In The Reactionary Mind, Corey Robin convincingly argues that a large part of what drives reactionaries is the desire to silence and repress (or, in academese: deny voice to) others, who they call or consider inferiors. This partly from a strong belief that their putative inferiors have no right to speak (or to be heard), partly from a fear that loss of personal status if the latter are heard or successfully organize themselves; and partly from a conviction that society can only function properly when everyone 'knows their place'. I found Robin's explanation intuitive and thought-provoking, and it led me to wonder what the analogous desire and world-view were of those who the media refer to as 'the (center-)left' (called liberals in the US, liberal or social democrats elsewhere), given that I knew that the overwhelming majority of in no way subscribe to the ("radical") egalitarianism, inclusiveness and pro-emancipatory solidarity that I consider see as central to "leftism" (and generally to being human).
As I've argued previously, the society we live in today strongly encourages us to reason meritocratically, and to embrace notions such as that your moral value depends on whether and how highly others value you. In extreme cases, this can include dismissing people and their needs wholesale (such as when we categorize the other as our property, or as a pest or monster). Now as I see it, Marshall Rosenberg, Walter Wink, and Walter Kaufmann have made compelling cases that both this way of thinking, and the accompanying conviction that it's okay to employ violence to "put people in their place," or to realize a desired outcome, have to be actively taught, as they aren't very intuitive; and that even though most people alive today think this way, in our better moments we will still strive to embody egalitarianism and respect for all life -- which also happens to be the only stance that is consistent with the notion that equal needs merit equal consideration (as the alternative will always mean at least some people are being treated as means). And there is quite compelling archaeological and anthropological evidence suggesting that hierarchical organizational forms are a relatively recent development, after a long period in which humans organized themselves along fairly egalitarian (if violent) lines.