Authored by John W. Dean and Robert Altemeyer.
John Dean’s newest book. Authoritarian Nightmare: Donald Trump and His Followers, details the threat of American authoritarianism. In addition, he recommends how America can stop the threat of dictatorial rule by highly prejudicial and authoritarian personalities.
Forty years of research demostrate the degree of threat that Amercia is facing. The book covers:
Listed below are selected excerpts about the threat and what we must do to stop and keep it from returning in the future. This is mostly about the last bullet above and with reference to some of the scary survey results.
It has taken forty years of study, and given what has happened in the last four, we believe this research cannot be ignored. – page 173.
When joined by “the forgotten” in 2016, the transformation of the GOP from a conservative political party to an authoritarian one with precious little connection to its past was complete. – page 213.
Can this authoritarian movement be contained before it’s too late. page xv
And even if Trump accepts the will of the majority and the Electoral College and leaves the White House, his backers will remain a very powerful force, ready to give undying loyalty to him for as long as he wants, and then to the next dictator-in-waiting. And the next one will almost certainly be smarter than Donald Trump. You can be sure someone is watching Trump closely, planning to step into his place. Thus, if you want to remain free, you will probably have to outvote today’s ardent Trump followers , not only in November 2020 but for some time in future elections. You may have heard that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. page 106
Social dominators have found their authoritarian leader, and we are witnessing the growing unfolding of authoritarianism in the United States. … It has not been our past and should not be our future. But if Trump — or any authoritarian leader — holds a post as powerful and pervasive as the American presidency, it will be our present, our way in the world. This is the reason it is so important that Americans appreciate that authoritarianism is on the ballot in the 2020 election, not to mention for many elections that will follow. page 123
Someone smarter than Trump and championed by Fox News and the right-wing media echo chamber, could pose a much greater threat down the road. You can bet that various Double Highs have already begun thinking how to get incarnated as the next messiah. You can also bet the “king-makers” are studying the field right now too, including the leaders of the religious right who might sense Trump losing a bit of his hold on their believers. page 279
The Monmouth University Polling Institute conducted a national psychological survey in support of this book. In prejudice section, the higher the score the more extreme their prejudice. 295 out of a group of 808 all white respondents, scored an average of 134 out of 216 points. This highly prejudicial group, which represents 36.5% of the sample population, “strongly approves” of Trump. This group included one Trump supporter who scored 214 points. This group also tests high for lack self-awareness and believes, when told by someone like DJT, that they are not prejudice. They are told they are “normal.” ‘There are good people on both sides.’ For comparison, a group of 370 respondents, who strongly disapproved of Trump, scored an average of only 53 points.
The primary test for strong Trump supporters was how high they would score on the well-established authoritarianism score. This test included a total of 990 respondents including the 808 whites from the prejudice test mentioned above. Those who strongly supported Trump and scored highly as authoritarian on this test numbered 348, or 35.2% of the sample group. They scored an average of 119 points out of possible 180. One Trump supporter in this larger group scored 176 points as the most authoritarian personality in the respondents group. For comparison, those who strongly disapproved of Trump, 466 respondents, scored only 54 points.
The correlation measure between the authoritarianism and prejuduce scores is 0.856. Absolute correlation requires a score of 1.000. Here is what the authors had to say about that high correlation:
… you can explain most prejudice in terms of authoritarianism. … There truly is a big, very bad wolf at our collective doors, and this metaphoric evil snarls such intolerance, discrimination, and victimization that it not only injures its immediate victims, but also shakes the democratic society to its core. Knowingly or unknowingly, prejudice people bring into the voting booth something of even greater danger to everyone’s freedom and our country’s very existence: authoritarianism. page 219
Ask a very complicated question: Who are Trump’s staunch supporters? Get a very simple answer: Prejudiced authoritarians, and few others. page 225
So, what can we do to end this truly evil and growing threat to our national existence?
Nothing has become clearer than the realization that Donald Trump is no part of the solution to our nation’s problems, but instead in very large measure the cause of them. page 261
… he [Trump] has lost the support of the independents, who gave him 46 percent of their votes and Clinton 42 percent in 2016. Just two years later independents favored Democrats over Republicans by 12 percent in the midterm elections. … Since the midterms, independents have on balance disapproved of Trump’s performance by roughly sever percent, most of them “strongly.” … they will decide the 2020 election. page 262
It will come down to the independent voters in the swing states, and how many Democrat[ic] supporters (get to) vote. page 263
The matter can be decided without a doubt by young voters, who are the least prejudiced age group in the United States and strongly oppose Trump on numerous grounds. … If the Democrats run good registration campaigns among the young, and if Biden supporters can overcome all the voter-suppression barriers the Republicans will throw at them, and if Bernie Sander’s suppporters can settle for half of what they want in order to have a certain chance to the rest later on, rather than no chance at all if Trump wins, Democrats can win the White House and both Houses of Congress in November. page 276
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