Authoritarianism and American politics

[pbrower2a]

(05-08-2016, 10:53 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Well, aren’t most people likely to trust someone who seems to agree with them? Probably, but people differ enormously in gullibility. (People showing few right-wing authoritarian tendencies) are downright suspicious of someone who agrees with them when they can see ulterior motives might be at work. They pay attention to the circumstances in which the other fellow is operating. But (people with strong tendencies toward authoritarianism) do not, when they like the message.

So suppose you are a completely unethical, dishonest, power-hungry, dirt-bag, scum-bucket politician who will say whatever he has to say to get elected. ... Whom are you going to try to lead, people with strong tendencies toward authoritarianism or people who have few authoritarian tendencies? Isn’t it obvious? The (gullible right-wing authoritarians) will open up their arms and wallets to you if you just sing their song, however poor your credibility. Those crabby non-authoritarian types, on the other hand, will eye you warily when your credibility is suspect because you sing their song?

So the scum-bucket politicians will usually head for the right-wing authoritarians, because the (right-wing authoritarians) hunger for social endorsement of their beliefs so much they’re apt to trust anyone who tells them they’re right. Heck, Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany running on a law-and-order platform just a few years after he tried to overthrow the government through an armed insurrection.

You sometimes hear that paranoia runs at a gallop in “right-wingers”. But maybe you can see how that’s an oversimplification. Authoritarian followers are highly suspicious of their many out-groups; but they are credulous to the point of self-delusion when it comes to their in-groups. So (in another experiment the author ran) subjects were told a Christian Crusade was coming to town led by a TV evangelist. The evangelist (the subjects were further told), knowing that people would give more money at the end of the evening if he gave them the kind of service they liked, asked around to see what that might be.

Finding out that folks in your city liked a “personal testimonial” crusade, he gave them one featuring his own emotional testimonial to Jesus’ saving grace. How sincere do you think he was? Most subjects had their doubts, given the circumstances. But (right-wing authoritarians) almost always trusted him.

http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer...oritarians.pdf

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Donald Trump is no longer President. Were he, most of us would be praising him as the greatest since... FDR? Lincoln? Washington? Maybe the greatest of all times?) out of fear of the Big Bad Federal Government or of well-connected people such as our employers, credit bureaus, law enforcement, or the like who know how best to make the best out of a great situation for themselves and a bad situation for many of us. Having a conscience in a political rule under the unambiguous command of an amoral, authoritarian leadership could be riskier than driving drunk, extreme speeding, spooking horses, provoking a dog attack, unprotected sex with a complete stranger in the time of AIDS, COVID-19, or teasing a rattlesnake. 
 
Most of us liberals don't give unqualified allegiance to anyone. That's one way to avoid getting stuck with a loyalty to someone corrupt or incompetent. Right-wing authoritarian types can show loyalty to figures who prove corrupt, cruel, or despotic. They can still listen to a rambling, 90-minute speech by Donald Trump. I like my political speeches short and sweet, as those can show a fundamental reality not so obvious before but evident afterward, as in "We have nothing to fear... but Fear itself!", Such is complete (with perhaps a short explanation), concise, and undeniably true. See also Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Winston Churchill's Finest Hour  or Iron Curtain speech, and Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Keep the message clear and pithy, which is far easier if one has already contemplated the consequences of failure. FDR knew that a firing squad awaited him if the American political system failed and a Bolshevik-style revolution took place... or being strung up on piano wire if the Nazis won the war. Churchill already knew how high the stakes were in view of what the Nazis were doing to the Poles as the Calais-Dunkirk-Ostend pocket shrank and eventually disintegrated. 

Trump was defeated, fair and square, but as he would say of people not his followers, "many do not know it".  This time it is Trump's followers who have the delusion that Trump really won but electoral fraud 'stole' America from them. The evidence of a Trump win denied them is perhaps that they know few people who could vote for Donald Trump. A near-majority of Americans live in a right-wing echo chamber that reinforces misconceptions.

Good leaders recognize that they can fail, and so can honorable struggles against grave wickedness. Had goodness prevailed, then the Poles would have turned the tables after the Hitlerite invasion and reversed early Nazi gains, maybe advancing to liberate Prague and Vienna, maybe compelling German military leaders to overthrow Hitler. The advantage to being on the side of goodness is that one can win the peace by ensuring that the defeated have no consequences other than the sting of defeat. So maybe the US Army enters a city at whose city limits a sign reads "Capital of the National-Socialist Movement". That's Munich. Well, at least the Gestapo is no more, and youth will no longer be drafted as cannon fodder for a war going badly. So the Hitler statues go to the rubbish heap? Good riddance! But... one must win. 

The personality of Donald Trump has been defeated, but we cannot be sure that we will not soon face more of the same without the blatant expressions of malignant narcissism, and the flights of fancy. As early as 2004 we will likely face someone with much the same agenda, only with more cunning, more structure in his rhetoric, and more knowledge of human character and the weaknesses in our political order. Donald Trump has found the seams in our system and ripped them. But so did Karl Rove before him on behalf of Dubya. Or did Trump find new seams to rip that someone can still find with adequate dedication to such a purpose?

The principled conservatives hat you may have known twenty to sixty years ago are no more within the Republican party. Some have gone Libertarian, recognizing that Big Government is a good thing for one only if it is your sort of Big Government, and that when someone else takes it over who has different objectives, then that person will turn something benign into a nightmare. (To some extent I concur: we would be far better off if we relied more upon individual enterprise for opportunities to do well for ourselves the old fashioned way than upon monopolistic behemoths that use bureaucracy to buy off smart people who might otherwise draw wisdom from the likes of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and whatever Commies strike one's fancy for style). Monopolistic entities need Big Government as an enforcer and a ready source or conduit of cheap capital; nobody really does anything for small business except the owners. America was founded on small business for its economic basis, and its political institutions work best when super-rich people do not buy the political process. The other is that genuine conservatives have made a tenuous alliance with liberals out of dread of a right-wing demagogue such as Donald Trump.
 
OK, so Obama and Biden have become conservatives on some fundamentals of the American political heritage: protocol, precedent, and the rule of law. That matters far more than does achieving some social or economic agenda. After all, many who died of Stalin's Great Purge or languished in the Gulag system liked his form of 'socialism' and had dedicated their lives to establishing it in the hope that it would bring great human progress and social equity.  
  
...Donald Trump still has his Dog and Pony show. It is going stale, and we can all make such snide wisecracks as that Donald Trump would be a better person if he had had a pet dog or pony at some time, as either forces some responsibility upon someone. Someone may come up with a newer, slicker version by 2028 -- if not 2024 -- just in time for people tiring of current politics or for some international or economic distress. 

I have more to say, but this relates to a poll with a huge amount of data. What I have here is prologue for that.