Speaker 1: Let's take a brief break from the potentially impending arrest of failed
former President Donald Trump to talk about why the modern American right wing loves
authoritarianism and authoritarian leaders. You know, it's important to contextualize phenomena
that we observe in the modern world. One such phenomena is indeed one such phenomenon is that
modern Republicans and right wingers and MAGA, Trumpists and so on just seem to have a real
soft spot for increasingly authoritarian policies and declarations. Why is this,
and how did this come to be? First and foremost, when we talk about authoritarianism, at its core,
what we're talking about is a political system in which the government has a massive amounts of
power and authority over its citizens. It's a system that values control over freedom,
and it relies on obedience and compliance from the population. Why does that sound weird when
we think about Republicans? Well, it sounds weird because it's the opposite of what they
claim Republicans have claimed for a long time and still do that They're about freedom
and liberty and not regulating people and not regulating corporations. And yet they abandoned
those principles immediately when the outcomes would conflict with their worldview. And they
also seem to glamorize the authoritarian leaders of other countries. And this includes under MAGA,
Trumpism, everybody from Putin and do territory to Bolsonaro and Orban and so many others, Erdogan
and many others that we've talked about. So why is it that so many modern right wingers are attracted
to this type of system? There are a few reasons, and it's a combination of fear based motivation,
ignorance. Now, some of you might just say dumb schmucks. Okay, I'm being a little more respectful
and I'm saying ignorance of facts and a desperate desire for power. Those are the three aspects that
I would point to. And we can talk about each of these. Let's first talk about fear. Fear based
politics works much better with Republicans as your targets. And when I say target, I mean, let's
be honest. Republican voters are the targets of Republican elected officials. Republican
elected officials have accurately assessed that in part because of what have been quite frankly,
called brain differences in right wingers, as well as sort of value systems. Right wingers
are very afraid of change. They're very afraid of others. They're afraid of difference. And
so it's really effective to use authoritarianism as a way to maintain control, even if they want
freedom and liberty, because you tell them as a right winger, as a right wing elected official,
folks, all these things you're afraid of Twitter censoring conservatives and brown people storming
the border, and what does Trump call them? Insane asylums emptying out into the United States and
immigrants taking your jobs and China taking your stuff and whatever in order to get them
to agree to the authoritarianism? You say I will use the authoritarianism to help protect you from
all these things I have made you afraid of. So fear gets them to go with the authoritarianism.
Even when they say I like freedom, I like liberty. Secondly, there's ignorance, okay?
I know people are going to find this offensive to some degree. The magazine will find this
offensive. There are a lot of these folks, particularly Trump's followers, that don't know
what is happening. And so when they are told, hey, you know what, I can fix this thing I've made you
afraid of, if you just give me the power to do y, I'll protect you from X if you give me the power
to do Y. They don't understand that. It's just not going to happen. It's just not going. I will
protect you from China by passing tariffs. Well, but the tariffs are paid by American. They don't
know. So they go, Yes, protect us from China by passing the tariffs or I will protect you
from brown people raping women and children and taking your jobs with a wall. Sure. That. Yeah,
sounds like that work. I will support you because of that. And so ignorance allows
the authoritarianism to grow and grow and grow. And then thirdly, and I think sort of, you know,
finally, here is the desire for power. The right sees many of these authoritarian leaders and ideas
as a way to gain and maintain power over others, a power which they feel justified in wanting because
they believe that they are morally correct and correct on policy and whatever the case may be,
they believe we would be the ones in charge. Under such a system. We would rather freedom
and liberty. We would. But everything other than what we believe in is really dangerous and we're
scared of it and it's whatever. And so since we would be the ones in power, then it's okay
to impose this authoritarianism and that that is the way that it would ultimately stay. Now,
these are generalizations. Not all right wingers are attracted to authoritarianism. The ones that
are might only be motivated by fear and their ignorance rather than the desire for power.
Or maybe it's desire for power and fear. And they're not really ignorant,
but they've just miscalculated in some way. This is why the American right wing overall on average,
is attracted to authoritarianism. And then you have two more elements to this. Yes,
there is the double standard. Okay. They claim to be about small government, except when they say,
oh, no, no, no. The government needs to tell Twitter exactly what to do. Wait, I thought you
were against regulation. Yeah, but except when they're censoring conservatives on Twitter. But
are they? No, but that doesn't matter. They've already bought into that. So there's the double
standard. And then secondly, I think in this kind of addendum, it's also important to understand
the connection between right wingers supporting authoritarianism and populist rhetoric. And I've
spoken before about how populism is not a set of policies. It is a rhetoric and it's a way of
talking to people. There is left wing populism and right wing populism. And again, some people go,
No, there isn't, David. There is populist rhetoric from the right and left. The populist rhetoric
from the right is often used to justify horrible things. Right. Bernie and Tucker Carlson will both
say the middle class has been screwed and passed over and not helped the way it should have been
in this country for a long time. Great. A lot of people will agree with that, Tucker will say. And
so to protect you from that, we have to keep the dirty poor immigrants out and prevent Antifa from
taking your house or whatever the case may be. That's important not to ignore, which is that
much of the support for authoritarianism from the right has come on the heels of populist rhetoric
from right wing heroes, heroes to them like Tucker and Trump and others. That's my sense of the love
affair with authoritarianism in the modern American right wing. I welcome your comments
to go beyond that. Let me know in an email. Let me know in a comment. We'll do a follow up soon