No matter how you frame the problem facing the US—Voter suppression, Mitch McConnell’s obstructionism, income inequality, the spread of disinformation—it basically boils down to this: A significant percentage of Americans do not want a liberal democracy, by which I mean:
If you missed the latest bit of insanity, a group of elected Republican members of Congress filed a lawsuit asking a federal court in Texas to overturn the Constitution, state and federal election law and let Pence pick the next president.
A follower on Twitter said this:
They don’t think they look pathetic. They think they look strong and determined, willing to do what they must to save America from the “enemy” (liberals and Democrats) who they genuinely believe are trying to destroy what is essential and good about America.
One of the best explanations I know is from Richard Hofstader, who wrote:
Hofstadter surveyed history from the founding of the nation through McCarthyism and noticed a pattern among an impassioned minority on the fringes of the political spectrum.
They believe unseen satanic forces are trying to destroy something larger in which they belong. They “feel dispossessed” and that “America has been largely taken away from them and their kind.”
They’re “determined to repossess it and prevent the final act of subversion” so they adopt extreme measures. Here’s the problem we’re up against. They’re not going away. As America becomes more diverse and global, they’re going to get angrier.
They’ve always been with us. They always will. Psychologists tell us that about a third of the population has an ‘authoritarian disposition.’ They’re averse to complexity (which includes diversity).
Karen Stenner, Jon Haight, and others have written extensively about this. Karen Stenner made “The Authoritarian Dynamic” free on her website. The essay originally appeared in:
First, the authors define the authoritarian disposition, then they describe the authoritarian dynamic.
To understand the authoritarian dynamic, we start with a definition of a normative threat, which is something that threatens “sameness and order.”
When confronted with a normative threat, authoritarians have a strong reaction. They can be violent and cruel and tolerate cruelty in others.
The dynamic occurs because liberal democracy naturally becomes more diverse and complex. The growing diversity triggers fears in authoritarian persons, creating backlash. Hence, a cycle. Thus, according to the authors, Trump happened because liberal democracy in America exceeded many people’s capacity to tolerate it.
Trump governs by creating normative threats.
We laugh at the absurdity of this (or at least, I did):
But actually, it serves a purpose: It keeps Trump’s base riled and angry.
I am not a political psychologist, I merely read their books, which tell me this: When authoritarians aren’t threatened or riled, they are not dangerous. They can be supportive of institutions.
When calm, the tedium of politics bores them. When calm, they tend not to vote or pay much attention to politics. Politics in a working democracy is boring. There’s a lot of compromising, given-and-take, and procedure.
Fox and others work on keeping them riled.
When calm, they’re like this: 😴
Trump keeps them like this: 😡
I think (unfortunately) there will be competition for their loyalty. Fox and the GOP always had it. Trump wants it.
When we talk about control the flow of disinformation, we really mean: Find ways to keep the paranoid element from being riled.
Someone on Twitter recently informed me that the heart of our problem is the kind of voting machines used in states like Texas and Kentucky which allow the Republican governments to rig their elections.
WRONG 🔔🔔🔔
That is not the problem. That’s a manifestation of the problem.
The problem is that so many people in those states prefer our government to be run by people like Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz.
When we understand the problem, we can confront it and try to solve it. How? find ways to reach enough voters in Kentucky and Texas so that they will vote McConnell and Cruz out of office.
