Worst Right Wing Authoritarian/Social Dominator presidential candidates?

[meldroc]

We're all arguing about which Democratic candidate we like the best - I like Kucinich and Obama. But for the sake of our country, we should make ourselves aware of the most dangerous candidates. The most fascist candidates. If you haven't read John Dean's book Conservatives Without Conscience, get ye to your nearest bookstore and get that book! It explains exactly what I'm talking about.

Basically, in sociology circles, there are a couple personality types of interest here:

Right Wing Authoritarianism: Roughly 30% of the population has this mindset (by some strange coincidence, Bush's approval level is also about 30% right now. Guess who his supporters are.) They're characterized by a high level of authoritarian submission (do what the Leader tells you to, no matter what,) authoritarian aggression (we're justified in doing whatever's necessary to bring people who aren't following the orders of the Leader in line...) and conventionalism (we should always stick to the Traditional Values.)

Social Dominance Orientation: If you think of human social organizations as being like a wolf pack, people with a high level of Social Dominance Orientation are the ones who want to be Alpha. More men than women tend to be high on the Social Dominance Orientation scale. They're ambitious, they crave power, and they work their ways up into positions of authority, and they tend to be more manipulative, Machiavellian and competitive than others.

The really, really scary ones, the ones I'm talking about, are people who score high on both the Right Wing Authoritarianism and the Social Dominance Orientation scales (the double-highs). These people are talked about at length in Conservatives Without Conscience. The combination of these two traits is absolutely poisonous. Individuals like this tend to be completely amoral, ambitious, racist, sexist, homophobic, domineering, manipulative, and flat out mean. They will do anything and everything to acquire power and impose their power on others, to fulfill their right wing authoritarian agenda. They are not bound by ethical rules like most people, and they WILL do absolutely monstrous things on a routine basis. They will not hesitate to throw you under the bus in the political arena when you outlive your usefulness to them, and will not hesitate to kill you if you get in their way and they think they can get away with it. Examples of people like this include Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, Tom Delay, Bill Frist, J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon.

So I'm trying to figure out which of the likely presidential candidates are the double-highs. These are the ones that need to be blocked from political power at all costs - they are a cancer upon our government. If one does become President, the country may very well get far closer to totalitarianism. My nominations:

These are the ones I'm certain have this mindset.
Newt Gingrich
Michael Savage
Tom Tancredo
Sam Brownback

These guys show some signs, but I'm not sure enough to label them:
John McCain
Duncan Hunter
Rudy Giuliani

I'm sure there are others in the current list of candidates, but I don't know enough about them to say whether they're RWA/SDO.
Who else is a double high RWA/SDO?

[brazos121200]

1. Rudy Giuliani is definitely high on both lists. At first I didn't think so

but then I looked at his life and there it is. The way he treated all his wives over the years, the way he treated the people of New York while mayor. The way he treated the city employees and his own staff. And then you have his enormous ambition to run for mayor in the first place, and now he's running for President. I think we may have a real neo-fascist Repub in sheep's clothing in the works.

[meldroc]

2. I'm thinking I agree with you there.

The way he's run New York - his emphasis on law-and-order, where he did things like railroading the homeless off the streets without putting anything together such as shelters to address their problems - just Make Them Go Away in the worst possible way. He's not as nice as he pretends to be.

Oddly enough, he doesn't show as much of the sexism and homophobia that tends to run rampant among Double-Highs. He's historically pro-choice (said he hates abortion but supports a woman's right to choose,) opposed gay-marriage, but showed favor for same-sex domestic partnerships and civil unions, and has lived with gay friends when he had his infamous marriage difficulties.

Though I wonder if his social-liberalism that he shows is merely a shell that he uses to push his ambition...

[Redbear]

4. Thats a great point.

I think Rudy's authoritarianism tends to get ignored becuase he has been seen as relatively pro-choice and pro-gay rights. But, those do NOT mean he is not a fascist at heart.

[HockeyMom]

6. My Way or the Highway Rudy

just like Bush. Oh, yes, it applies to average, law abiding citizens. I can remember when the city was talking about building a new stadium in Queens. The local homeowners held a town meeting to protest it. Rudy showed up and in essence told them that he didn't care what the homeowners thought about this. It was HIS decision (I'm the decider?) and they were going to get this stadium and there was nothing they could do to stop it. "Learn to like it, or leave." Something like that.

Even though I live on Long Island, we were constantly "treated" in the local press as to the day in day out, comings and goings of the City's "Favorite Mayor."

[Syncronaut Seven]

3. Heck, If it's worth printing

I'll give it a rec!

[meldroc]

5. I just added Sam Brownback to the list of RWA/SDOs

Just looking into him, he's a psychotically rabid fundy. Extremely anti-choice, against separation of church and state, anti-gay, for teaching of intelligent design, and pushed for laws increasing censorship of TV, radio and video games (to conform with "decency.")

In short, he aims to shove his religion down our throats - about as authoritarian as you can get.

[meldroc]

7. Too late for me to edit my OP, but Duncan Hunter goes from "maybe RWA/SDO" to certainly "RWA/SDO"

The more of his Wikipedia entry I read, the more he scares me. He wants to kick women out of the military (at least out of combat units), he went on the "decency" censorship bandwagon, and he has nasty anti-immigration views.

He was also peripherally involved in the Duke Cunningham scandal, showing he's a bit amoral underneath. He was also caught understating the size of his home to dodge property taxes, and is still fighting over back taxes from that.

Definitely RWA/SDO.

[meldroc]

8. John McCain is pretty damn dangerous.

With the "torture compromise" he brokered in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, he's shown flagrant disregard for civil rights. Lately, he's been courting the social conservatives by changing his views to be more anti-choice and anti-gay. Also, to this day, he refers to Vietnamese as "gooks" (please excuse the racial slur.)

[meldroc]

9. Mitt Romney...

shamelessly kicking my own thread again...

McCain believes the president’s interrogation of terrorist detainees was a violation of the Geneva Accords.

“I disagree with him,” Romney said.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3113712

Yeah, seeing that set off my RWA/SDO alarm... That and the potential anti-semitism and religious whack-jobbery.