There has been more than a few words spilled about the ‘mystery’ of why anyone in their right minds would support an obvious fraud like Donald Trump. Economic uncertainty? Racism? Reflex rejection of those *%* America-hating Liberals? People are trying to get a handle on what’s going on with Trump’s supporters. It’s a great puzzle — or is it?
Some Background
It’s not a mystery, and we were practically handed a check-list of what to watch out for by Sarah Robinson right here at Daily Kos back in 2006. She was building on research and history, from which we should have learned a thing or two — but didn’t. It’s not surprising, because it says things about America (and humans in general) that are pretty uncomfortable. The link will take you to her page at Kos; you can see by the number of comments that her posts went largely unnoticed. You can find them at Orcinus also, along with some other key posts she wrote. (Look way down the website on the left margin to find them.)
The key word is Authoritarians, as described by Prof. Bob Altemeyer. The history lesson is from John Dean and “Conservatives Without Conscience”. Dean took Altemeyer’s work and showed how it describes conservatism to a tee. A survivor of the Nixon White House, Dean knows what we seem to have collectively forgotten about what happens when an unfit leader ends up in the Oval Office, surrounded by more of the same.
Robinson took the work of both and distilled it into a series of posts that describe the problem in detail, and suggest ways of dealing with it. Her series “Cracks in the Wall” begins by describing authoritarian leaders and followers, and moves on to strategies to cope with them and help their followers get across the wall they’ve built to separate themselves from a world they reject. (Robinson comes from that kind of background herself, which gives her critical insight into how their minds work.)
It’s not just the leaders — you have to look at the followers
Robinson starts her series Cracks in the Wall with Part One. It is devoted to explaining how authoritarian personalities work. They come in two complementary flavors: leaders and followers. We’re all becoming familiar with Trump’s shortcomings. He’s a textbook case of an authoritarian leader — he checks off all the boxes. (There’s a full description in Part One.) But, leaders without followers are not a problem. Followers are what we have to understand IF we are to weaken the power of their authoritarian leaders.
It’s not just Trump. They are the base driving the worst behavior of the Republican Party in a feedback process. I’m going to post the key description of them from Part One here, at the risk of violating fair use guidelines because the information is the key to unraveling the ‘mystery’ of Trump supporters.
Leaders and Followers
Authoritarians come in two flavors: leaders and followers. The two tiers are driven by very different motivations; and understanding these differences is the first key to understanding how authoritarian social structures work.
emphasis added
...And yet, while these leaders are compelling, they will not be the main focus of my discussion of authoritarians. As I said: these personality traits emerge as early as three or four, and people who have them are almost always well beyond the reach of change. They have always been with us, and probably always will be. Since they represent a very small slice of the population, dealing with them effectively will, in practice, largely involve strategies to recognize them, isolate them, and prevent them from aggregating large hordes of followers.
emphasis added
It's those followers that we need to look at -- because they are sometimes capable of change, if you know where the leverage points are. The next two parts of this series will focus exclusively on them; for now, let's look at what Dean and Altemeyer have to say.
While the high-SDO [Social Dominance Orientation] leaders are defined by Dean as dominating, opposed to equality, desirous of personal power, and amoral, right-wing authoritarian followers have a different but very complementary set of motivations. The three core traits that define them are:
1. Submission to authority.
"These people accept almost without question the statements and actions of established authorities, and comply with such instructions without further ado" writes Dean. "[They] are intolerant of criticism of their authorities, because they believe the authority is unassailably correct. Rather than feeling vulnerable in the presence of powerful authorities, they feel safer. For example, they are not troubled by government surveillance of citizens because they think only wrongdoers need to be concerned by such intrusions. Still, their submission to authority is not blind or automatic; [they] believe there are proper and improper authorities...and their decision to submit is shaped by whether a particular authority is compatible with their views."
2. Aggressive support of authority.
Right-wing followers do not hesitate to inflict physical, psychological, financial, social, or other forms of harm on those they see as threatening the legitimacy of their belief system and their chosen authority figure. This includes anyone they see as being too different from their norm (like gays or racial minorities). It's also what drives their extremely punitive attitude toward discipline and justice. Notes Dean: "Authoritarian aggression is fueled by fear and encouraged by a remarkable self-righteousness, which frees aggressive impulses."
3. Conventionality.
Right-wing authoritarian followers prefer to see the world in stark black-and-white. They conform closely with the rules defined for them by their authorities, and do not stray far from their own communities. This extreme, unquestioning conformity makes them insular, fearful, hostile to new information, uncritical of received wisdom, and able to accept vast contradictions without perceiving the inherent hypocrisy.
Conformity also feeds their sense of themselves as more moral and righteous than others -- a perception that's usually buttressed by the use of magical absolution techniques that they use to "evaporate guilt," in Dean's words. Because they confessed, or are saved, or were just following orders, they can commit heinous crimes and still retain a serene conscience and sense that they are "righteous people." On the other hand, when it comes to outsiders, there is no absolution. Their memory for even minor transgressions is nothing short of elephantine (as Bill Clinton knows all too well).
