Fear the voices

Fear the voices - no, not the Alice in Chains song. Fear the political voices. Fear seems to drive everything in politics these days. You probably noticed this phenomenon getting under way a couple years ago. Anecdotal evidence abounds of tactics of bullying and intimidation by Republicans to get themselves elected and to get their extremist agenda pushed through: my personal fave was when Bush took crass advantage of the horror and tragedy of 9/11 to weaken his political opponents, the unions. But this isn't just fear-mongering, it is certified authoritarianism.

Researcher Karen Stenner (a/k/a the #1 Stenna) has done some interesting development recently of the already formidable literature on the political psychology of authoritarianism. An essential contribution of hers is the notion that authoritarian tendencies lie somewhat dormant in individuals until they are activated by threats to the things that unify us: common authority and shared values. As we all know, preservation of unity around these elements is butter on the authoritarians' bread, and nothing gets them riled up faster than the fear of erosion of authority and values.

A couple of first-rate fellows recently examined how authoritarianism might apply to our current electoral situation. The astute academics looked specifically at levels of authoritarianism in the electorate, the levels of participation in elections by authoritarians, and the nature of that participation. And guess what they found? Over the last ten years, participation by authoritarians in elections increased dramatically, despite no increase in prevalence within the population overall. Moreover, that participation was funneled almost exclusively into support for Republicans.

In other words, Republicans have sewn fear as a way to strengthen their coalition of authoritarians. Looking back, we see a threat to our shared values was introduced on 9/11/01, bringing on a period of deliberate unity. Gradually that threat faded, but as it did, other threats were introduced to prolong the gain for Republicans. Most of the country eventually figured out that they could resume use of their critical faculties, but some 30% + of people still support Bush. This percentage must be composed primarily of people who like authority more than sound policy, so the plan to scare authoritarians into unwavering support must be working on some level.

But thank goodness the winds are now at the Democrats' backs. Surely that means fear is now overcome, right? Well, there is one more group that remains fearful: beltway insiders. Joe Lieberman is afraid he might be held accountable, the Republican leadership is so afraid of losing one seat that they completely sold themselves out, the right wing echo chamber is afraid of competition from the left, and the punditry is afraid of the democratization of information gathering. All this fear on the part of insiders is due to the democratization of democracy that the internet (and blogs in particular) has brought on. Whereas once we had to fear terrorists or Bush's latest caprice or endless Republican domination, now we've got the insiders on the run from us common citizens. Today the last thing we have to fear is fear itself.