Trump’s appeal resides on the primordial plains of Africa, where human leadership preferences were formed by the brutalities of daily living. ~ Hector Garcia
As part of a post-mortem on the presidential election, I will turn my attention to the “slide” of conservatism into full-blown authoritarianism — from a “normal” conservative fear of outsiders into the xenophobic overload that characterizes the authoritarian personality.
The Divide Inside the Mandate
Joe Biden got more raw votes than any presidential candidate in history. In comparison to the percentage of votes garnered by winning Presidential candidates in the past 30 years, only Barack Obama in 2008 got a higher percentage of votes (52.9) than Joe Biden. Most pundits would call this a strong mandate. But for many of us, this did not feel like a repudiation of Donald Trump – not the kind of cathartic dismissal we were hoping for. Seventy million Americans voted for Donald Trump, more votes than he received in 2016. Democrats lost seats in the House. State legislatures did not get more ‘blue” and the Senate portends a doubtful (yet still possible) majority for Democrats.
We Are More Tribal Than Ever
We are a tribal nation in a tribal media ecosystem. Even if Biden had won by 10 million or more votes, we would still be a nation of roughly 20-30 million Americans with a latent or activated authoritarian personality. It behooves us to understand who they are and how they “happened.” Authoritarianism in America is not going away with the defeat of Donald Trump. Far from it. Columnist Dana Milbank wrote on November 6: “The next couple of years could be ugly and unproductive. But gone will be a president who daily weakens democracy with authoritarian tendencies. Out will be a man who fuels our basest instincts with racism, vulgarity, vitriol, violence, self-dealing lies and conspiracy theories.” Yes, this particular despot is gone as President (not as leader or media mogul), but his followers and their subjective grievances remain in the American family.
My God — It Took A Pandemic
As Molly Ball most aptly put it (Time, November 5), “Win or lose, Trump has engineered a lasting tectonic shift in the American political landscape, fermenting a level of anger, resentment and suspicion that will not be easy for his successor to surmount. Even with a Biden win, “it’s still that case the an openly bigoted aspiring authoritarian not only won the presidency but captured the complete loyalty of one of two major political parties, and – but for a once-in-century-pandemic, he might have been reelected.”
Revisiting The Root of It – Part 1
In my last post, Evolutionary Science and Our Political Divide: The Root of It – Part 1, I provided evidence that:
- Human mating strategies (sexual selection) undergird our political affiliations and are extricability linked to evolved sex differences between men and women. A male-centric reproductive strategy is shaped by struggles for dominance in mate competitions, while a female-centric strategy is shaped by demands of rearing offspring.
- There is a fundamental gender gap in partisan political preference. Females tend to be political liberals (the “mommy party”) and males tend to be political conservatives (the “daddy party”) based on the evolutionary adaptations required of each sex.
- Conservatives (and men) are more comfortable with social hierarchies than liberals. Women lead the charge to check the impulses of dominant and authoritarian men unless they want to mate with them (a common collusion in primate and human mating).
- The psychology of in-group vs. outgroup and xenophobia vs. xenophilia, are driving forces of political affiliation. Conservatives are more xenophobic than liberals and men are more xenophobic than women.
This post will build on the above tenets with a closer look “downstream” into the roots of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism comes out of the aspirations for dominance among men and the fears and hopes of those who follow such men. I will address the psychology of social dominance and touch on the politics and psychology of the aforementioned gender gap, especially related to male identity. I will draw from a variety of post-election analyses but will start with foundational insights from Hector Garcia’s groundbreaking book (central to Part 1 of this series): Sex, Power, and Partisanship: How Evolutionary Science Makes Sense of Our Political Divide.
Struggle to Maintain Dominance Hierarchies
Hector Garcia sums up the implied motivation of the despotic leader: “Among humans, as among all social animals, a higher position on the dominance hierarchy affords preferential access to territory, food, and mates. And so, while political science rarely describes socioeconomic stances in evolutionary terms, the struggle to maintain dominance hierarchies, or to equalize them, reflects our long history of vying for position in rank-stratified primate social groups. Moreover, if conservatism reflects an extreme form of the male brain (see Evolutionary Science and Our Political Divide: The Root of It – Part 1) and liberalism its inverse, then we would expect to find evidence that conservative economic policy is embedded in a male reproductive strategy, and liberal economic policy in a female reproductive strategy. And this is exactly what we find.”
