Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Do you very strongly agree, strongly agree, moderately agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree, moderately disagree, strongly disagree or very strongly disgagree with the following statements? You can also be neutral.
The established authorities generally turn out to be right about things, while the radicals and protestors are usually just "loud mouths" showing off their ignorance.
The "old-fashioned ways" and the "old-fashioned values" still show the best way to live.
What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush evil, and take us back to our true path.
Our country will be great if we honor the ways of our forefathers, do what the authorities tell us to do, and get rid of the "rotten apples" who are ruining everything.
This country would work a lot better if certain groups of troublemakers would just shut up and accept their group's traditional place in society.
Our country will be destroyed someday if we do not smash the perversions eating away at our moral fiber and traditional beliefs.
Have the Democrats abandoned moderation for Leftism?
When were the Democrat not leftists?
I know that our media educated society (which is a nice way of saying a society afraid of thinking; I'm not censoring myself on this... what do you guys like calling it? Not being politically correct?) think that being a leftists means you want to recreate the Soviet Union or some ****, but only people who have never taken the time to actually think about this issue think that's the case. And who cares what someone who is willfully ignorant thinks? Why do they matter? Other than the fact that they vote...
A leftists is anyone who's politically on the left. This includes people who believe in slightly regulated capitalism. From a certain point of view, Libertarians can be argued as being on the "left." But generally, the left right spectrum is understood as being a collectivist vs. individualistic economic set up. The Democrats, after the progressive era (which in the modern context is the only kind of Democrat we need to talk about; the ones that opposed Lincoln have no relevance as they believed in something different) have always believed in a capitalist system that is regulated and overseen by the state. That's on the left.
And being a moderate is not a good thing. Not necessarily. It's basically the same thing as being agnostic. Most agnostics I know are atheists afraid of offending someone. Why is that a good thing? Parties shouldn't be the exact opposite of moderate, which is radical. A radical is willing to do horrible things to get what they want and have no desire to compromise. But being too compromising isn't really a good thing either.
To answer you're question, no, they are not abandoning moderation for leftism. They've always been leftists and moderation is not an ideology.
I’ve found a single statistically significant variable predicts whether a voter supports Trump—and it’s not race, income or education levels: It’s authoritarianism.
That’s right, Trump’s electoral strength—and his staying power—have been buoyed, above all, by Americans with authoritarian inclinations. And because of the prevalence of authoritarians in the American electorate, among Democrats as well as Republicans, it’s very possible that Trump’s fan base will continue to grow.
My finding is the result of a national poll I conducted in the last five days of December under the auspices of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, sampling 1,800 registered voters across the country and the political spectrum. Running a standard statistical analysis, I found that education, income, gender, age, ideology and religiosity had no significant bearing on a Republican voter’s preferred candidate. Only two of the variables I looked at were statistically significant: authoritarianism, followed by fear of terrorism, though the former was far more significant than the latter.
Authoritarianism is not a new, untested concept in the American electorate. Since the rise of Nazi Germany, it has been one of the most widely studied ideas in social science. While its causes are still debated, the political behavior of authoritarians is not. Authoritarians obey. They rally to and follow strong leaders. And they respond aggressively to outsiders, especially when they feel threatened. From pledging to “make America great again” by building a wall on the border to promising to close mosques and ban Muslims from visiting the United States, Trump is playing directly to authoritarian inclinations.
Yes, we're deplorable people who destroy things that aren't ours, steal from others, silence people who have a different opinion than we do, are incompetent at our jobs, lie to the public, pat ourselves on the back or put it on our tee shirts so everyone knows how wonderful we are...and we do it all from the basket of Fearless Leader.
Yes, we're deplorable people who destroy things that aren't ours, steal from others, silence people who have a different opinion than we do, are incompetent at our jobs, lie to the public, pat ourselves on the back or put it on our tee shirts so everyone knows how wonderful we are...and we do it all from the basket of Fearless Leader.
,
He is your Fuhrer. That's why he can shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and still get your vote.
There are certain characteristics associated with an authoritarian personality. Perhaps the most important is fear and the perception of a very dangerous world ("Oh my God, the Muslims are coming in!" "The inner cities are going crazy!"). Another is a desire to punish in the name of established authority. These are people who actually enjoy inflicting pain on others. Authoritarians also are more likely to accept the curtailment of individual liberties.
I'm sorry... when did Wikipedia obtain a copyright and become an actual dictionary?
