Trump is an extreme authoritarian leader who would not be anything but an amusing side show if it weren't for his followers. I can't understand them but there is research available about them.
Study finds differences between two types of supporters
www.monmouth.edu
“There is clearly a relationship between innate authoritarian tendencies and a willingness to reject democratic norms. It becomes dangerous to society when those views are given standing by some political leaders. When other leaders stand idly, the potential increases for these views to become acceptable to less authoritarian partisans who initially may have rejected such views. Indeed, scholars such as Mann and Ornstein trace this transformation among Republican leaders in Congress back to Newt Gingrich’s rise to power a generation ago. The findings in the Monmouth project show how readily these views can pervade the party’s voter base when they are left unchecked by leadership,” said Murray.
According to the Monmouth researchers, Republican leadership failed to counter Trump's white nationalist rhetoric and the Republican base followed him into an attempt to overturn our democracy. It wasn't a sudden shift for the GOP. The article lays the change toward radical authoritarianism in the Republican Party at Gingrich's feet while I've heard others say it all started with Barry Goldwater.
Everything I've read about high right wing authoritarian types says they are going to double down even more and become more deeply entrenched in Trumpism. It will continue until Republican leadership gives up on their attack on democracy. Their tactics are voter suppression, gerrymandering and barriers to voting for people who don't look like them. This all says that they haven't given up just yet.
I haven’t read the Monmouth but it doesn’t contradict other research or my own observations; the Reagan-Bush years, the overthrow cadre absorbed the bulk of the Republican and libertarian parties; in the Clinton-Gingrich years, they overhauled the House to serve as their tool and began work on the Senate; in the Shrub years, we got the “Patriot” Act, the Dept. of Homeland Security, and a permanent state of war - all of which greatly strengthened the GOP grip on the federal government - and thereby increased the control the overthrow cadre could exercise over the details of “conservatism”, “conservative policies”, and could push more “tea party” types and AynRand fanboys into public office.
By the time Obama took office, conversion of the Senate was complete, and McConnell has kept it under tight control ever since; the number of anti-government, anti-federal ideologues holding federal office - or employed by those holding federal office - reached a critical point in 2010. The GOP Senate has been openly mutinous, in sweeping violation of our laws, our traditions, and their oaths, continuously ever since; not just individual senators have supported the treasonous acts: the Senate itself has aided and abetted the anti-governmental breakdown of political order, and the openly criminal violations of #Mar-A-Loser at every step.
As a means to their ends, they have programmed authoritarian attitudes and responses in their bases once the late 70s. It’s certainly true that even those who *aren’t* being carpet-bombed by brainwashing are vulnerable to it; those who are, who have been continuously subjected to it daily, lose the ability to think about what they believe outside of the boundaries of that belief. They become captured by the frame that’s been imposed on their (mis)understanding of the world: they identify with their beliefs and are incapable of evaluating any of it.
I sincerely hope you’re right about them giving up eventually...but the emotional core of it all is that if GOP denounces Trump and Trumpism convincingly, his thralls will consider themselves betrayed and organize themselves into a Take Down the USA party. Their support may erode over time, but the grievances of the slaver south were kept alive and burning for enough years to allow them to find each other on the internet; I have no doubt they will remain aflame for the foreseeable future.
The best possible outcome of the current snarl IMO is that the GOP splitting into a traitors’ party and a lunatic party will lead to increasing dominance of policy making and lawmaking by the Dems. Only a good outcome, though, if we stay awake, stay activate, keep the pressure on.
thehill.com
