Okay, answer these four questions for me:
Is it more important for your child to be respectful or independent?
Is it more important for your child to be obedient or self-reliant?
Is it more important for your child to be well-behaved or considerate?
Is it more important for your child to be well-mannered or curious?
If you answered these questions by saying that you think it’s more important for your child to be respectful, obedient, well-behaved, and well-mannered, then the chances are that you like Donald Trump. Not only that, but you are supposedly the kind of person who is inclined to follow a fascist dictator. You are, in fact, looking for the same qualities in your child that you have yourself, although one can doubt how well-mannered and respectful your average Trump voters is in their personal lives.
I can’t say this all adds up for me, actually, but this is the story we’re being sold by Matthew MacWilliams, a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In a piece published today in Politico Magazine, Mr. MacWilliams says that he’s polled “1,800 registered voters across the country and the political spectrum” and found a strong correlation between Trump supporters and people who responded to the above questions with the former answers rather than the latter. He calls these folks “authoritarians” and tells us that political scientists have been using these questions since 1992 to measure people’s “inclination toward authoritarianism.”
Erick “Son of Erick” Erickson’s Red State is so hostile to Donald Trump and so dedicated to knocking him off his stride that they’re actually citing a social scientist from Massachusetts approvingly for the first time in all of their lives.
When your only tool is a Ph.D. candidate at UMass-Amherst, everything begins to look like social science might have some merit. Any port in a storm, I guess.
In any case, I’m not going to dispute the social science here except to say that I’d be more interested in a study that looks to define assholery. Preferring that your child be well-mannered rather than curious could just mean that you’re lazy and kind of stupid. But wanting to turn the Middle East into radioactive glass because you saw something that made you uncomfortable on the news? That’s where you find the secret to the conservative voter.
What kind of asshole is attracted to Chris Christie but not Donald Trump, or Marco Rubio but not Ted Cruz?
Write me a 3,000 word story about that social science experiment and you’ll begin to get my interest.
Speaking of assholes, can someone help me out to understand why this American Crossroads (Karl Rove) political add would be running in Iowa now:
(lousy production values — hope Rove got it for a bargain basement price.) But does the GOP fear a Clinton nomination and prefers to run against Sanders? This isn’t computing for me. Then nothing Rove’s done in the past few years added up or has been effective.
They are assuming that Bernie will lose which is what all pundits, including Booman, are assuming. I’m assuming it myself, although I prefer to delude myself that the American electorate actually has a choice, even though I know they are conditioned to obey advertisements and will vote for the 60-second ad that has been burned most deeply into their brain. you have to remember that contrarians and independent thinkers like you and I are rare. At least 90% of the public prefers to moo with the herd.
It’s so terrible maybe it’s reverse psychology–he’s afraid of Bernie and trying to get us to vote for Clinton. Using this ad to stop people from voting for her would be like using the movie “Reefer Madness” to stop them from smoking pot.
But I think Rove has literally become stupid over the last five or six years, I mean lost the ability he used to have to do his own job.
Still not getting it.
In the short run and when shown to 13 and 14 year old kids before say 1967 (before pot was mainstreamed and people weren’t hip enough to recognize cheesy propaganda for what it was (recall that Nixon’s “Checkers” speech sold to adults in ’52 and was a laugh riot to 18 year old kids by the late sixties)), “Reefer Madness” was effective. After seeing it my closest friends (who were all in the top classes) bought it hook, line, and sinker. One puff of marijuana and they’d be shooting up heroin within hours. I was the only one that thought it was ridiculous and shocked them by saying that I might try marijuana someday. Much later, I tried, didn’t like, end of story. One of those friends tried, liked, and became a pothead. Doubt any of the others ever tried it.
There simply aren’t enough contrarian DEMs that would respond to this ad by voting FOR Clinton. It’s like the pre-Iowa caucus hatchet job ads (GOP and DEM) against Dean. They were effective in Iowa. The timing and content are definitely aimed at reducing support for Clinton. But why would Rove want that? The only reason why another Bush in the race was deemed at all credible was because there was another Clinton in the race. If she’s out, Jeb becomes even less tenable as a candidate.
Rove’s normal style is to attack a candidate’s strength to level the playing field for a second rate GOP candidate. Here he’s attacking a vulnerability and it’s one that easily spreads to all the candidates other than Sanders.
