52 online
 
Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 128 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing
Exclusive to OpEd News:
OpEdNews Op Eds    H1'ed 5/29/18

Fine Tuning Authoritarianism

By       (Page 1 of 2 pages)   24 comments, 4 series
Follow Me on Twitter     Message Rob Kall
Become a Fan
  (295 fans)

Royal Power
Royal Power
(Image by Pixabay: alles)
  Details   DMCA

Trump is fine-tuning 21st century authoritarianism.

Conservatives love authoritarian voters. Authoritarians come in two varieties-- people who are dominators, who love to tell people what to do and how to think and people who love to and need to be dominated and told what to do. Authoritarians of both varieties are brutally cruel.

Robert Altemeyer, a world renowned expert on Authoritarians explains, "the hostility you find so often in authoritarian followers is based upon more than anything else they are just being very frightened; and feeling that they are the good guys, they are god's designated hitters, and so they can go and attack whom they want because it's all in a good cause." Altemeyer describes authoritarian followers as being self-righteous.

This authoritarianism plays beautifully into the hands of anti-regulation, anti-government types, like the Koch brothers.

The problem is that certain authoritarian, top-down institutions are inconvenient for corporate authoritarians, like big government and even some iterations of religions. Now, corporate authoritarians do not have natural followers, outside their employee based. So they parasitize by tapping the authoritarianism of evangelicals and white supremacists.

Trump is playing right into this fine-tuning by attacking big government-- one of the authoritarian forms anti-regulation corporatists oppose. And Trump attacks the media and law enforcement agencies, also authoritarian powers that are inconvenient to corporatists.

So Trump is engaging in a culling of authoritarian forces. By intensifying the enmity towards government, towards media, even towards the Pope, Trump is strengthening the bond between right wing conservatism and evangelicals and white supremacists. The face of this ugly concoction is a mix of billionaires and evangelical leaders, like Franklin Graham.

What will the future look like with this corporate-evangelical authoritarianism?

  • Privatization will expand: When corporations, wealth and authoritarian religion are celebrated, privatization, especially privatization with religious ties will continue to grow.
  • Wealth inequality will continue to worsen: Authoritarian followers will even embrace this as signs of the worthiness of the dominators they obey.
  • Erosion of Government: Trump and conservatives are aggressively undermining the institutions of government-- laws, the system of justice
  • Endangering journalists and the media:
  • This is well under way. Ironically, the mainstream media are helping to hasten the process.

    Government of and by the people is a relatively new idea, a result of the idea of democracy. Democracy has no place in the world of billionaires, the ultra wealthy and Evangelicals.

    The problem is, the current leadership of the Democratic party also embraces wealth and corporate influence as their means for holding on to their deck chairs on the titanic.

    The solution to this world-wide affliction is to embrace the bottom-up aspects of being human that support democracy and equality. That is what humans evolved, over millions of years, to become. Civilization brought surpluses that led to militarization and policing to protect the surpluses which authoritarians claimed, where narcissists were encouraged to take, take take.

    Next Page  1  |  2

    (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

    Must Read 7   Well Said 7   Valuable 6  
    Rate It | View Ratings

    Rob Kall Social Media Pages: Facebook Page       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

    Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect, connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

    Check out his platform at RobKall.com

    He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

    He's given talks and workshops to Fortune 500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful people on his Bottom Up Radio Show, and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

    more detailed bio:

    Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, (more...)
     

    Go To Commenting
    The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
    Follow Me on Twitter     Writers Guidelines

     
    Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
    Support OpEdNews

    OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

    If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

    STAY IN THE KNOW
    If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
    Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
    Name
    Email
       (Opens new browser window)
     

    Other Series: View All 4 Articles in "Government, Laws, Constitution"

    Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

    A Conspiracy Conspiracy Theory

    Debunking Hillary's Specious Winning the Popular Vote Claim

    Terrifying Video: "I Don't Need a Warrant, Ma'am, Under Federal Law"

    Ray McGovern Discusses Brutal Arrest at Secretary Clinton's Internet Freedom Speech

    Hillary's Disingenuous Claim That She's Won 2.5 Million More Votes is Bogus. Here's why

    Cindy Sheehan Bugged in Denver

    To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

    Tell A Friend