Authoritarianism is a product of our male-gendered psychology forged through the pressure of male mate competition. ~ Hector Garcia
Social Dominance Orientation
Political scientists have developed a measure called Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) to reflect the extent to which an individual wishes his or her group to be dominant over another group. People who score higher on the SDO scale favor hierarchy-enhancing ideologies and policies, whereas those lower on SDO tend to favor ideologies or policies that lessen hierarchies. SDO has been consistently found to predict conservatism and its corollaries, including economic conservatism and racial prejudice.
Men and Conservatives Favor Hierarchies
Men score higher on SDO than women. This difference holds across age, culture, nationality, religion, income level, educational attainment, and political ideology. Political conservatives generally score higher on SDO than do liberals. Men with high testosterone levels tend to have higher SDO scores. Those with high SDO are more likely to support war.
High SDO Disfavors Domestic Policies But Favors Patriotism
SDO also has implications within groups. It correlates negatively with domestic policies such as affirmative action, social welfare programs, support for women’s rights, and issues concerning the sexual control of women. Higher social dominance not only disfavors the out-group, but it also favors the in-group. Accordingly, SDO is associated with greater patriotism – a commitment to the larger tribe. Patriotism is a more strongly expressed value of conservatives and Republicans.
“Father Knows Best”
In George Lakoff’s 1996 book, Moral Politics, he examined how political values tend to arise from the fact that we are all first governed in our families. The way your ideal family is governed is a model for the ideal form of government. This is often how your real family is governed, though some people rebel and adopt an opposite ideal.
Conservative moral values arise from what Lakoff calls the “strict father family.” In this model, father knows best. He decides right and wrong. He has the ultimate authority to make sure his children and his spouse accept his worldview and uphold his authority. It is his moral duty to punish his children painfully when they disobey. If his “children” do not prosper, they are not disciplined and so deserve their poverty. Responsibility is thus taken to be a personal responsibility, not a social responsibility. You are responsible for yourself, not for others.
Who’s On Top?
“All politics is moral, ” says Lakoff. “Voters don’t vote their self-interest. They vote their values.” This is how Lakoff saw the conservative-based moral hierarchy in 1996:
- God above man
- Man above nature
- The disciplined (strong) above the undisciplined (weak)
- The rich above the poor
- Employers above employees
- Adults over children
- Western cultures above other cultures
- Men above women
- Whites above nonwhites
- Christians above non-Christians
- Straights above Gays
Trump Supporters Have a Strict Father Morality
Conservative policies flow from the strict father worldview and this hierarchy. Trump is an extreme case, though very much in line with conservative policies of the Republican party and with an authoritarian personality. Most Trump supporters have a strict father morality. The Trump presidency gave them self-respect. Their self-respect is more important than the details of his policies, even if some of those policies hurt them. (See “What’s the Matter With Kansas Redux” below.)
Strict Father Can Be Despotic
Fred Trump was the quintessential strict father for his son, Donald. He brow-beat him into the ways of dominance. By the time Donald was sent to the military school, he was ready to put it into practice. Donald thrived in the hierarchical environment of military school and learned the efficacy and “joy” of being a bully. He learned the ways of authoritarianism directly from his mean and despotic father, a loveless mother, and a military school education that supported and developed his personality as a top-dog abuser.
Trump embodies the classic authoritarian leadership style: simple, powerful and punitive. ~ Amanda Taub
Despot’s Apprentice
According to Brian Klass (The Despot’s Apprentice: Donald Trump’s Attack on Democracy), our exiting President checked all the boxes in the despot’s playbook:
- Scapegoated minorities
- Attacked the press
- Put cronies in a position of power
- Promoted outright nepotism
- Used office for personal economic gain
- Spread misinformation about opponents
- Called for the jailing of opponents
- Did not agree to a peaceful transfer of power
The Authoritarian Personality
Since WWII, many social scientists sought to understand the psychology that gave the world Hitler. Drawing from that research, psychologist Robert Altemeyer devised a concept called ring-wing authoritarianism and created a short survey instrument (RWA) to measure it. The RWA is the most widely used assessment of the authoritarian personality.
Altemeyer’s research found four strongly held beliefs and behaviors that characterize the authoritarian personality:
- submission to authorities
- conforming to social conventions and rules perceived to be endorsed by society
- aggressiveness directed against persons perceived to be sanctioned by authorities
- general aggression against outsiders
“Stomping Out the Rot”
Using the RWA in 2019, Monmouth University Polling Institute found that the stronger the Trump supporter, the higher the person scored on the RWA. People strongly disapproving of Trump scored 54, while those who supported him had an average score of 119, more than twice as authoritarian as Trump opponents.
