The Authoritarians

Bob Altemeyer is one academic I would love to meet. An American teaching at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. He has a casual style in his book and a great sense of humor for a grim subject. He was brought to the attention of the reading public because of John Dean,the former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, who wrote Conservatives without a Conscience to try and explain what happened to the Republican Party he used to know. For insight, Dean consulted the psychological studies of authoritarianism by Bob Altemeyer. Unfortunately, Altemeyer has been dragged into the political debate in this country over the last few years and feels he has to explain himself to the lay crowd. Working on authoritarianism since 1966, Altemeyer pledges he had no problems with his draft board before applying for his university position in Canada. He is not a liberal or leftist and he cites his wife who is a liberal as witness. He also claims not to have received any grant money from liberal or leftwing foundations for his research work. In fact, he claims he is so bad at writing proposals he's never received grants for his work. Academics would know his work in psychology from The Authoritarian Specter (Harvard University Press, 1996).

At that time, Altemeyer vowed that he had completed his last study of Right-Wing Authoritarianism and saw no reason to pursue it further. He notes that he considers Communist apparatchiks psychologically right-wing authoritarians so that the readers don't get confused and try and pigeon-hole his research.

If you're like me, you're curious what went wrong in the United States and why are these people emerging that seem so menacing. For me the moment when things crystallized was when I woke up and realized the Fourth Amendment was gone--and it was gone because of a secret bipartisan agreement on the Hill. Not that I have been obsessed by the Fourth Amendment, but I was fond of having it around and I woke up missing it. Another moment was reading the Patriot Act, which I did in its almost 1,000-page splendor, and found that any citizen could be stripped of their citizenship without due process. And that included me whose family has been sneaking around America since 1670. It's not simply because I am a beacon of civil libertarianism but rather I am motivated for self interest.

Bob Altemeyer got pulls back into his field because of events in the United States. "But mainly I am doing this because the six years have provided so many examples of authoritarian behavior in American government. There has never been a more obvious, appropriate and pressing time for this discussion. The threat that authoritarians poses to American democracy has probably never been clearer. It is just a coincidence, but human affairs have provided the foremost example of how badly authoritarianism can damage the United States at the same time as my work has come to an end and I am telling everyone what I've found. George W. Bush has been the most authoritarian president in my lifetime, as well as the worst. And that's not a coincidence. Assuming democracy prevails, future Americans should know how close we came to losing it in our day. "Those who do not learn from the past..."

It should be noted that Altemeyer does not contribute to political parties and is not a member of one. He even jokes he has never been a member of the Communist Party. Listen to his warnings about today. Remember this was printed in 2006 when the Democrats took back the Congress. He talks about why one should bother reading his book.

" First, if you are concerned about what has happened in America since a radical right-wing segment of the population began taking control of the government about a dozen years ago,I think you'll find a lot in this book that says your fears are well-founded. As many have pointed out, the Republic is once again passing through perilous times. The concept of constitutional democracy has been under attack--and by the American government no less! The mid-term elections of 2006 give hope that the best values and traditions of the country will ultimately prevail . But it could prove a huge mistake to think the enemies of freedom and equality have lost the war just because they were recently rebuffed in the polls. I'll be very much surprised if their leaders don't frame the setback as a test of the followers' faith, causing them to redouble their efforts. They came so close to getting what they want,they're not likely to pack up and go away without an all-out drive. But even if their leaders cannot find an acceptable presidential candidate for 2008, even if authoritarians play a much diminished role in the next election, even if they temporarily fade from view, they will still be there,aching for a dictatorship that will force their views on everyone. And they will surely be energized again, as they were in 1994, if a new administration infuriates them while carrying out its mandate. The country is not out of danger yet."

Yesterday, Sean Hannity told an adoring audience that "We won the (healthcare) debate, with you Tim McVeigh wannabes". They're BACK!

My quotes of Altemeyer don't do credit to his insightful and probing work on authoritarian followers. He said that an authoritarian leader is comical until he has millions fo followers. The book analyses political authoritarian followers as well as fundamentalist authoritarian religious followers. If you have wondered why tea party people complain about Obama and the constitution but never made a peep about the shredding of the constitution during the Bush-Cheney years, these studies answer that. At the end of the book, he deals with authoritarian leaders which match a different psychology and one that I found helpful in understanding what I perceived as cynical behavior and why and how this occurs. He has a delightful footnote at the end ranking the top Corrupt members in Congress in 2006 and their support from the Focus on the Family, the Christian Right lobbying group. We are now in politics that is beyond reason.

He cites approvingly Kevin Phillips 2006 book American Theology how religious conservatives have taken control of the Republican Party turning it into the first religious party in U.S. History and endangering everyone else's rights, the future of the country and that of the world. Kevin Phillips noted," By the end of the 1990s more than half of the fifty Republican state committees had been taken over by the religious right at least once."

If you recall my postings about Christian revisionist history, the leading Christian revisionist is a man named David Barton, who appeared again with Glenn Beck this week in Florida. Unbeknownst to me David Barton was the vice-chairman of the Texas Republican Party.

Altemeyer in examining both types of authoritarianism also discusses their forms of aggression and how they are most apt to attack "outsiders" (fill in the blank) in the dead of night or alone with a gang of like-minded people. This becomes particularly relevant for his section of how religious authoritarians view minorities and the gay community.

Next week I'll write more on his specific findings, which I found helpful in trying to make sense of the senseless. Next week also brings a motherload of books, which will help probe the whole issue of how did we get enthralled with the free market and let everything melt down. Stay tuned.