[View here as a Twitter thread]
The Trump-GOP is no longer a conservative party. It’s an authoritarian party. Sort of what Flake tried to describe here:
Here’s what that means for the midterms & generally.
1/ In a nutshell, what happened to the GOP was this: After the 1960s, many of the GOP leadership, to achieve a majority, invited RWAs (right wing authoritarians) into the GOP, evidently thinking they’d keep them on the fringes, getting their votes without embracing their views.
2/ It was a BAD idea. Authoritarians did what authoritarians do: They refused to stay in the corner. They consolidated their power until, in 2016, they took over the party. Traditional conservatives (who dislike authoritarianism) have no party. Example:
3/ This is to help conservatives and liberals understand each other, so we can work together to defeat authoritarianism (then we can go back to being opponents). Info is from study in Current Biology: “Liberals & Conservatives have different Brain Types.”
4/ According to the study, people who self-identify as conservatives have a larger amygdala. The size of the amygdala correlates to increased fearfulness. Conservatives are more fearful and cautious. They are adverse to rapid change — which can be destabilizing.
5/Liberals, OTOH, have more matter in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part that helps people feel comfortable with complexity & change. Liberals are less cautious and & more open to new experiences (this isn’t always good) Conservatives are comfortable with the tried & true.
6/ One of my followers shared this talk by NYU Prof. Haidt. Haidt talks about how conservatives and liberals embrace different “foundations of morality.” (Thanks @two6heave — wonderful lecture!)
7/ Liberals see compassion & fairness (protecting others) as the foundations of morality. Conservatives value these, too. But they embrace others that liberals reject as NOT among the foundations of morality, including loyalty to a group & respect for authority.
8/ Haidt to make liberals more accepting of conservative values by pointing out that without loyalty, adherence to authority, etc, human progress becomes impossible. Rapid, directionless change, meanwhile, can lead to chaos.
9/ Haidt’s conclusion: Liberals and conservatives can form a balance. Give and take between the two is healthy. RWAs (right wing authoritarians) have some overlap with conservatives, but are there are differences. Info about RWAs comes from Saunder & Ngo “RWA Scale” and from:
10/ Key difference: Conservatives are averse to change. RWAs are averse to complexity. RWAs show aggression toward “out groups” when an authority sanctions aggression. Left alone, RWAs aren’t dangerous. They respect institutions. BUT when their fears are stoked. . .
11/ . . . they can become cruel. (How does the RWA dynamic work? click here) twitter.com/Teri_Kanefield… While conservatives are adverse to change and prefer the status quo, RWAs pine for a bygone era (often mythologized) when the world was more orderly and less chaotic.
12/ To return to that bygone era, RWAs seek to smash the status quo (In our case, Rule of Law) to bring about rapid change. A Trump deception is he calls himself a conservative, when he’s not. His party is RWAs—or fascists—which simply means the farthest point to the right:
13/ I suspect some traditional conservatives fall for it and don’t understand what they’re voting for. The RWA-GOP has built-in advantages: They fall in line behind a leader and move in lockstep. They form a well-oiled media loop (Fox-Hannity, Trump, surrogates, followers).
14/ RWA’s are also willing to cheat. To torpedo Rule of Law, they break laws. RWAs form about 1/3of the population—but because of these advantages (including willingness to cheat) they exert more control than their numbers. Liberals have certain built-in disadvantages.
15/ Liberals—comfortable with nuance and complexity—like to debate, pontificate, & split hairs. This means they tend to splinter and do not tend to fall in line (a clear disadvantage in an election) Liberal advantage: there are a lot more liberals than authoritarians.
16/ When all the votes are counted, there are always more opponents to fascism. “When all the votes are counted” is one tricky part. Voting as a block is another. If opponents of fascism vote in big enough numbers, they can offset any law breaking to fix the election.