In the Monmouth poll, over half of Trump’s supporters agreed with the statement: “Once our government leaders and the authorities condemn the dangerous elements in our society, it will be the duty of every patriotic citizen to help stomp out the rot that is poisoning our country from within.” This authoritarian aggression is a central part of the RWA personality.
Authoritarian Nightmare
In their book, Authoritarian Nightmare (2020), John Dean and Altemeyer analyzed data from a previously unpublished nationwide survey that showed a desire for strong authoritarian leadership among Republican voters. Altemeyer and Dean described Trump supporters as “submissive, fearful, and longing for a mighty leader who will protect them from life’s threats.” They found shockingly high levels of anti-democratic beliefs and prejudicial attitudes among Trump backers, concluding: “Trump supporters will be a potent pro-authoritarian voting bloc in the years to come. Even if Donald Trump disappeared tomorrow, the millions of people who made him president would be ready to make someone else similar president instead.”
Allegiance to Leader – Animus to Outsider
Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) indicates passive deference to authoritarian leaders. SDO indicates a willingness to target outside groups. These two psychological motivations will often, if not always, be in synch with another. Like SDO, RWA is associated with xenophobia, being closed to experience, and political conservatism.
These two constructs reflect survival strategies underlying the conservative political stance: targeting outsiders (SDO) while following authorities who protect them against an external threat (RWA).
Rise of American Authoritarianism — We Saw This Coming
An amazingly prescient piece about authoritarianism in America appeared in Vox, on March 1, 2016 (written by Amanda Taub). Donald Trump had not yet won the Republican nomination for President but political scientists, sociologists, and psychologists were convening behind the scenes with alarm — like astronomers from separate observatories who finally resigned themselves to the reality that a comet was heading toward earth. A 2016 exit poll out of South Carolina had found that 75 percent of Republican voters supported banning Muslims from the United States; another poll found a third of Trump supporters were in favor of banning gays and lesbians from the country. Twenty percent said Lincoln should not have freed the slaves.
GOP Attracted the Authoritarians
In their book, Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics (2009), Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler predicted Trump’s rise. They concluded that the GOP, by positioning itself as the party of traditional values and law and order, had unknowingly attracted a vast and previously bipartisan population of Americans with authoritarian tendencies.
“Whatever Action Is Necessary”
While at the University of Massachusetts, Mathew MacWilliams did his dissertation on the authoritarian psychological profile (of followers, not dictators). MacWilliams found that when these followers feel threatened, they look for strong leaders who promise to take whatever action is necessary to protect them from outsiders and prevent the changes they fear. This was a survival-based response to xenophobic overload.
How Many Are There?
Pollster Kyle Dropp of Morning Consult found that 44% of white respondents nationwide scored high or very high on his authoritarian survey questions. More than 65 percent of people who scored highest on authoritarianism were GOP voters. At the other end of the scale, the pattern reversed. People who scored low on authoritarianism were 75 percent Democrats.
The size of this new constituency in the U.S. is now bigger because of Trump, or at least more toxic and dangerous. They are fueled by continuing threats of social change and an out-of-control social media that activates latent authoritarianism by selling threat from outsiders.
“Sliding” into Authoritarianism
The “slide” from conservatism into authoritarianism takes:
- a despotic, authoritarian, rhetorically clever leader
- continued economic displacement and social-cultural change, and
- a degraded media and informational ecosystem that amplifies the feeling of threat and “activates” authoritarian impulses.
“Activating” Authoritarians
According to researcher Karen Stenner (The Authoritarian Dynamic, 2005), there is a certain subset of people who hold latent authoritarian tendencies that can be triggered or “activated” by the perception of physical threat or by destabilizing social change. What might look on the surface like bigotry, Stenner suggests, is really more of a generic susceptibility to messages about any group identified as objects of concern. Returning to Altemeyer’s research above, this illustrates aggressiveness directed against persons sanctioned by “authorities” such as Trump, Twitter, and Fox News.