OK, I meant it when I said Rove has become stupid, but here’s a slightly less foolish hypothesis: donors to American Crossroads are screaming “why aren’t you doing something?” and it is indeed meant to benefit Sanders, or make it look as if it’s benefiting Sanders. But the people who are supposed to be impressed aren’t the voters, but the donors, that’s Rove’s rice bowl.
Note that the Republicans are also running against Wall Street, confident that they can get away with it. Cruz as candidate with his Goldman Sachs money will happily denounce Clinton as a tool of Wall Street without even getting slightly embarrassed, and the donors will be fine with it. Just the way agribusiness and the hotel business and so on don’t really mind the denunciation of undocumented immigrants, they know nothing will really be done to threaten their bottom lines.
Thanks. Okay this: donors to American Crossroads are screaming “why aren’t you doing something?” contains some logic I was missing. But I would expand upon that. All the GOP candidates have been running against Obama and Clinton; so, the message from the party to Rove was “help us out here in bloodying her up.” Rove isn’t dumb enough to go the Benghazi route because it really is a dead-end that’s already been worked to death. The only thing the candidates can’t really touch is Clinton’s Wall St. money. Rove checks “his number” (ha ha) and declares to himself that Clinton can’t lose the nomination, but he can make Iowa a little less comfortable for her. Which in turn will boost Sanders’ odds to win in NH. After that Sanders is done, but Rove can still run that Wall St. attack ads in other potentially blue states during the primaries which may stick come general election day.
That probably gives Rove too much credit for thinking it through. Is also dependent upon “his numbers.”
Yes. He doesn’t need to think it through that much, it’s just his nature, like the scorpion in the story.
I would seriously doubt that Rove thinks Bernie would win the nomination. Myself, I’m not so sure. Hillary was always her own worst enemy.
No, this falls under the heading of general election campaigning during the primaries. Remember, Iowa IS a purple/battleground state, so anything goes.
But why waste funds on a GE type ad during a primary? People aren’t going to remember it months from now and all the possible GOP nominees will be equally vulnerable on the issue of big money from special interests.
respectful or independent?
obedient or self-reliant?
well-behaved or considerate?
well-mannered or curious?
Independent, self-reliant, considerate, curious.
What I desired for my approach to life, so of course I would wish my daughters to have the same.
That is a level of psychotic inanity I’d prefer to stay out of. There is probably no coherent reason, just which parts of the muck from the right wing wurlitzer their minds swim in.
Following some Googling, I can give you an interim report: it’s one of those things that makes you wonder who decided to call political science a science.
The four questions are the first four of the 30-question F-Scale, an index of the authoritarian personality developed by Theodor W. Adorno in 1947, a great philosopher and sociologist but not somebody you would trust to create an objective measure of anything for scientific purposes. The F is for Fascist. It’s not normally used any more, having been replaced by some more sophisticated instruments, especially the Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale of Bob Altermeyer, but somehow these first four questions have survived in political science departments as a kind of zombie version, widely used, and particularly supported by the National Election Studies out of Stanford and University of Michigan, which have used them to collect data on authoritarianism in voters a few times starting 1992.
It’s been used in recent years to show that the GOP is more and more dominated by authoritarians, which sure doesn’t sound wrong exactly. There’s a slightly gleeful post on that result from Kevin Drum at The Political Animal, September 2006!
I think what probably bothers you about the questions is that it is so obvious what they are trying to get at (that’s what instantly bothers me), and this has indeed been noted. Apparently the 30-question version (with six possible responses to each question instead of just two) works more accurately on stupid or poorly educated people than smart ones, but with the simplified 4-question version it really amounts to no more than “how would you like to stereotype yourself?”
Whatever it’s good for, and I can’t so far find any attempt to justify it on reliability grounds, it can’t be delicate enough to distinguish Trump fans from Christie fans. But it’s not quite fair to blame it on this one grad student, who’s very much inside the paradigm of what’s acceptable in the field.
Lots and lots of psychological instruments don’t disguise the intent of their questions. They’re still considered valid.
To me it seems obvious on its face that conservatism is rooted in fear and has as its primary political objective either the establishment of order that protects everyone or political violence that eliminates (presumably) dangerous outsiders.
