I am always left uneasy by those who point at the president, or his boss Mr. Cheney, or any particular set of his minions as the reason and sole reason for all our troubles. True, they consitute a particularly noxious stew of hubris, stupidity, agression and greed. But, as we used to say about Richard Nixon, take away his army and he’s just a lunatic shouting on a street corner.

What really troubles me, and where I think most of us can have the greatest effect, is the 50% or so who voted for him (even though 50% of those are now denying it.) What is going on here?

John Dean, the infamous Nixonite, is more than making up for his transgessions in my book. His latest effort in Conservatives Without Conscience resucitates some very important research done on the authoritarian personality following WW II which has been mostly lost to the minds of men. I had the good fortune to read, and still dip into, the two volume set of The Authoritarian Personality by T.W. Adorno at al, published in 1964 by Wiley & Sons. This study was a major contribution to a series called Studies in Prejudice sponsored by the American Jewish Committee. Dean also uses more recent work based on the research of Dr. Robert Altemeyer of the University of Manitoba, a social psychologist specializing in the psychology of authoritarianism, who I hadn’t known about until this Orcinus blog posting on Dean’s book.

Within the genera of Authoritarian personalities there are at least two species: Leaders and Followers. Followers — who we compete for social space with — have the following principal characteristics:

1. Submission to authority. “These people accept almost without question the statements and actions of established authorities, and comply with such instructions without further ado” writes Dean. “[They] are intolerant of criticism of their authorities, because they believe the authority is unassailably correct. Rather than feeling vulnerable in the presence of powerful authorities, they feel safer…

2. Aggressive support of authority. Right-wing followers do not hesitate to inflict physical, psychological, financial, social, or other forms of harm on those they see as threatening the legitimacy of their belief system and their chosen authority figure. This includes anyone they see as being too different from their norm (like gays or racial minorities). It’s also what drives their extremely punitive attitude toward discipline and justice…

3. Conventionality. Right-wing authoritarian followers prefer to see the world in stark black-and-white. They conform closely with the rules defined for them by their authorities, and do not stray far from their own communities.

I won’t suggest you dig into the sources of all this — but please let me know if you do! Absorbing the Orcinus posting, and Conservatives Without Conscience would be extremely worthwhile as, election excitement notwhithstanding, we have miles to go before we sleep.