Shocked—shocked to find that there is authoritarianism going on in this party

Authoritarian Republican idol John Wayne directing himself and correcting Maureen O'Hara in McClintock (1963). Image via.

David Brooks on Meet the Press:

If we're going to get Trump, we might as well get the Nuremberg rallies to go with it. No, I mean, the number-one trait that associates or correlates with Trump support is authoritarianism, a belief in authoritarian leadership style.

We live in a democracy where we recognize other people, and we make messy deals and we're always sort of disappointed. That's what politics is. And there are two ways to run a country like that. You can either run it with democracy and compromise, or through authoritarianism. And for some reason, there's something in the electorate right now, people feel they're losing out on things, that they want a strong leader who will show me the way. And that's what they're doing.

(H/t Driftglass, who watches it, as they say, so I don't have to.)

You shouldn't quote the finding that authoritarianism is the best predictor for support of the Trump candidacy without noting: it was also the best predictor for support of George W. Bush.

That is, in the research of Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler studying the relationship between authoritarianism (as measured by views on parenting style) and political affiliation, which provided the theoretical basis for the Matthew MacWilliams research an authoritarianism and Trump support recently reported at Vox, they found

the correlation between traditional parenting practices—the 'spare the rod, spoil the child' approach—and voting for President Bush in 2004 is remarkably strong. Massachusetts is home to both the lowest percentage of people who endorse using physical means to discipline children and the lowest percentage of the vote for Bush. People in other states that voted strongly for Kerry, such as Vermont, Rhode Island, and New York, are also among the least likely to endorse spanking children and washing out their mouths with soap. In contrast, a higher percentage of people in states like Idaho, Wyoming, and Oklahoma both advocate a traditional approach to disciplining children and voted more heavily for Bush. Indeed, each of the top nine corporal punishment states is a Republican presidential stronghold in early twenty-first-century America.

From Hetherington and Weiler, Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

(Likewise, and this should be especially interesting to Our Mister Brooks, Ron Lesthaeghe found a strong correlation between Democratic vote and the practice of couples living together for years without marrying or starting families—shacking up.)

I've had some doubts about this research (more about the measurement of "authoritarianism" and what it actually measures than about the political correlations, which seem to me clearly demonstrated), but if you want to cite it you should cite the whole picture.

For the entire period of the public career of David Brooks—preaching a conservatism of "liberty" and the theoretically Burkean governmental style of muddling through—for practically his entire life, really, starting with the "law-and-order" campaign of criminal politicians Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, the Republican party has been cultivating the authoritarian vote; the white authoritarian vote, that is (there are plenty of authoritarian personality types among minority populations, more indeed than among whites, but the Republican recruitment aims at people who regard minorities as enemies, so it doesn't collect too many black or Latino or Asian voters). It has been presenting itself, in the paradigm of George Lakoff, as a stern father, in contrast to the Democrats' nurturing and sort of ungendered parent figure. It has focused on punishment and despised empathy, called for war and mocked negotiations, blamed women for getting raped and poor (black) people for being poor. It's demanded liberty for the wealthy, "entrepreneurs", freedom from regulation protecting workers in their workplaces and consumers in their homes; and for the police, freedom to make their own law in maintaining order on the streets; and for fathers, freedom to beat up their kids and prevent them from learning about evolution theory or climate change or the existence of gay people and sex before marriage ("religious freedom" as Republicans like to call it). It isn't something that "for some reason" is "in the electorate right now", it's something that they put there, quite consciously, over decades.

While David Brooks was assiduously covering it up, 800 words at a time. "And we're always sort of disappointed. That's what politics is." Ringing endorsement, Brooksy.