Wikipedia is NOT a dictionary... because if you looked at a real dictionary - you would get a real definition.
1 : of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority <had authoritarian parents>
2 : of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people <an authoritarian regime>
Yes, we're deplorable people who destroy things that aren't ours, steal from others, silence people who have a different opinion than we do, are incompetent at our jobs, lie to the public, pat ourselves on the back or put it on our tee shirts so everyone knows how wonderful we are...and we do it all from the basket of Fearless Leader.
According to Robert Altemeyer, 20-25% of Americans fit a Right Wing Authoritarian personality profile.
After World War II, a lot of psychologists wanted to know what would drive entire nations (Germany and Italy) to complete madness. They came up with the Fascism Scale (the "F" Scale). A lot of "conservatives" today score very high on the F-Scale as well as Altemeyer's RWA personality test.
We could debate whether Italian fascists and Nazis are 'right wing' or more progressive as understood in America. There are other problems with that line of research you referenced.
Quote:
The Berkeley team was criticized because they had not investigated random samples of the populace; therefore, their findings probably did not apply to the general populace. Moreover, most of their scales suffered from “response set;” if some people are prone to agree with any reasonably sounding item, that tendency, rather than the substance of the scale questions, could explain Adorno, et al.’s findings. Low IQ and poor educational backgrounds were allegedly as important as personality traits in producing authoritarian tendencies. There were also problems with the Berkeley team’s analyses of its in-depth studies.
Perhaps the most devastating critique of the Berkeley team was the charge that they had focused solely on right-wing authoritarianism. They had ignored comparable tendencies -- especially inflexibility, intolerance, and submissiveness (to left-wing dictators like Josef Stalin) -- among leftists.*
Earlier allusions to this conceptual blinker were confirmed when the social psychologist Milton Rokeach, who had assisted the Berkeley team as a graduate student, published The Open and Closed Mind (1960).*As the psychologist Bob Altemeyer noted in The Authoritarian Specter (1996), “Rokeach set out to study ‘general authoritarianism,’ unassociated with any particular ideology….” Rokeach showed that the F Scale tapped only conservative tendencies. He developed a new measure, the D (for dogmatism) Scale.*
Although scholars have raised questions about the D Scale’s technical details, none has disproved its findings that both left- and right-wing extremists score high on the measure. The dogmatic personality is someone who, regardless of ideological leaning, is intolerant of ambiguity and rigid in outlook.
The only thing Trump is introducing into the mix, is a bit of nationalism. A return to the politics of America, prior to the globalism which has taken over in the last few decades.
1 : of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority <had authoritarian parents>
2 : of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people <an authoritarian regime>
Wikipedia really isn't that bad. While anyone can edit it, Wikipedia moderators generally do a good job of catching misinformation. There are instances where something goes unnoticed for quite some time, but as a whole, wikipedia is a fairly reliable way to get a base understanding of something. Reading the Wikipedia page on Marxism is absolutely no replacement for reading Marx, but it might not be a made idea to read through the Wikipedia article first to get some base insight. Also, check the sources of listed in the wikipedia bibliography; those usually are very reliable.
Now, as for authoritarianism as it relates to conservatism, they aren't mutually exclusive. One can be a conservative and an authoritarian. Despite the commonly understood definition of conservatives, it does not simply mean support small government. The only universally accurate definition of conservative is someone who supports traditional institutions and society. This is why mainstream conservative is actually a form of liberalism. What conservatives often seek to preserve are classical liberal principles IN AMERICA. Conservatism is highly fluid as it pertain to specific cultural contexts. A conservative in Iran is very different than a conservative in the UK. Both are unified in that they want to preserve something that can be described as traditional but they do not stand for the same things at all.
Authoritarian conservatism, to get right to it, would be anyone wiling to go to extreme lengths to preserve whatever it is they wish to preserve. An example of extreme conservative authoritarianism in an American context would be outlawing non-traditional ideas, like progressive views on same sex marriage or equality of religions. It could go so far as to outlawing different political views. Whereas very center right conservatism would be simply upholding the traditional societal institutions as they are, such as contract law, capitalism, and representative government, but are not resistant (in a legal sense) to opposition of ideas or minor changes that do not dismantle the established institution. So conservatives are not abandoning conservatism for authoritarianism. Not giving validity to the idea, but if there is a shift towards authoritarianism, it's just an authoritarian style of what they've always believed.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
