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Revisiting Right-wing Authoritarianism: Insight into Tea Party and Congressional Gridlock
With their unbelievable, insufferable Right-wing Authoritarian temper tantrums and scary antics on full display, it's a good time to revisit Right-wing Authoritarianism.
The following author introduces Dr. Altemeyer's work on Right-wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and John Dean's work on the subject, "Conservatives Without Conscience."
An Analysis of the Right-Wing Authoritarian Follower (RWA): Insight into Tea Party and Congressional Gridlock
~snip~
What are the RWA Characteristics?
NOW, WHILE I briefly describe the 12 traits of a Right-wing Authoritarian, think to yourself if you know anybody or have seen anybody on television or heard on the radio anybody who might fit some or all of these characteristics. If you have, my bet is they will score very high on Bob Altemeyer's Right-wing Authoritarian assessment. Hopefully, you don't find yourself coming to mind, but if you do, don't despair, that can be a good thing because the research also shows that once a RWA discovers this about themselves, they can often change.
The 12 traits are as follows:
1.Fear: RWAs are afraid of many things. It can be said that many people are afraid of many different things, but RWAs carry this to the next level of irrational fear, even when there is no factual basis for it. They are afraid that Obama is a Socialist, a Communist, or will become a dictator; they are afraid of teaching secular science to our youth, they are deathly afraid the burgeoning national debt will spell the end of America; they are afraid that a single regulation on guns will lead to a total prohibition of gun ownership in America, and the list goes on. No amount of reasoning or facts will dissuade high scoring RWAs of their fears so long as their Authoritarian leaders tell them to be afraid.
2.Self-Righteous: If you run into someone who appears inordinately self-righteous, then you are probably observing a snob or a RWA follower. If that self-righteousness takes on a holy-than-thou or "more patriotic than thou" flavor, then most likely you have a high scoring RWA.
3.Dogmatism: This characteristic is a clear signal a person is likely to be a high scoring RWA, whether on the extreme Right or the extreme Left. What they are told to believe is set in stone and nothing short of a nuclear blast is going to move them from their core beliefs. All of the provable, clear, certain facts in the world will not change an RWAs mind. If, for example, Rush Limbaugh says 1 plus 1 now equals three because 1 plus 1 equals 2 is a left-wing liberal subversive plot to destroy America, the RWA will, until Rush says differently, believe 1 plus 1 equals 3 and will do his or her best to twist and turn their logic and arguments to support this view.
4.Authoritarian Submission :This is the characteristic I just described in Milgram's experiment. If we are talking politics, however, instead of Teacher-Learner, what this means is that whatever people like Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Sarah Palin, Senator Mitch McConnell, Speaker John Bohner, or Representative Bachmann from Minnisota have to say, it becomes gospel, it is simply the Truth to those who follow them. No further thought or reasoning by the listener is needed for the authority has spoken, if the listener is a high-scoring RWA. In religious terms, this might be the late Jerry Fawell, the late Jim Jones, the late Martin Luther, the Pope, any evangelical or fundamentalist preacher. RWAs will accept, without questioning its reasonableness, what is said, they will repeat it, and they will defend it.
5.Hositility:RWAs frequently become hostile when confronted. It is not because they are naturally mean, far from it. It has more to do with extreme frustration with their inability to logically defend their positions, which are often contradictory. Because they accept their position as gospel from their SD authoritarian leaders, they have not reasoned through why this position makes sense. So, when questioned about it, all they are left with are slogans and anger. There were many examples of this hostility at many of the Town Hall meetings held around the country leading up to the November 2010 elections.
~snip~
~snip~
What are the RWA Characteristics?
NOW, WHILE I briefly describe the 12 traits of a Right-wing Authoritarian, think to yourself if you know anybody or have seen anybody on television or heard on the radio anybody who might fit some or all of these characteristics. If you have, my bet is they will score very high on Bob Altemeyer's Right-wing Authoritarian assessment. Hopefully, you don't find yourself coming to mind, but if you do, don't despair, that can be a good thing because the research also shows that once a RWA discovers this about themselves, they can often change.
The 12 traits are as follows:
1.Fear: RWAs are afraid of many things. It can be said that many people are afraid of many different things, but RWAs carry this to the next level of irrational fear, even when there is no factual basis for it. They are afraid that Obama is a Socialist, a Communist, or will become a dictator; they are afraid of teaching secular science to our youth, they are deathly afraid the burgeoning national debt will spell the end of America; they are afraid that a single regulation on guns will lead to a total prohibition of gun ownership in America, and the list goes on. No amount of reasoning or facts will dissuade high scoring RWAs of their fears so long as their Authoritarian leaders tell them to be afraid.
2.Self-Righteous: If you run into someone who appears inordinately self-righteous, then you are probably observing a snob or a RWA follower. If that self-righteousness takes on a holy-than-thou or "more patriotic than thou" flavor, then most likely you have a high scoring RWA.
3.Dogmatism: This characteristic is a clear signal a person is likely to be a high scoring RWA, whether on the extreme Right or the extreme Left. What they are told to believe is set in stone and nothing short of a nuclear blast is going to move them from their core beliefs. All of the provable, clear, certain facts in the world will not change an RWAs mind. If, for example, Rush Limbaugh says 1 plus 1 now equals three because 1 plus 1 equals 2 is a left-wing liberal subversive plot to destroy America, the RWA will, until Rush says differently, believe 1 plus 1 equals 3 and will do his or her best to twist and turn their logic and arguments to support this view.