Those three traits are the key to understanding their world view. It’s why so much of the division in America seems tribal — because that’s what it has become. It wasn’t so big when they could believe we were ALL Americans together, as long as we were all fighting Hitler, or Global Communism, or some other overwhelming threat. It was an easily understood world, where white people were in charge, the U.S. was always right, and people knew their place. They could wake up every morning and believe that, minor problems aside, America was largely on the right track.
The Civil Rights movement, the Anti-War movement, the rise of the Counter Culture in the 60’s challenged all that. Nixon helped pave the way with “the silent majority.” Ronald Reagan took the divides that formed then and blew them wide open with his dog-whistle appeals to racism, jingoism, and his declaration of war on the government. The Republican Party has been riding that horse ever since. You can get an idea of who they’re targeting from the list of character traits below.
Dean lists other traits of right-wing authoritarian followers, most of which flow directly from the three core traits above:
Both men and women
Highly religious
Moderate to little education
Trust untrustworthy authorities
Prejudiced (particularly against homosexuals, women, and followers of religions other than their own)
Mean-spirited
Narrow-minded
Intolerant
Bullying
Zealous
Dogmatic
Uncritical toward chosen authority
Hypocritical
Inconsistent and contradictory
Prone to panic easily
Highly self-righteous
Moralistic
Strict disciplinarian
Severely punitive
Demands loyalty and returns it
Little self-awareness
Usually politically conservative/Republican
Remember this list, because these specific characteristics form the foundation of the discussion that will unfold in the next two posts. It is these traits that we will find the cracks in the wall.
That was Then. This is now
The big question now is whether it’s too late to crack open their wall. (That metaphor, BTW, is a powerful one — it’s why Trump’s Wall resonates so strongly with them. Separation is how they deal with a world and facts they can’t handle.) It took a Civil War to deal with the last time divisions got out of hand. Instead of an armed rebellion, this time we’re facing a long-term subversion of our democracy by powerful interests based on authoritarianism. The battle is everywhere and nowhere. (Not unlike this understated scenario. Conflict is where you find it — or it finds you..)
If you look at the list of characteristics above, you can see that Republican and right wing media messaging is aimed squarely at this base. It motivates them because it reaches them at a gut level and reinforces their world view. (It also has the advantage of being fact-free — reality is like Kryptonite to Republicans.)
You can’t reason with them; reason is not what drives them. You can’t convince them with facts, because they reject facts that don’t come from a source they trust. You can’t change them from without — they have to be the ones who want to make a change.
That takes something that makes them question their beliefs, and they cling to them like a drowning person clutching a lifesaver ring. We can’t supply it — they have to be hit by something that connects with the gut. Robinson talks about things that do it, and usually it’s something that makes them recognize they’ve been betrayed by their leaders, something that shakes their trust.
This is not something Democrats can easily do on a national level; they reflexively dismiss anything coming from sources they see as the enemy. They respect strength — they’ll suspect Democratic apologetics or attempts to empathize as weak. If Tump gets us into a war, they’ll harden their support for him. They understand about enemies — it’s always “us” versus “them” in their world.
Trump and the Republican Party will have to fail in a way they can’t ignore and can’t blame on Democrats before they’ll change. Trump and right wing media hammering on “Democratic obstruction” is how they’re trying to immunize themselves against this. Trump’s tweets are aimed at them.
Robinson lays out a number of ways of helping authoritarian followers break through the wall they’ve built around themselves, but it’s largely a one on one process that can take a long time. We need to be able to listen and not preach IF and when Trump supporters begin to have doubts. (The GOP Congress and Trump are handing them lots of reasons to doubt.)
IF they begin to have questions, saying “I told you so” is not the best approach — see if you can get them to ask other questions that follow from their initial qualms. They want certainty in their lives — uncertainty drives them nuts, and making them see it’s the GOP that’s turning their lives upside-down is the way to go.
We need to recognize that Democratic failures are not the only reason we’re in this mess. Many of our institutions, like the press, our elections, our representation in government, have been deliberately compromised. Trump supporters are only one area of conflict. We have other problems as well: Climate Change, the physical limits to growth colliding with economics that are based on perpetual growth, the rise of religious fanaticism, catastrophic levels of inequality, and more.
Concentrating solely on Trump supporters may be a mistake however, given all the other things coming down the road. It’s important to remember that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Only the electoral college, James Comey, the Russians, the media, and Republican vote suppression kept her from winning.
It’s also important to remember that the politics of this country would look very different IF all the people who stay home actually turned out to vote. Democrats need to get those people to show up by finding out what will make them show up and selling them on it. Republicans have a minority base, but it turns out. Instead of chasing that base, we should be expanding ours.
Sarah Robinson, wherever you are now, we could use your counsel.