We've seen a lot of dirty pool from the Clinton campaign. The thing that disturbs me the most is that I'm seeing a pattern. To see this pattern more closely, we've got to break things down, by taking a look at the behavior of Hillary Clinton herself, and a look at the behavior of her supporters.
Certainly, Clinton's behavior has been less than chivalrous. To start, there is the long history of lying, with Sniper-gate being the most famous example. There's the vindictive actions - denouncements of Bill Richardson, for example. There's the vicious attacks she's been making on Barack Obama for everything from the "bitter" remark to Rev. Wright. She's made some poor calls on the issues, such as threatening to nuke Iran. But Clinton herself is just part of the pattern.
Also alarming is the behavior of her supporters. They've accepted all of Clinton's actions and behavior without question. They've had their own misdeeds - throwing people from Keith Olbermann to Ted Kennedy under the bus for failing to support Hillary Clinton, and they've demanded that other Democrats support Hillary because "It's her turn" or because she's a woman.
But what's the pattern? I'd say it's nothing less than Right Wing Authoritarianism. More after the fold...
Let's look at the work of Dr. Bob Altemeyer, Professor of Psychology at the university of Manitoba. We'll crack open Dr. Altemeyer's book The Authoritarians (free PDF download). I also want to mention that Dr. Altemeyer's work is referenced extensively by John Dean in his books Conservatives Without Conscience and Broken Government. You might also want to take a look at a CliffsNotes summary of Right Wing Authoritarianism at Wikipedia.
We'll start by checking out the characteristics of Right Wing Authoritarians. The term "Right Wing" is used by Dr. Altemeyer differently from the way it's used in normal politics, not describing someone who's necessarily on the political right wing, but someone who fits a specific set of characteristics. I'm talking about the characteristics of a person who will submit to established authorities in society.
Anyways, a Right Wing Authoritarian (RWA) has three key traits.
- Authoritarian Submission: This is the tendency to submit to an authority figure, without question, even if that authority figure does things that are corrupt, dishonest, destructive or hurtful. They follow blindly, and trust completely, even when the authority figure does things to violate that trust. The authority figure can do no wrong.
- Authoritarian Aggression: This is the trait that causes RWAs to not only submit to an authority figure, but to take actions to force others to also submit to that authority figure. Aggressive behavior here is seen as endorsed and mandated by the authority, thus RWAs are likely to take aggressive behavior to extremes. Sometimes the aggression manifests as physical violence, but more often, such aggression is seen as things like, say, dirty tricks against those opposed to the leader, or in inflicting heavy punishments against lawbreakers or outgroups.
- Conventionalism: RWAs tend to stick to established social conventions. They don't like to stray from the familiar. More importantly, they don't like seeing people stray from the traditions and customs they're used to. Frequently, they attach to religion as a source of tradition and custom, and they work hard to observe and enforce such traditions.
Right wing authoritarianism also tends to correlate with a certain series of behaviors. They include (I'm borrowing from the Wikipedia article):
- Faulty reasoning — RWAs are more likely to:
- Make many incorrect inferences from evidence.
- Hold contradictory ideas that result from a cognitive attribute known as compartmentalized thinking.
- Uncritically accept that many problems are ‘our most serious problem.’
- Uncritically accept insufficient evidence that supports their beliefs.
- Uncritically trust people who tell them what they want to hear.
- Use many double standards in their thinking and judgments.
- Hostility Toward Outgroups — RWAs are more likely to:
- Weaken constitutional guarantees of liberty such as a Bill of Rights.
- Severely punish ‘common’ criminals in a role-playing situation.
- Admit they obtain personal pleasure from punishing such people.
- Be prejudiced and hostile against racial, ethnic, nationalistic, sexual, and linguistic minorities.
- Volunteer to help the government persecute almost anyone.
- Be mean-spirited toward those who have made mistakes and suffered.
- Profound Character Attributes — RWAs are more likely to:
- Be dogmatic.
- Be zealots.
- Be hypocrites.
- Be absolutists.