4.Authoritarian Submission :This is the characteristic I just described in Milgram's experiment. If we are talking politics, however, instead of Teacher-Learner, what this means is that whatever people like Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Sarah Palin, Senator Mitch McConnell, Speaker John Bohner, or Representative Bachmann from Minnisota have to say, it becomes gospel, it is simply the Truth to those who follow them. No further thought or reasoning by the listener is needed for the authority has spoken, if the listener is a high-scoring RWA. In religious terms, this might be the late Jerry Fawell, the late Jim Jones, the late Martin Luther, the Pope, any evangelical or fundamentalist preacher. RWAs will accept, without questioning its reasonableness, what is said, they will repeat it, and they will defend it.
5.Hositility:RWAs frequently become hostile when confronted. It is not because they are naturally mean, far from it. It has more to do with extreme frustration with their inability to logically defend their positions, which are often contradictory. Because they accept their position as gospel from their SD authoritarian leaders, they have not reasoned through why this position makes sense. So, when questioned about it, all they are left with are slogans and anger. There were many examples of this hostility at many of the Town Hall meetings held around the country leading up to the November 2010 elections.
~snip~
Cont'd at link: http://myesoteric.hubpages.com/hub/An-Analysis-of-the-Right-Wing-Authoritarian-Follower-RWA
Here's Dr. Altemeyer's take on the RWA Tea Partiers:
Authoritarian Followers
If you read the book presented at this website, you'll find lots of evidence that, as a group, social conservatives share the psychological trait of being authoritarian followers.1 And you can hardly miss the authoritarian follower tendencies in the behavior of the Tea Partiers. Here are a dozen that seem pretty obvious.
1. Authoritarian submission. Authoritarian followers submit to the people they consider authorities much more than non-authoritarians do. In this context, Tea Partiers seem to believe without question whatever their chosen authorities say. Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, various religious groups, the House and Senate GOP leaders, Sen. Grassley from Iowa, Rep. Bachmann from Minnesota, and of course Sarah Palin can say whatever they want about the Democrats, and the Tea Partiers will accept it and repeat it. The followers don‟t find out for themselves what the Democratic leader truly said, what is really in a bill, what a treaty actually specifies, or whether taxes have really gone up. They are happy to let Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin do their thinking for them. It has gotten so bad that their leaders casually say preposterous things that are easily refuted, because they know their audience will never believe the truth, or even hear about it.
2. Fear. Fear constantly pulses through authoritarian followers, and Tea Partiers are mightily frightened. They believe President Obama is a dictator. They also think the country will be destroyed by its mounting debt. They readily believed the health care proposals provided for “death panels” that will euthanize Down‟s syndrome babies, “put Grandma in the grave,” and place microchips in each American so the government can track us. When Rep. Paul Brown (R-GA) said that Obama‟s plan to expand such things as the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps was really intended to create a Gestapo-like, brown-shirt military force in the United States, his followers accepted this. Conservative leaders especially vilify Barack Obama, recently calling him in the space of two days (April 7 and 8) the “most radical president ever” (Gingrich) who is “inflicting untold damage on this great country” (Limbaugh) and is inviting a nuclear attack on the United States by indicating we won‟t hit back (Palin). The people who orchestrate the Tea Party movement know well what button to push first and hardest among social conservatives, and they work it overtime. And they know spreading fear “works” with others as well. Sometimes it seems they are all trying to out-boogie-man each other.
~snip~
If you read the book presented at this website, you'll find lots of evidence that, as a group, social conservatives share the psychological trait of being authoritarian followers.1 And you can hardly miss the authoritarian follower tendencies in the behavior of the Tea Partiers. Here are a dozen that seem pretty obvious.
1. Authoritarian submission. Authoritarian followers submit to the people they consider authorities much more than non-authoritarians do. In this context, Tea Partiers seem to believe without question whatever their chosen authorities say. Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, various religious groups, the House and Senate GOP leaders, Sen. Grassley from Iowa, Rep. Bachmann from Minnesota, and of course Sarah Palin can say whatever they want about the Democrats, and the Tea Partiers will accept it and repeat it. The followers don‟t find out for themselves what the Democratic leader truly said, what is really in a bill, what a treaty actually specifies, or whether taxes have really gone up. They are happy to let Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin do their thinking for them. It has gotten so bad that their leaders casually say preposterous things that are easily refuted, because they know their audience will never believe the truth, or even hear about it.
2. Fear. Fear constantly pulses through authoritarian followers, and Tea Partiers are mightily frightened. They believe President Obama is a dictator. They also think the country will be destroyed by its mounting debt. They readily believed the health care proposals provided for “death panels” that will euthanize Down‟s syndrome babies, “put Grandma in the grave,” and place microchips in each American so the government can track us. When Rep. Paul Brown (R-GA) said that Obama‟s plan to expand such things as the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps was really intended to create a Gestapo-like, brown-shirt military force in the United States, his followers accepted this. Conservative leaders especially vilify Barack Obama, recently calling him in the space of two days (April 7 and 8) the “most radical president ever” (Gingrich) who is “inflicting untold damage on this great country” (Limbaugh) and is inviting a nuclear attack on the United States by indicating we won‟t hit back (Palin). The people who orchestrate the Tea Party movement know well what button to push first and hardest among social conservatives, and they work it overtime. And they know spreading fear “works” with others as well. Sometimes it seems they are all trying to out-boogie-man each other.
~snip~
Cont'd: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/drbob/Comment%20on%20the%20Tea%20Party.pdf
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