John W. Dean: Why Authoritarians Now Control the Republican Party...

[babylonsister]

Why Authoritarians Now Control the Republican Party: The Rise of Authoritarian Conservatism
by John W. Dean | Sep 21 2007 - 9:47am |
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— from FindLaw (posted with permission)

This is the second in a three-part series of columns in which FindLaw columnist John Dean discusses his most recent book, Conservatives Without Conscience. - Ed.

Today, the Grand Old Republican Party is controlled by authoritarian conservatives. (As I mentioned in my prior column, the first in this three-part series, to my knowledge no person in the GOP has ever denied that fact - and they are well-aware of my book.) More specifically, as I broadly outlined in my last column, the research of social scientists such as Bob Altemeyer has revealed the personality traits of both those authoritarians who are followers, and those who are their leaders.

The Followers: Right-Wing Authoritarians

Princeton political scientist Fred I. Greenstein has cautioned about the uses of personality in analyzing political activity; in fact, he directly addressed "the tangled history of studies of authoritarianism." He noted, however, that while the study of authoritarian personalities once seemed to be at a "dead end," that has proven not to be the case. Rather, "in the 1980s an ingenious and rigorous program of inquiry by Altemeyer (1981, 1988) furnished persuasive empirical evidence that the original authoritarian construct was an approximation of an important political-psychological regularity--the existence in some individuals of an inner makeup that disposes them to defer to authority figures."

These, of course, are followers. Altemeyer labeled these people "right-wing authoritarians" not because he was looking to target political conservatives, but rather because he was drawing broadly on the historical terms that identify those who openly submit to established authorities, and whether those authorities are political, economic or religious, those who submit to them are traditionally described as being on the right wing. As Altemeyer developed and refined his testing, however, it became apparent that those who tested as highly submissive to economic or religious authorities also proved to be hard-right political conservatives.

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http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/10059

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Excellent book by Dean. Very scary, but essential, reading. nt

[backscatter712]

2. K&R - It's important to know our enemy.

What we're seeing in the psychology of the authoritarian Republicans is the exact same psychology that drove the Nazis. Yes, I know I'm Godwining the thread, but I think the comparison is valid.