This is a blockbuster interview of John Dean by Keith Olberman. Dean has just finished a book that started from some conversations he had with Barry Goldwater in 1994: Conservatives Without Consience. In it he not only tumbles to the authoritarian personality underlying much of modern conservatism, but a massive, long supressed study showing in grim detail that this is so.

I ran into a massive study that has really been going on 50 years now by academics. They’ve never really shared this with the general public. It’s a remarkable analysis of the authoritarian personality. Both those who are inclined to follow leaders and those who jump in front and want to be the leaders. It was not the opinion of social scientists. It was information they drew by questioning large numbers of people — hundreds of thousands of people — in anonymous testing where [the subjects] conceded their innermost feelings and reactions to things. And it came out that most of these people were pre-qualified to be conservatives and this, did indeed, fit with the authoritarian personality.

The transcript is rushed and sometimes doesn’t scan well, but check it out, and of course, plan to read the book.

An add-on commentary from Pacific Views