Teri Kanefield: The Authoritarian Personality

[Nevilledog]

https://terikanefield.substack.com/p/the-authoritarian-personality


What makes saving American democracy difficult is that a segment of the population is (according to political psychologists) naturally disposed toward authoritarianism.

I plan to argue that the problem is exacerbated by social media and the way we get information, which is causing people not disposed to authoritarianism to embrace authoritarianism.

The Paranoid Style in American Politics

Historian Richard Hofstadter, in his classic 1964 work offered an eerily accurate description of today’s politics.

Hofstadter conducted a thorough review of American politics from before the founding of the nation through McCarthyism. He noticed a pattern among a small impassioned minority on the fringes of the political spectrum.

He called their behavior the “paranoid style” in politics.

Those embracing the paranoid style of politics believe that unseen satanic forces are trying to destroy something larger in which they belong.

*snip*

[Just A Box Of Rain]

1. Richard Hofstadter is describing "populism" using ""paranoid style" as an alternative

naming convention to describe those who have authoritarian personalities and who embrace authoritarian ideologies.

Populism is the greatest threat to liberalism.

[Snarkoleptic]

2. Bob Altemeyer is a retired professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba,

where he studied authoritarianism for forty years.
He has some very solid insight into the authoritarian mindset and Trumpism.

https://theauthoritarians.org/lessons-of-the-2020-american-election-january-6th-and-beyond/

Trump’s Reaction to Losing the Election

John Dean and I wrote in Authoritarian Nightmare that Donald Trump probably would not leave office peacefully if he were defeated in 2020. You did not have to be the least bit insightful to say, as we did, that “if Trump loses in November he will probably claim it was a ‘rigged’ election, and he will try to get it overturned…Trump would claim there was colossal fraud, and the election should not count. ‘It was a hoax,’ he claims for the umpteenth time. ‘It has to be fair!’ he says, and his base takes to the street shouting support for Trump. No one would be surprised if Trump loses and refuses to leave”

[roamer65]

3. If we want to keep our representative republic, we are eventually going to have to fight for it.

We all know it’s coming.

[Nevilledog]

4. I think there's a lot of denial out there.

[roamer65]

5. Reality will eventually bite.

Bite hard it will, especially the longer we stall.

[Atticus]

6. Thanks. Well worth the read. nt