- Be bullies when they have power over others.
- Help cause and inflame intergroup conflict.
- Seek dominance over others by being competitive and destructive in situations requiring cooperation.
- Blindness To One’s Own Failings And To The Failings Of Authority Figures Whom They Respect — RWAs are more likely to:
- Believe they have no personal failings.
- Avoid learning about their personal failings.
- Be highly self-righteous.
- Use religion to erase guilt over their acts and to maintain their self-righteousness.
We all know where we've seen this before - the Bushies! The right wing has a lot of RWAs in it. Right Wing Authoritarianism was also seen in totalitarian regimes from history like the Khmer Rouge, Fascist Italy, Stalinist Russia, and yes, Nazi Germany.
But are we seeing it from the Clinton campaign? I can see pretty easily the authoritarian submission and the authoritarian aggression - the uncritical acceptance of everything Hillary Clinton says and does, and the blatant hostility towards people that do not support her. What about the conventionalism? That's harder to see - after all, she does have a "D" next to her name instead of an "R".
Still, the signs are there. Part of it is that she's adopted the conventions of the Democratic Party to replace or supplement the usual right-wing conventions of the Republicans. That helps to explain why people critical of Hillary Clinton are so frequently accused of being sexist - they've adopted a sort of feminism as one of the conventions they choose to enforce.
But some of the old right-wing conventions are also lurking in Clinton's authoritarianism. With Clinton herself, we see her associations - she's a leader of the DLC, and she is in that Bible study group with Doug Noe. Also, if you watch her closely, you see who Hillary Clinton chooses to attract to her campaign. Just perk your ears and listen to that dog whistle that comes from her and her surrogates. There's Bill Clinton's and Geraldine Ferraro's race baiting. There's Hillary's repeated references to Obama's meeting in San Francisco a few weeks ago (that's anti-gay dog-whistling.) People have been saying for months now that she's been courting the Archie Bunker demographic.
What's really interesting is the zeal in which the right wing has come to Hillary Clinton's aid. The saying goes that the right wing hates Hillary Clinton and fears Barack Obama. It's been clear that the right wing considers Hillary Clinton to be an easier opponent than Barack Obama. But look how far they take it. Richard Mellon Scaife has interviewed her and endorsed her in his newspapers. She's gone on FOX News and received softball treatment from people like Bill O'Reilly. Rush Limbaugh has been beating the drums for Operation Chaos, telling his dittoheads to register as Democrats and vote for Hillary Clinton. ABC threw that ambush "debate" designed to pump up Hillary Clinton and mercilessly tear down Obama.
That's a lot of time, money and energy spent to help a candidate that they hate. Or do they really hate her? Sure, if you ask a right winger about Hillary Clinton, you'll get the ritual displays of contempt. But could it be that subconsciously, they see in Hillary Clinton the same kind of authoritarianism that they seek from their own leaders in the Republican party? Are they helping a kindred spirit, even if they won't admit it to themselves? Why would they go to so much trouble if they just hated her? You'd think if the hate was strong, the efforts to help her would be half-hearted at best.
There you have it. You wonder why Hillary and her followers act like Republicans? You wonder why you see the Rovian do-anything-to-win campaigning? You wonder why you get shouted at and bullied because you're not supporting Hillary? You wonder why Hillary and her supporters will flip positions suddenly and not even bat an eye at the hypocrisy? You wonder why Hillary and her followers will not listen to reason, will not do what's good for the party and the country, will not think about the delegate math? You wonder why the Republicans that have expressed such vitriol against her are now eagerly helping her?
That's Right Wing Authoritarianism at work.
P.S. Just another random thought. Anyone else notice how Clinton's been using the fear card? Those ads with the '29 stock crash and pictures of Osama Bin Laden? Big red flag.
P.P.S. Plum just gave me a link to a Kos diary from Bob Altemeyer: Obama and Guilt by Association: Why It Works among Authoritarian Followers. Definitely a must-read. It has some advice from the master himself in how to deal with the authoritarian issue.