John Dean appeared on Countdown yesterda to promote his new book "
Conservatives Without Conscience" (C&L has the video up
here).
In the interview Dean revealed some of the results of a massive study of the authoritarian personality. The study spanned about 50 years and involved hundreds of thousands of people. The results give a profound insight into the conservative mind.
It turns out that authoritarians are overwhelmingly, massively conservative. Dean estimated that only about 1% of liberals have an authoritarian personality, those on the very far left. However, 23% of Americans are conservative authoritarian followers (see the Vyan's
excellent diary for more), and their numbers are growing.
Now, we already knew from this study that whiny children tend to grow up conservative. About the only thing we need to complete the portrait of the conservative mind would be a scientific study that showed that conservatives feared things that were new and different, like people who speak a different language, or worship a different god, or have darker skin. That study would be something of a no-brainer, of course. After all, if conservatives liked new and different things, they wouldn't be conservatives, would they?
So, there we have it: Conservatives are bed-wetting, whiny-assed titty baby authoritarian cultists. Of course, none of that comes as a surprise to anyone in Left Blogostan. We see it every day and have understood it intuitively for a long time. Still, it is nice to have scientific proof of it.