“There’s another group of people that are actually more interesting right now,” Chip explained. Dr. Robert Altemeyer, who did the original research on right-wing authoritarian followers, found that there’s a second slice of the American populace—about the same size as the first one, or slightly bigger—who are conservative by temperament, but don’t live full-time in that same overwrought, hyper-vigilant, paranoid space that the ultra-right wing authoritarian 10 percent do. This group, Chip said, usually hews closer to the political center-right, keeping themselves at some distance from the really wild-eyed True Believers in the next cohort farther out.
But according to Altemeyer, I pointed out, these people tend to move away from the center and embrace hard-line conservatism if they’re under extreme social or economic stress, right? Exactly right, said Chip. It’s happened several times before in American history. (One example: In Nixonland, Rick Perlstein documented how, back in the mid-1960s, conservative suburban homeowners were driven into the arms of the far right by their fear of neighborhood integration in the wake of fair housing laws. The political careers of both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan where launched on the resulting tide of rage). And it’s precisely what’s happening again now.
I could quote from this piece 'til the cows come home. Go read.
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