I think it's hard because at the end of the day, equality is asking men, especially white men, to be happy with less. It's like that saying "when your accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression"

So on the Right, we have people saying "You deserve to be the king of your household. You deserve to be in charge. You deserve to have the final say in all matters". And on the Left side, we have people saying "You deserve to have your voice heard, but you will need to compromise. You will not be in charge. The final say will be determined by hearing different viewpoints and choosing what is best for more people".

One of those messages is a lot more appealing than the other, especially if you're low on empathy. Or if you're poor and you really don't care that other races/genders/religious people aren't getting ahead too, you're not getting ahead and at the end of the day, one of the messages we constantly hear is that there's not enough for everyone. Some people win and some people lose. Some people are homeless and some people live in mansions.

You don't want to lose, so you go with the option that sounds like the easier, safer one.

It is most definitely control. I once made my racist, sexist uncle go into a raving fit because I told him he hates black people because he FEARS black people because he's afraid that they will treat him the way he's treated them. And while he's a lot of disgusting things, he's not a liar.

But he is the kind of guy who would rather be dirt poor but better than women and PoC than rich and suffering under equality.

Me neither. I assume it's both nature and nurture. He's in his 80s now. He grew up in a rural, poor, racist area where the man of the household's word was absolute law. My dad (and his sister, uncle's wife) grew up in the same area. It was mostly coal miners and I can tell you they were so poor that the kids usually got mostly scraps to eat until they got jobs around 8-10 years old. Father ate first. Mother figured out how to share the rest of the food between herself and the kids. Growing up, my dad thought a sandwich was one of the most glamorous things you could eat.

They all grew up with the idea that being a white man made him naturally superior. There was no reason for it. Oh, there used to be "studies" about why it was "true". But really it just fed the ego and for much of their formative years, all of society where he lived said it was true and the natural way of things.

It's funny because my dad grew up in the same place, same kind of circumstances and he always thought it was bullshit. He kept that opinion to himself, because it was a great way to get beat up. But he never understood it and never bought into it, and in their childhood/adolescence, it was a rarity to not go along with it.