Action-side of Authoritarians
“Whatever action is necessary” looks like a plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan. It looks like a “Trump train” bearing flags and banners, swarming around a Biden-Harris campaign bus on a stretch of I-35 in Hays County, Texas. Trump joked about this on the campaign trail and gleefully criticized the FBI for wanting to investigate. Trump-supporter caravans also blocked traffic in New Jersey and New York. The Republican convention provided a prominent speaking slot to a white couple from St. Louis who face felony charges for brandishing guns at racial-justice protestors. According to authoritarian researcher Stanley Feldman, it is the scale of the desired responses, the action side that most distinguishes authoritarians from the rest of Republicans.
Authoritarians Will Still Be Here
What Amanda Taub (Vox) said in 2016 looks even more true four years later: “If Trump loses the election, that won’t remove the threats and social changes that triggered the ‘action side’ of authoritarianism. The authoritarians will still be here. They are a real constituency that exists independently of Trump. They will look for candidates who will give them the strong, punitive leadership they desire. And that means Donald Trump could be just the first of many Trumps in American politics, with potentially profound implications for the country.”
Authoritarianism and Masculine Identity
Conservative columnist and Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Mona Charen, asked on November 7, 2020, “what does this election tell us?” One of her answers pointed to masculine identity:
There is a problem with masculinity in this country. The gender gap is now a chasm; we need to think more deeply about how we are raising men.
Dark Triad and Male Identity Anxiety
Authoritarian followership includes a heavy dose of male identity anxiety, perceived threat from outsiders, and a willingness to act-out to defend “territory” and unconsciously, defend access to mating opportunities. Trump is macho by design (developmentally and genetically) and embodies the “dark triad” personality: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathology. Trump’s attention-seeking narcissism is perfect fuel for finding and encouraging male followers who feel a threat to their manhood.
Losers in the Mating Game
In a prior post (Dynamics in the Mating Economy: Domain #1 of Male-Female Difference), I explain the “reproductive variance” between men and women throughout our evolutionary history: essentially, compared to women, most men do not reproduce — they are losers in the mating game. As proven by DNA studies, most authoritarian men in human history were sexually prolific. This dynamic — the fact of winner-take-all sexual access, is relevant to the discussion of the male identity crisis that looms in the underbelly of the male authoritarian personality and fuels its xenophobia and grievances.
“Young Male Syndrome” Around the World
Young men often enter mate competition with fewer resources to offer woman, what behavior ecologists call “embodied capital.” When young men face the peril of being shut out of the mating game, violent risk-taking has been an evolutionarily sensible strategy. Today, risk-taking and antisocial behaviors are strongly associated with being young and male across societies world-wide and men at their reproductive peak tend to be most inclined to violence, a phenomenon known as young male syndrome.*
These Boys Are More Angry Than Proud
The Proud Boys are a far-right, neo-fascist, male-only organization that promotes and engages in political violence. They feature “action-oriented” authoritarianism, white male grievance, and sexual control of women.
Proud Boys believe that men, especially white men, and Western culture are under siege. They officially reject white supremacy although members have participated in racist events. The name is derived from the song “Proud of Your Boy” from the musical adaptation of Disney’s film Aladdin. In the song, Aladdin apologizes to his mother for being a bad son and promises to make her proud. Proud Boys founder, Gavin McInnes, says the song is about Aladdin apologizing for being a boy. Proud Boys purportedly recruit right-wing, 15-30-year-old white males from the suburbs or exurbs.
Hispanic Men Looking for the Tough Guy
In the 2020 presidential election, Trump made inroads with Hispanic men in Texas and Florida. Former Texas Representative Jason Villalba says Trump’s macho image really resonated with Latino men in Texas who are focused on being strong and tough in the face of adversity.
University of Texas professor Eric McDaniel created a white masculinity threat index that measures the extent to which people believe that white males have become a discriminated-against group. McDaniel found that Hispanic men were more likely than white women, Hispanic women, or Black men, to believe that whites and men were discriminated against at higher rates than Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women, gays, and people who identify as transgender. Only white men scored higher than Hispanic men on the index, suggesting an affinity (identity) between Hispanic and white men that might explain the durability of Trump’s appeal.
Trump As Folk Hero
Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild (The Atlantic, October 29) said that many white men feel their gender and race have been vilified. Their economic prospects are bad and the American culture tells them that their gender is also bad. So they have turned to Trump as a type of folk hero, one who can restore their former glory. Exposing themselves and others to the coronavirus is part of that heroism. One male Trump supporter told Hochschild, “Trump is willing to accept risk to win for the American people and Joe Biden is sitting in his basement.”
