On the heels of Digby’s post yesterday about the right’s Avenging Angel myth comes a column by Thomas Edsall on the rise of authoritarian conservatism.
Rick Perlstein’s 2016 Washington Spectator column recounts the tumultuous New York of the 1970s, the milieu which as much as Fred Trump shaped young Donald’s view of the world. It often seems the acting president’s views are frozen in time. That time. It’s not combed straight back, but he even sculpts his hair every morning as carefully as John Travolta in 1977’s Saturday Night Fever.
The federal civil rights lawsuit against Fred’s company (1973), “coming of age in the New York of the 1977 blackout, the search for the Son of Sam,” the release of Death Wish (1974) and Taxi Driver (1976), contributed to the rise of what Perlstein describes as “vigilante conservatism.”
Edsall provides some scholarly takes on the relative difference in open-mindedness between conservatives and liberals, as well as differences in cognitive styles. Little of this is new to readers here. Nor are the results of studies showing conservative thinkers are “particularly susceptible to misinformation” more prone to accept conspiracy theories.
More important to this Trumpian period is the difference between authoritarians and non-authoritarians.
Karen Stenner, the author of “The Authoritarian Dynamic,” wrote Edsall to explain the threat to liberal democracy posed by the “authoritarian revolution … which in the U.S. has been creeping up since the 1960s” beside “laissez faire conservatism.”
Stenner believes the “overriding objective of the authoritarian is always to enhance oneness and sameness; to minimize the diversity of people, beliefs and behaviors.” Threats to these norms activate an “authoritarian dynamic.”
Edsall writes:
Stenner makes the case that the authoritarian revolution began in the 1960s: “Once the principle of equal treatment under the law was instituted and entrenched by means of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act,” traditional conservatism — “fidelity to the laws of the land and defense of legitimate institutions” — took a back seat to authoritarianism “as a factor driving expressions of racial, moral and political intolerance.”
Stenner takes the analysis of contemporary conflict and polarization full circle back to the fundamental American divide over race, a subject that touches on virtually every issue facing the nation.
And Trump is determined to use authoritarian means to restore race to the core of his campaign.
The urban disorder Trump saw in New York the 1970s is central to how he sees the world now. It feeds his Bronsonesque sense of self and purpose. He has introduced federal police in Portland hoping to provoke a violent response from protesters that will, in turn, justify a violent crackdown and activate “vigilante conservatism” among his base voters. Next comes New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland, all cities run by “liberal Democrats.”
The important thing now is that protesters not give Trump what he so clearly wants. Continue to oppose police violence without giving his internal security forces the justification Trump wants for his proposed crackdown.
Stay with me here.
In a Daily Kos posting Wednesday, Markos Moulitsas made an intriguing pitch for why he, reluctantly, no longer thinks Sen. Elizabeth Warren is Joe Biden’s best pick for vice president. Winning is the prime directive:
In practical terms, impeached president Donald Trump’s poll numbers have cratered—both his job approvals and his head-to-head numbers against Biden, including in key battleground states. In fact, what were originally just seven battlegrounds (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) have expanded dramatically, as Alaska, Iowa, Montana, Ohio, and Texas are now also in play.
Trump is flailing, unable to do what he needs to do to turn things around, and he’s bringing down the entire GOP with him. Democrats are poised to retake the Senate and gain seats in the House, as well as log big gains further down the ballot in critical state legislative races.
Trump has gotten no traction in his attacks against Joe Biden. “Trump’s best work comes when he is being racist or sexist. It’s what personally motivates him the most, and it’s what best motivates his base.” Without someone he personally loathes, “Trump’s campaign is moribund, listless, low-energy. He just can’t seem to get excited about reelection to a job he clearly hates.”
Kos proposes Biden choose California Rep. Karen Bass. She is the current chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and former speaker of the California Assembly and, he writes, “a bona fide, unimpeachable progressive.” Best of all, “Donald Trump has no idea who she is.”
Remember, the more Trump flails, the more we win. If you give him a known target, he can build off existing attack narratives, giving the right-wing media machine easy ways to rile up and motivate their racist base.
With Bass, he has no existing narrative he or his Fox News enablers can pull from a drawer. It will take time to construct one against a relative unknown while “Biden is running away with the map.”
I’m not jumping on the Bass bandwagon but see some merit in Kos’s logic. To use the vigilante analogy, Trump’s magazine is empty and his slide is locked back. The last thing Biden needs to do is hand him a fresh box of ammunition.
The same is true for protests in cities where Trump plans to send his goon squads. He wants a violent response. He needs one to give his coronavirus-weary base oxygen. He’s bent on provoking one. Nonviolent confrontation is more important than ever.
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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.