Political ideologies are an on/off thing, not a spectrum. People who believe otherwise are either people who do not take the core logic and premises of their ideologies to their logical conclusions (usually because they simply didn’t think about it that terribly hard), or otherwise people who are afraid that the ideology on whose back they reached their comfortable destination will be the same ideology that robs them of what they got out of it.
They liked and supported liberalism when it provided advantage after advantage to them, but have since started to become increasingly reactionary after they started to feel the ground slipping from under them. I guess the relationship between christianity and the “metaphysical left” are quite similar, the catholic church liked acting metaphysically left when it helped them against the old pagan elite of the late empire, but they have also become the pillar of reaction against modern libs who in turn put them in the same position as they once put the pagans.
I guess one could also conclude from all this that political ideologies are like clothes one wears, wearing a different one to different occasions, depending on whatever is most advantageous and appropriate at a particular moment. But that would mean admitting that political ideologies are mere masks for underlying tribalistic group concerns, which is a conclusion I don’t think the overwhelming majority of people are ready to swallow.
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