Conservatives Without Conscience

During the past half century our understanding of authoritarianism has been significantly refined and advanced. Leading this work is social psychologist and researcher Bob Altemeyer of the University of Manitoba. Altemeyer not only confirmed the flaws in the methodology and findings of The Authoritarian Personality, but he set this field of study on new footings, by clarifying the study of authoritarian followers, whom he calls “right-wing authoritarians” (RWA). The provocative titles of his books—Right-Wing Authoritarianism (1981), Enemies of Freedom (1988), and The Authoritarian Specter (1996)—and a few of his many articles found in scholarly journals—such as “Highly Dominating, Highly Authoritarian Personalities” in the Journal of Social Psychology (2004) and “Why Do Religious Fundamentalists Tend to Be Prejudiced?” in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion (2003)—indicate the tenor of his research and the range of his interests.[*]

Halfway through Altemeyer’s The Authoritarian Specter I realized that I should get guidance to be certain I understood the material correctly, because the information he had developed was exactly what I needed to comprehend the personalities now dominating the conservative movement and Republican Party. For instance, he asked a very troubling question at the outset of The Authoritarian Specter: “Can there really be fascist people in a democracy?” His considered answer, based not on his opinion but on the results of his research, was: “I am afraid so.”[12] Altemeyer’s studies addressed not only those people mentioned by Alan Wolfe, along with my muses Chuck Colson and Gordon Liddy, whose behavior had provoked my inquiry, but all conservatives. Altemeyer graciously agreed to assist me in understanding his work and that of his colleagues.[13]

To study authoritarians Altemeyer and other researchers have used carefully crafted and tested questionnaires, usually called “scales,” in which respondents are asked to agree or disagree with a statement such as “Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us,” or, “A ‘woman’s place’ should be wherever she wants to be. The days when women are submissive to their husbands and social conventions belong strictly in the past.”[14] As a professor of psychology Altemeyer has tested (usually anonymously) tens of thousands of first-year students and their parents, along with others, including some fifteen hundred American state legislators, over the course of some three decades. There is no database on authoritarians that even comes close in its scope, and, more importantly, these studies offer empirical data rather than partisan speculation.

Authoritarianism Vis-à-Vis Conservatism

Since the “authoritarian type” was first introduced in 1950, the question of the relationship of authoritarianism to ideology has been an ongoing investigation. Extensive research, and overwhelming evidence, shows “that authoritarianism is consistently associated with right-wing but not left-wing ideology.”[15] To underscore the fact that his questionnaire does not address the left, Altemeyer specifically calls his scale a survey of right-wing authoritarianism. “I have tried to discover the left-wing authoritarian, whom I suspect exists, but apparently only in very small numbers,” he told me. He is not testing for political conservatism per se, however. Nonetheless, he finds that those who score highly on his right-wing authoritarian scale are by and large “conservatives,” as journalists and the general public understand that term. Other social scientists have reached the same conclusions.[16]

In one of Altemeyer’s recent articles—“What Happens When Authoritarians Inherit the Earth? A Simulation”—he describes right-wing authoritarians as “political conservatives (from the grass roots up to the pros, say studies of over 1500 elected lawmakers).” He explained what can be a confusing distinction between a right-wing authoritarian and a political conservative: