Why The Left Feels So Threatening To The Right
The right needs to hear that someone else goes into the woodchipper first
What the left keeps misunderstanding about the right is that it's not that they are a bunch of racist sexist monsters -- not that there aren't some of those but the left has some bad apples too -- but that the right interprets language differently. And alot of this relates to stereotypically male and female communication styles1 which explains the gender gap.
People on the right tend to have a more worst case/whose side will you be on when the chips are down aesthetic and this is amplified by the distrust between the sides. They need to hear that if the shit hits the fan someone else goes into the woodchipper first and after that they'll be open to talking about avoiding feeding anyone into the woodchipper. To the left talking about who gets screwed in what they see as the uncommon case (eg false accusations, reverse discrimination) feels like something that you’d only say to convey that you're not supportive of blacks, immigrants women etc etc.
A perfect example here is the way discussion about accusations of rape and sexual harassment go. The left, correctly observes that woman who come forward with accusations are often met with a storm of blowback and smears and appropriately see that as a problem that needs to be fixed. If you wanted to say this in a way that could reach the right you’d say something like,
It’s vital that we take accusations of sexual assault seriously and allow them to be adjudicated without subjecting accusers to a torrent of unnecessary humiliation and abuse. While false accusations are uncommon they do happen so we shouldn't presume guilt and, when perjury is proven beyond a reasonable doubt it must be dealt with harshly to ensure the system isn't abused. However, the current system too often treats the accuser as presumptively guilty of, at a minimum, sexual misconduct. Just ask yourself what system/public response you’d want in place if you or a loved one was a victim.”
That kind of pitch would go over well with people on the right but it's not what the left says because all the talk of false accusations feels insufficiently supportive of the accuser. And the right hears that repeated refusal to call women who make false accusations and recognize the need to determine the truth of an accusation as implicitly saying: we’d rather throw innocent men into the woodchipper than doubt any woman's accusation. And that's actually what some of the rhetoric really sounds like.
But then if you look at what happens on liberal college campuses — though there are horror stories about male students being sacrificed — the truth is that the loudest voices calling on us to believe women will become the ones saying “professor X would never do this, the accusers must be lying.” And I think the truth is that most of the left does believe due process is important — they just see talking about protecting the interests of the group that's overall better off as signalling a lack of support not acknowledging the need for balance.
More generally we need more leaders talking about the problems the left rightly raises while being explicit about the need to balance attempts to fix these problems with the need to limit the sacrifice from others.
tho there is plenty of overlap and it would be wrong to think of this as the way all women talk vs the way all men talk.
I agree, but let's acknowledge that this distrust of the "left's" rhetoric is not a naïve response. It is has been taught by people who want to use the response to achieve power.
Have you read The Righteous Mind? Jonathan Haidt claims that conservatives are better at accurately understanding liberal positions than vice versa because their moral beliefs are split more evenly along different areas than just care/harm. It seems like that would align with your theory here.