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by
John W. Dean
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September 18 - September 29, 2020
Donald Trump’s authoritarian-styled campaign let loose savagery in American politics, and it stunned his opponents who found it impossible to go as low as he went night after night.
Trump’s viciousness emboldened his followers, some of whom had been waiting for years for a leader who would let them unleash a hatred that has long roiled within them.
More than anyone in our lifetime Donald Trump promoted hatred in speech after speech, tweet after tweet, until it throbbed like your worst headache throughout our public life, spreading fear everywhere.
even larger group of authoritarians (beside social dominators) swells the ranks of Donald Trump’s supporters, They are authoritarian followers,
These authoritarian followers show these three characteristics: a high degree of submission to the perceived established, legitimate authorities in society; high levels of aggression in the name of their authorities; and
high level of conventionalism, insisting that others follow the norms endorsed by their authorities.
Anyone who has had a serious “discussion” with a Trump supporter may have noticed that facts and logic often bounce right off them.
They will say how great it is to live in a country that guarantees freedom of speech but then assert, “My country, love it or leave it,” when somebody criticizes the nation.
when authoritarians talk about how much they value freedom, they are talking about their own freedom.
him, a properly formed sentence has to have a subject, a predicate, and an extreme exaggeration.
they show almost no capacity for critical thinking at all.
unpersuaded by conclusive evidence when they do not like the conclusion.
premier example of Trump’s base refusing to accept science-based conclusions must be their belief that their president knows more about communicable viral diseases than the experts who have spent their lives studying them.
Their distinctive identity was rooted more in their family’s religious affiliation than anything else when they were growing up,
Donald Trump has promoted a nationalistic, America-first, isolationist outlook based on the belief that everybody else, friend and foe alike, was taking advantage of a patsy USA.
think Black people are naturally violent, Jewish people cannot be trusted as much as other people, minority groups are spoiled and happy to live on welfare for the rest of their lives, various racial and ethnic groups are inherently promiscuous and irresponsible, homosexual people are sick, people who belong to a different religion are immoral, and women belong in the
the personalities of the discriminators, not the behavior of the disliked group.
True Believers simply refuse to change their views. They cannot explain why they are right, but they know they are.
“There are no discoveries or facts that could possibly make me change my mind about the things that matter most in life.”
lack of empathy that approaches inhumane coldheartedness. Probably no more gripping an example can be found than their reaction to the separation of children from their parents when the families crossed the Mexican border seeking asylum in the United States.
polls in 2018 found that Trump’s “zero tolerance policy” on illegal entry was the most unpopular government act in recent American history.
46 percent of Republicans approved of it,
Authoritarian followers are noticeably more afraid of the world than other people are, and this is probably a big reason why they crave the protection of a strong hero and his militant group.
Feelings of moral superiority can brush aside inhibitions against attacking homosexual people, “radicals,” high school classmates who got pregnant, and many racial and ethnic minorities.
Authoritarian followers restrict their sources of information
Trump supporters are the most biased news consumers in the country. Like their choice of friends, they want news that tells them what they want to hear.
“You can fool some of the people all of the time,” George W. Bush joked at a Gridiron Club Dinner in 2001, adding “those are the ones you need to concentrate on.”
Jimmy Carter noted as well that “fundamentalist movements are led by authoritarian males who consider themselves to be superior to others and, within religious groups, have an overwhelming commitment to subjugate women and to dominate their fellow believers.”4
Of the seven deadly sins (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride), Trump might get a pass on sloth if you count watching cable news as working. Otherwise, he had plainly reveled in sin for most of his life and delighted in it like a pig rolling in muck.
high RWAs have virtually impossible standards for evidence about something they do not want to believe.
the irony in how the religious authorities in evangelicals’ lives, by encouraging compartmentalization, teaching double standards, rewarding memorization over critical thinking, promoting ethnocentrism, et cetera, made it easy for Donald Trump to steal their flocks.
a large stack of research findings shows that evangelicals’ religious beliefs do not make them particularly moral.
Republicans in every legislature save one scored higher on the RWA Scale as a group than did Democrats.
was found that, compared to low RWA lawmakers, high RWAs: Considered equality an unimportant value in guiding the country. Rejected a law raising taxes on the rich while lowering them on the poor.
Favored extending capital punishment to more crimes. Wanted to forbid news programs broadcasting from cities (such as Bagdad) that the United States was bombing. Opposed gun control laws. Favored teaching Christianity in public schools. Scored high in dogmatism. Opposed affirmative action laws. Favored giving police more power to search, arrest, and interrogate suspects. Favored outlawing the Communist Party. Opposed the Equal Rights Amendment. Favored placing more restrictions on abortion than Roe vs. Wade. Had conservative economic philosophies. Favored restricting anti-war protests so they
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A good many of the people in America elected to write our laws have very little commitment to the form of government they are entrusted to protect.
“conservative” parties in North American legislatures are
not only thick with persons who score highly on the Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale, but also that many if not most of these lawmakers are also high Social Dominators. That makes them the super authoritarian, super prejudiced, super dangerous people this chapter is about: Double Highs.
These people write our laws. Think what they would do if they had no constitutional restricti...
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QUESTION ONE: Are Trump’s Supporters Highly Authoritarian? ANSWER: Are They Ever!
QUESTION TWO: Are Trump’s Supporters Highly Prejudiced? ANSWER: Very Much So.
Compared with other Americans, Trump’s white supporters are, as a group, highly prejudiced.
the people who support Trump the strongest, the people who likely attended his rallies and are most active on his behalf, tend to be the most prejudiced of
the most prejudiced people in America were likely drawn to Trump because he told them their prejudices were justified. But they connected with him and with one another on more than their attitudes toward minorities, for the showman at the rallies was a megalomaniac and demagogue driven to dominate everyone in the world.
millions of Americans are seemingly primed and waiting for the word to start stomping out “the rot.” It will be their duty, they say, to help persecute whomever a vengeful Trump decides to stomp out.
We asked, “If Donald Trump is defeated in November 2020, (should he) continue to be president if he declares the election was fixed and crooked?” Trump’s opponents answered with one voice: “No!” But Trump’s supporters proved less likely to side with the Constitution. Only two-thirds of them said no. Fourteen percent outright agreed Trump should declare the election null and void, if he wished, and 19 percent said they were unsure. We believe that Trump could get strong support from his base to stay in power, even if he made even an obviously false claim of electoral wrongdoing.9
the people he attracted to join his
undertaking, his early political enablers. To say that his campaign team was third-rate would be a vast overstatement of their qualifications. It was a collection of oddballs and misfits.
there appears to be more going on with Pence and Pompeo than meets the eye. They are operating on another level which can be easily overlooked.
