As someone who grew up in a right wing environment: It isn't all that complicated.

Windmills are read as clear and visible symbols of an "ideology" these people hate. You're a bigot who is already angry about a world that demands you to be more sensible about it? And now they are sensible about the environment and shove it into your face with a barrage of big moving structures? Outrageous!

People like these think that being sensible is the opposite of what a real man is about. Being a sensible male could even make you a suspect of the worst: you might be gay¹. So of course a visible sign that sensibility is winning is a threat.

Aside from the obvious question (How fragile is your identity as a man if you are afraid what it does to your male-ness if you show sensibility?) this guides us to a (IMO) more interesting one: Do they truly believe the stories they tell?

My conclusion is: most of them don't. They just have a string pre-existing existential urge to fight anything that would demand them to show sensibility and thus the story is just a post-hoc rationalization for a strong feeling they already have. It doesn't need to be true, it needs to feel true.

Since admitting the underlying fears would require them to also admit they are feeling uneasy, they need that kind story to be(come) true. But they don't really believe in it as a factual truth, more like you "believe" your sports team is going to win.

¹: obvious sarcasm, this mark is here to avoid ambiguity

To add to that, conservatives are usually much more religious. So I think a big part of the queastion boils down to faith vs evidence. They don't believe in wind power, because nobody on their side told them to, so they fight it.

Doubleplusungood bellyfeel