back, but can't trust that America's populist/authoritarian right AND left won't turn the nation over to extremists again.
Congress is on the block in less than a year now. There are far fewer illiberal populists on the left than right, but united with the right they were enough to throw the whole planet under the bus once and tomorrow's could be again. Putin worked to make that happen, for obvious reasons.
Btw, a large study since then confirmed that LW authoritarianism is real and more of a factor than previously measured, though less numerous and probably less virulent than RW. Further studies underway as the planet reels from RW/LW authoritarian attacks in many nations.
I was sure before this that we were seeing it, though. Notably, in 2016, 12% of the 43% who voted for the LW populist/socialist/progressive leader in the primary pivoted to vote for the RW fascistic, white nationalist populist leader in the GE. The from-Sanders-direct-to-tRump group was about 5% of those who voted in the Democratic primary. Things got a lot more decent and responsible on the left once they decamped to tRump.
(Another 12-13% voted third party, and very likely some among them were drawn to authoritarianism but couldn't stomach tRump. Also keeping in mind the 100,000,000 adults who didn't vote at all. Should be a fair number of authoritarian-leaning duds in that group. (Please, let no one excite them.)
Because turns out LW authoriarians are "extremely similar" to RW authoritarians, just as LW and RW populists are extremely similar, with strong overlap between the two studied types. Including their shared reason-for-being antipathy to Democrats.
Left-wing authoritarians share key psychological traits with far right, Emory study finds
... Right-wing authoritarians tend to aggressively back the established hierarchy, while
left-wing authoritarians tend to aggressively oppose it. They are almost like mirror images of one another that both share a common psychological core, the researchers conclude.
“Authoritarians have a predisposition for liking sameness and opposing differences among people in their environment. They are submissive to people they perceive as authority figures, they are dominant and aggressive towards people they disagree with, and they are careful to obey what they consider the norms for their respective groups. At its core, authoritarianism is likely about power.
“It’s a mistake to think of authoritarianism as a right-wing concept, as some researchers have in the past.
We found that ideology becomes secondary. Psychologically speaking, you’re an authoritarian first, and an ideologue only as it serves the power structure that you support.” ...
Another key finding is that authoritarianism from both ends of the spectrum is predictive of personal involvement in political violence. While left-wing authoritarianism predicts for political violence against the system in power, right-wing authoritarianism predicts for political violence in support of the system in power.
https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/09/esc_left_wing_authoritarians_psychology/campus.html
"Lock her up!"
We have to show both our nation and the world stability and strength of commitment next fall. For now, we've inherited the whirlwind sowed by the worst among us. and our international power has greatly diminished since Obama's presidency,
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