I feel like a good way to illustrate the potential shades of this is the Canon!Maven vs Canon!Cal and vs Newblood Queen!Cal vs Newblood Queen!Maven, because one of the big changes to Maven's character and arc in NQ is that he's a lot more of the ideological side of the scale as opposed to the opportunistic one, simply because as I was constructing his base circumstances, I realized it would have been almost impossible to have him not drink that kool-aid given the psychological state he would have been in.
Canon!Maven is definitely the furthest of the scale of consciously using bigotry as a tool for power, and it's hard to say just how unconsciously biased he may be because he just kinda treats almost EVERYONE as beneath him, like they are tools he will use and discard as needed. As Maven puts it (approximately) in War Storm, his ancestors did a similar amount of violence in the name of power as he did: he just did it to those closest to him as well. Bigotry is a means to an end for him, and while that doesn't make it any better or less harmful, it is still different from a deeply held belief.
It's a sharp contrast to Canon!Cal, who is interpersonally kind to the Reds in his life while justifying their oppression with an ideology that manages to be both pacifist AND violent, the idea that this systemic violence is the only way to curb more systemic violence (war and "terorism", both real and imagined). There's a lot of condescension to him, and a lot of micro-agressions where he takes Silvers as the default state of humanity and Reds as lesser, more worthy of violence, ways in which he is more horrified by violence against Silvers, a deviation from the norm, than violence against Reds, the status quo. It's an attitude thoroughly called out by the people around him, especially Cameron, and shedding it is pivotal to his growth through the series
Newblood Queen has more complicated politics due to the straightforward "oppressor and oppressed" dynamics being more messy and muddled, but there's still a good amount to be mined from the brothers' new placements on this spectrum. For one, neither brother is raised in an environment that teaches them the ins and outs of actual leadership and the process of running a country, AKA the nuts and bolts of politics. As a result, both of them are wayyyyy more motivated by their sense of identity and interpersonal relationships than their canon counterparts. NQ!Maven, for example, spouts unironic bigoted talking points about how he needs to "rise again", that he needs to claim "his birthright" from the "scourge" of "red rats" that have taken his "throne" from him from page one. It's classic fascism, and the root of it is his ego, the fact that he does not feel he has much and needs to prop up a grander image of himself at all costs. It is not a position he logiced himself into, it is a story he was fed and brought into because it was an easy and appealing fantasy. And you cannot logic someone out of a position they did not logic themselves into. For someone like this, you need to rip out the very base of their identity so they can build it anew, and through the plot, Maven faces a lot of realities he was never truly forced to consider beforehand. One of those things is realizing the violent consequences of his belief system, that people he genuinely cares about (even if he won't admit it) are being caught in the crossfire (Mare and Kilorn). He's hurting himself and the people around him, and, unlike Canon!Maven, when he realizes this, he actually grows. He actually starts caring, he actually tries to make amends, he actually starts wondering if everything he thinks is a lie because everything is being ripped out from under him, and if he's wrong about everything else in his life . . . maybe this is wrong too.
The base thing to remember about NQ!Cal, on the other hand, is that he was raised in a household that tried to shelter him from politics at all costs, and, as a result, his politics are kind of incoherent and motivated by his personal relationships. He gives NO thought to the consequences of joining a fascist movement, and, while I don't want to spoil too much, it does absolutely make him more dangerous and violatile than Canon!Cal. Because while Canon!Cal believes in passivity, NQ!Cal performs passivity without realizing it. Something that is much harder to pinpoint and deconstruct because you're not consciously thinking about it. And if you don't even know what you're doing in the first place . . . how are you going to grow and change?
@the-best-skibidi-rizzler I kinda went off on a tangent but I hope that's a more in depth answer <3
