Authoritarians, pt 2: the Problem Broadly Outlined
How is it that Bush and Cheney could take us to war in Iraq with constantly shifting rationales, unleash the NSA to spy on the country at large, and with the aid of foot soldiers like John Yoo cobble together shoddy legal findings as flimsy justification for torture and other abuses of executive power? How is it that partisanship has grown so bitter that the wheels of Congress threaten to seize? Why does one side in our always-contentious political landscape feel today so strongly that they have lost “their” country and must take it back from those liberals who are not “real Americans?”
There is a common element running through these and other scenarios. It is the factor of authoritarianism: a personality construct and set of behaviors certain people exhibit and are drawn to. Authoritarian followers march behind their leaders blindly and loyally, ready to unleash aggression upon any that question those leaders. Authoritarian leaders believe the ends justify the means, and blithely embrace manipulation, aggression, deceit, and force to get what they want at any cost.
This goes beyond any mere political difference between liberals and conservatives. Social science scales which test for personality traits have found that approximately 25% of the general population is wired this way.[1] Not surprisingly, authoritarians like order and tradition, and traditional authority. They gravitate to patriarchal forms of allegiance. Authoritarianism may manifest differently in differing political systems (such as in China), but in the U.S., authoritarians are typically drawn to conservative party politics.
Fundamentalist Christians and the evangelical right were drafted wholesale into Republican politics to get Ronald Reagan elected in the 1980s. That infusion of Christian conservatives was revitalized under born-again Bush II. Since then, this set of traits has become even more prominent and entrenched in the American right wing. This broad authoritarian streak accounts for why the GOP and its close media affiliates like conservative talk radio have become so rigid in their orientation that the Republican party has shed moderate conservatives in droves over the last decade.
Authoritarian abhorrence of compromise and the tactics they use to gain control at any cost are at their heart anti-democratic. The more powerful this element becomes in politics, the more damage is done to our democracy. That is my concern in exploring this aspect of contemporary politics. To frame that discussion, I’ll be looking at the authoritarian personality, then at how these individuals and groups behave, then their political/religious affiliations, and finally at specific authoritarian actions that are subverting constitutional principles in the service of their bid for power.
Next in series: Pt 3, The Authoritarian Personality
Part 1 of series: Authoritarians and Conservative Politics
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1. See subsequent posts for discussion of this data, related factual claims, and links to source material.
Back when I first went to the NCO academy, we were taught the difference between authoritarian leadership and persuasive leadership. It was 1974, and in the aftermath of Vietnam the Corps was emphasizing persuasive leadership. The reason was that authoritarians tended to be bad combat commanders and more likely to get fragged by their own troops.
It was not unique to that time and place. A study of American military history shows that we swing over toward persuasive leadership during and right after wars, and then as time goes by the pendulum swings back toward authoritarian methods during peacetime. For some reason garrison duty seems to favor the authoritarian martinets, but when the lead starts flying it’s leaders like Joshua Chamberlain and Ben Grierson and Lewis B. Puller who are best able to fight and lead.
That's a fascinating observation.
Can you elaborate on how persuasive leadership is characterized?
As to the swinging pendulum re leadership styles, I think you're right about that, and it isn't limited to the US. France in particular had some notorious martinets in field duty between the two World Wars. They got spanked when the Maginot Line collapsed (which may also have been an outward demonstration of a certain leadership style as well as defensive military strategy. Why do authoritarians like to build walls? Berlin; US/Mexico; Maginot; etc.)
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Seth Anderson and b12partners, Deborah Christian. Deborah Christian said: Authoritarianism and the threat it poses to our democracy: pt 2 of a series at my blog. http://tinyurl.com/auth002 [...]