all, what's "just obvious" is not a magical intuition but, more often than not, what aligns with the dominant ideology that you have absorbed unconsciously and hold to unquestioningly. And not questioning the dominant ideology but demanding people fall in line is an inherently conservative way to live.
Generally, Conservatives believe that there is one correct worldview (which they may refer to as 'common sense') which is what unifies their ingroup and justifies ostracization of ourgroups. Liberals are generally more open to the idea of there being multiple correct worldviews.
I'm a progressive and open to multiple correct worldviews, except the maga one, which I know to be wrong, immoral, and harmful to my fellow man. I find that to be common sense.
It was a campaign slogan for the Canadian Conservative Party too, as well as used heavily by Conservatives in my province during the last election. "Common sense" has always been a fig leaf for somebody wanting to believe they hold a majority view when that is not supported by polls.
Conservatives in the UK have been using "common sense" as a slogan for some time now. I believe it was a thing during the Thatcher and/or Major years, and it still goes on:
https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2023/11/conservatisms-cult-of-common-sense
There's even a far-right group within the UK's Conservative Party who call themselves the "Common Sense Group":
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense_Group
The irony of "common sense" being privatized and made worse in the process.