Subjective Truth: They’re Cutting In Line
For her 2016 book, Strangers in their Own Land, Hochschild interviewed folks in Louisiana and found their “deep story,” the emotional feels-as-if truth of their lives. She heard the metaphor of a long line of Americans standing on a hill, waiting to get to the top — to the American dream. But as they stand there, tired and eager, they see certain people are cutting the line in front of them. They see women, African Americans, and immigrants getting ahead, boosted by the government and its affirmative-action programs.
Many white men, in particular, feel “shoved back in line,” she writes. Unable to draw confidence from their mostly nonexistent wealth, or their jobs which are steadily moving offshore, they turn to their pride in being American, she said.
Identity Politics for White Men
Trump has allowed his male supporters to feel like “moral” Americans and superior to those they consider “other” or beneath them. Trump may not always represent his supporters’ economic self-interest, but he feels their emotional self-interest. Hochschild asserts “Trump is, in essence, the identity politics candidate for white men.”
In Search of the Lost Heroic
Men in this community, she said, are starved for a sense of heroism. They don’t feel good about themselves. Confronting the coronavirus is a way to show stoicism and to feel heroic again. Hochschild’s subjects think they can handle the virus just like Trump handles everything. “He’s kind of a bad boy, and they relate to that.” A Trump supporter from McKinney, Texas said, “the president comes off as a man; he doesn’t come off as weak.”
Degradation of Our Information Culture
Fake news consumption has tripled since 2016 according to a study by the German Marshall Fund. Facebook is a much greater vehicle for disinformation today and that information is tailored to increase attention for a specific user in a way that is pernicious and destructive to the rational processing of facts. US demand for news that is either distorted or plain false continues to grow – such as news about the pandemic or QAnon conspiracy theories.
Post-media Rhetoric – “Twitter Dee and Twitter Dumb”
In her recent book, Demagogue for President: the Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump, Jennifer Mercieca explains how Trump ran as a dangerous demagogue and also a heroic demagogue. Trump used rhetorical strategies to polarize, delegitimize, and demonize but also strategies to bring people “closer.” (Each strategy, with its Latin name, has been observed throughout history.)
Mercieca says Trump was the first true “post-media rhetorical presidency.” Even though he relied dramatically on Fox News, he had the ability to go directly to the people and around the media via Twitter. These rhetorical strategies were particularly effective with the authoritarian personality.
What’s the Matter with Kansas Redux
As described in Thomas Frank’s book in 2004 (What’s the Matter with Kansas?), the white working class abandoned the Democratic party because of cultural arguments related to abortion, guns, religion, and same-sex marriage. Republicans convinced (“it’s the messaging stupid!”) these white voters that cultural arguments were more important than their dire economic circumstances. Then Republicans governed with a bait and switch. They delivered a conservative economic agenda (except for fiscal responsibility), cutting taxes on the wealthy, undoing business regulations, and undermining the social safety net that actually hurt these working-class voters.
Working-class Republicans?
There have been some claims (Benjamin Wallace-Wells in The New Yorker and columnist David Brooks) that the 2020 election revealed a potential multiracial working-class Republican party. I don’t buy it, at least not as it relates to actual working-class policies. Thomas Frank’s analysis still rings true. Yes, Trump supporters and authoritarians are decidedly populist and anti-elitist (though who is elitist changes to fit the rhetorical moment). But authoritarians don’t think much about organized labor. Working-class people voted for Trump based upon other appeals — anti-socialist propaganda, racist xenophobia, and outright machoism. If they stay with the Republican party, they are in for more bait and switch as it relates to their social and economic well-being. Trumpism is populist nationalism with a high dose of white grievance. This is more identity politics than is practiced on the Left.
Epilogue – First Step Toward Healing
While this post is a cautionary note about the nation’s political divide and a recognition of the challenges presented by so many authoritarian-leaning Americans citizens, let it be clearly proclaimed: Americans have chosen a next President who is the polar opposite of a despot and bully. Americans have fired a narcissist and hired a man with an extraordinary capacity for empathy. If Donald Trump was the authoritarian “infection,” Americans have just course-corrected with a powerful “antibiotic” — a first step toward healing.
My last post in this series will present a way forward to understand the moral foundations of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians, and a possible way to acknowledge what is held sacred by those who affiliate with each of those political orientations.
References
*Margo Wilson and Martin Daly, “Competitiveness, Risk Taking and Violence: the Young Male Syndrome” Ethology and Sociobiology, 6 no.1, (Jan. 1985) p. 230
