Who's drawn to fascism? Postwar study of authoritarianism makes a comeback
"Where the study is going here is the idea that we need to recognize that this reliance upon authority, it goes deep. It goes very deep."
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/who-s-drawn-to-fascism-postwar-study-of-authoritarianism-makes-a-comeback-1.6403074?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar
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When authoritarianism surges, many get swept up who would be appalled if they understood it better. Most people have a little authoritarian vulnerability that can be grown, such as after 9/11 when authoritarian demand for a strong leader who'd smash the enemy for them grew in over half the populace, empowering the GHW Bush administration's growing authoritarianism and the invasions of Afghanistan and then Iraq.
The study discussed was an initial effort to explain the Nazis rise in Europe and has some basic flaws. We've learned far more since. For sheer enjoyable/horrifying readability and value, I suggest to those who haven't already read it Altemeyer's The Authoritarians, which has only been affirmed and built on since. He made it a free download (PDF, ebook, Kindle), literally as a critical service to humanity. A great read, and it includes a quiz for a little self evaluation also.
https://theauthoritarians.org/
Until recently, most research identified and studied RW authoritarians/ism and its traits because conservative authoritarians tend to be much stronger in their awful traits and far more numerous. Fascism is archconservative.
However -- and this is big! -- recent research has finally turn to study of authoritarianism on the left. That's as important to understanding a huge element driving the "anti-establishment" left as RW authoritarianism is to understanding the trumpists and how they happened.
One difference is that LW authoritarians are more likely to be drawn to ideologies promoting egalitarian societies, like socialism, while RW support hierarchical social structures.
It shouldn't surprise, though, that similarities between LW authoritarians and their RW counterparts are far stronger than differences. ("Lock her up!"
Back in 2016 I referred cautiously to a "whiff" of authoritarianism in a LW populist leader's delivery and in what seemed like excessive devotion to a leader in some followers because I couldn't point to well regarded research to back up what was actually very obvious to many. Now we have it.
Btw, liberals are the world's anti-authoritarians and anti-fascists. And, of course, America's liberals concentrate in and dominate the Democratic Party.