Why do they like assholes? Because they believe that they are under siege in their own society. An asshole is only an asshole to those he goes after. To those in his group, he’s just a badass. Try this out with any sports team’s fan base: they all love their player that is otherwise universally regarded as a thug.
In a politician, that’s the leader of a movement that feels it’s own strength, but can’t get past its hatred of the Others. And it can happen on either side: it just depends on the historical moment.
I am personally more concerned that these are presented as either/or choices as if they are somehow mutually exclusive.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see the mutual exclusion personally.
Why can’t I have a well mannered curious child? Are they trying to say that curiosity is rude?
They’re not mutually exclusive. The question isn’t an either/or.
Actually it is an either/or (forced choice) questionnaire. Those completely force choice questionnaires don’t like them, but if the full test is properly constructed, it produces the purest general inclinations (everyday impulses) of the test takers.
Correct, whereas the original F-Scale used a six-point system from strongly agree to strongly disagree. But it isn’t properly constructed. Another issue (which was also true of the F-Scale) is how the alternatives are all in the same order, fascist first and non-fascist second.
I mean this sincerely, please correct me if I’m wrong here. I fully admit that I’m not overly certain on this particular rule of English. But I thought that if you only have two choices and an or operand that the either is implicitly implied.
Yeah; I don’t quite see why Booman is being so sneeringly dismissive.
Sure, Red State makes the point inherently suspicious, but (as you say) this isn’t coming out of nowhere; there’s a solid, august background. (Adorno is no-one to sneeze at.)
Why would anyone prefer Rubio to Cruz?
Rubio looks like the kid who mowed your lawn, all grown up with his first suit.
Cruz like a used car salesman who used to sell insurance.
Having a highly obnoxious 17 year old in the house does make those questions just a bit more difficult to answer.
I feel ya boran.
there is a theory of assholes
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008AEGGNS?keywords=assholes%20a%20theory&qid=1453080276&re
f_=sr_1_1&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
Is more important for your child to be respectful or independent?
Is more important for your child to be obedient or self-reliant?
Is more important for your child to be well-behaved or considerate?
Is more important for your child to be well-mannered or curious?
See, I don’t see these as either-or questions. I have three adult sons and all three were smart and good in school when they were younger. So, while they were all curious intellectually, self-reliant, independent and inquisitive, they were also thoughtful, well-behaved, and respectful boys.
As adults, they are still critical thinkers and have strong political beliefs, but they’re also still compassionate and caring people. That doesn’t make them sheeple!
^This.
My answer to each of those questions is, “Why not both?”
I’ve posted this before — Political Compass — which is a test and analysis of political views on two axes rather than one. Left – Right (the standard axis) and Authoritarian – Libertarian:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
I find that a lot of American progressives are actually fairly Left Libertarian. (Note this has nothing to do with what people generally call “Libertarian” in the U.S. — that’s Right Libertarianism.)
And as their analysis of past leaders shows, fascists tend to be much more authoritarian than others, and that’s their defining characteristic.
” … respectful, obedient, well-behaved, and well-mannered . . . “
Yes, I think that describes our children (11, 11, and [almost] 8). It certainly does not describe Donald Trump.
That’s my thought. If you value “respectful, obedient, well-behaved, and well-mannered” how the h*** could you support Donald Trump, who’s bad on ALL of those even by the low standards of Republican Presidential candidates? And yet people who at least say they value that, and who should have been supporting Obama by that standard, lean heavily Republican.
Would you rather your child be a real American or uppity?
I think that answers your question.
The DEM Presidential candidates’ debate wasn’t just scheduled for a Sunday evening, not just a Sunday evening of the three day weekend, but the Sunday evening of the three day week in direct competition with the Critics Choice Awards telecast. Couldn’t DWS get a slot to compete against the Super Bowl game?
I was wondering why she missed scheduling it against the playoffs
Guess Sunday evening, three day weekend, against an Awards show was more subtle than playoffs, Super Bowl, and Christmas Eve and Day would have been. Or somebody on team Clinton objected to missing any of those events for a debate.
He defies conventional wisdom on Trump’s cross-over appeal:
Aren’t Trump’s favourable/unfavourables particularly bad among these same two groups?
“Assholes” are people who believe in either/or questions.
There is always another possibility.
AG