John Dean was just on Countdown with Keith Olbermann discussing a study of "hundreds of thousands of people". The study, he says finds, that conservatives are of a psychological mindset that crave authoritarianism. There are conservatives who prefer to lead and those who prefer to follow, however in both cases, the structure of society they prefer is one of dictatorship. The followers are far more prone to blind following, a willingness to do anything to support their leaders, and a loyalty to their leaders over their country.
Dean says the study also finds that
23% of the population and growing are extreme right wing authoritarians. Olbermann asked if these were the same mentality of people who gave rise to Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, to which Dean affirmed as the case.
Dean states that we are "so close" to a fascist road in America that he had to disclose the contents of the study. He stated that it is critical to understand these people to prevent them from gaining control since they have a deep psychological desire for controlling and being controlled.
Dean suggests that many neoconservatives believe that they are more likely to maintain control of power if they actually ensure a continuation of terrorism, therefore creating an atmosphere of perpetual fear, which is why they have done so little to actually secure America.
Dean further went on to state that the exact same authoritarian tendencies we see in the Bush administration are what lead to Watergate and the crimes of the Nixon administration.
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So the question then is, we have a large and powerful segment of our society that has a deep psychological need to destroy that society. What are we as freedom loving people to do? Containment? Isolation? Fight fire with fire? Cutting all possible funding? Renew federalism?
Is there a way to keep the cancer within our democratic nation from killing democracy itself?
The Republican Party: a democracy-smothering hydra of religious extremism, that punishes all dissent and attempts to leach all powers of the state to their small cabal of deranged corporatists. From now on, the Republicans should be called by what they are, the Fundamentalist Hardline Thugs of America. This may be a term associated with extreme regimes like the Iranian government, the former Iraqi government, North Korea, the Soviets, and Castro’s Cuba, but be forewarned – as impossible as the corrupted media makes it for Democrats to get help in their continual fight to preserve democracy, without the Democrats expending the huge effort that they do, America would slip into a complete fascist dictatorship within a matter of days.
The Republican leadership strong armed the intelligence community by blatantly lying about the findings of the community, then strongly punishing anyone who attempted to expose the lies. As proven time and time again, it was not the intelligence that was faulty. The intelligence was accurate – it was the nefarious manipulation and of the intelligence that has exposed as blatant neglect, the failures in Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and even the Katrina disaster.
The Republican leadership strong armed their party members by threatening any member of their party who fails to march lock step with them on any nefarious policy or issue. As recent as Roves threats to senators who hold the interests of American democracy above the interests of the hardline Republican party line, the Republicans have also launched aggressive smear campaigns against any member of the partie who steps outside the dictatorial marching orders of their leadership.
The Republican leadership strong armed the American people by forcing highly rigable electronic voting machines manufactured by companies closely allied with the Republican leadership that have promised to deliver elections to Republicans into nearly every precinct of the nation. Even as states desperately work to decertify these ticking timebombs of rigged elections, the Republicans fight with equal desperation to force counties to use these machines and thwart all attempts to allow any type of verifiable paper trail. Just as the Republicans sabotage science by bribing shill scientists to argue against having paid By simply adding corrupted polls into the mix that show a closely divided electorate.
The Republican leadership has strong armed the families of 9/11 victims by aggressively fighting their desperate efforts to expose the incompetence in the prevention of and response to the attacks. They have refused to testify under oath or before the American people.
The Republican leadership has strong armed the Democrats by completely refusing to debate on behalf of the American people matters of great concern to the American people and the survival of our democracy. They refused to debate the Iraq war, the Patriot act, the mass of corruption that has bleed through and through the Republican Party. They force the Democrats to meet in basement rooms.
The Republican leadership has strong armed the Judicial Branch by filling the courts with hardliners, corporatists, and those with loyalty to their leaders vision of a dictatorial unitary executive above loyalty to the Constitution.
The Republican leadership has stong armed the international community, spying on members of the Security Council to ensure lock step voting on Iraq. If the Bush administration had not lied to the international community, if they had not terrorized the American people into supporting this war, if they had not insulted our allies, if they had not ignored planning for the aftermath, and if they had not excluded all but the administration's cronies from participating in the reconstruction, then other nations would be willing to send their troops so that American soldiers could come home.
Yes, after much planning, the Republicans will have managed to erase 50 years of American progress. Even as their attempt to threaten and extort the power of the government failed during Watergate, they persisted. Funded by multinational corporations intent on exploiting Americans, and using fundamentalist religious fanatics as their pawns, a minority of Republicans have managed to seize control of a majority of the people. Even as they have eliminated verifiable, accountable voting, purged the executive branch of any dissenters, usurped the power of the legislative branch for the executive, taken over 80% of all media, exploited the tragedy of 9/11 to undermine Constitutional rights and liberties, waged war on behalf of their crony contributors, and venomously threatened their opponents, they have never relented, even for a moment. For the Republicans' dream of America is a nation of campaign funding Ken Lay CEOs who have drogues of workers slaving 80 hours a week with no job security, no minimum wage, no overtime, no health care, no rights, no protections for dangerous working conditions, no ability to unionize, too uneducated to oppose them, and who are forced to pay into huge pension funds that can then be looted with no consequences. Another "economically conservative" Supreme Court appointee will surely seal this fate for tens of millions of Americans who still dare to dream the American dream.