In 2006, John Dean wrote Conservatives Without Conscience (CWC). He documented how his Republican party had changed since the resignation of Richard Nixon. The party has moved further to the right and most of its members are definable as individuals with a testable authoritarian personality.
- "Probably about 20 to 25 percent of the adult American population is so right-wing authoritarian, so scared, so self-righteous, so ill-informed, and so dogmatic that nothing you can say or do will change their minds. They would march [scare] America into a dictatorship and probably feel that things had improved as a result... And they are so submissive to their leaders that they will believe and do virtually anything they are told. They are not going to let up and they are not going away."
In 2008, Frank Schaeffer wrote Crazy for God. He detailed how his family helped start the authoritarian evangelical movement and merged it with the authoritarian Republican party. Schaeffer pointed out how this combination attracted a more radical element - The Fringe of The Fringe.
- Frank's father, Francis, wrote a book, A Christian Manifesto. In this book Francis Schaeffer advocated the overthrow of the government when the political process failed to meet their fundamentalist beliefs. His father was "setting the groundwork for individuals to decide that the line [Electing a black president, performing an abortion, stopping prayer in public school, taking their guns, etc] had been crossed." Once the line is crossed, domestic terrorism is an option.
I would say that this week's failure of the House Republican caucus to elect a new Speaker is the fault of domestic terrorists elected as Republicans to the People's House by authoritarian, fringe, fundamentalist, Republican voters.
In 2019, John Dean and Professor Altemeyer coauthored Authoritarian Nightmare as an update on his CWC book with a focus on DJT, the Republican party and their authoritarian nature.
- "Social dominators have found their authoritarian leader, and we are witnessing the growing unfolding of authoritarianism in the United States... It has not been our past and should not be our future. But if Trump - or any authoritarian leader - holds a post as powerful and pervasive as the American presidency, it will be our present, our way in the world. This is the reason it is so important that Americans appreciate that authoritarianism is on the ballot in the 2020 election, not to mention for many elections that will follow."
These three books all document how the GOP became the fringe authoritarian GQP. After reading them, you won't find the insurrection of 1/6/2021 as shocking. The GQP is now a collection of two minority groups: The Fringe, and the Fringe of the Fringe. Both are determined to destroy our democratic republic. They are doing this as representatives of the oligarch class, which they have protected and empowered for decades.
In 2020, Heather Cox Richardson wrote How the South Won the Civil War. It documents a more long-term and repeating effort by authoritarian oligarchs to end our democracy. Authoritarian oligarchs from different USA epochs are paving the way. In the early to mid 1800s, a few plantation oligarchs gained power in the South and started our Civil War. Then the oligarchs of the Industrial Revolution tried to remove FDR from office with a military coup led by retired Marine General Smedley Butler, who exposed the attempt. And now we have Wall Street and tech oligarchs buying our Senate and many Congressman, and funding the 2021 insurrection.
Like John Dean has tried to do, Historian H.C. Richardson documents the Republican threat to our democracy - "Movement Conservative," which started in the early 1960s. The major accomplishment of this movement has been the evangelical takeover of SCOTUS. Achieving this goal was recently finalized through an authoritarian President, DJT, and a GQP-controlled Senate.
As detailed by the above authors, our political party spectrum has broadened as the GQP pushed the envelope to the far right and some Democrats have reached back to their 20th-century roots. Authoritarian right-wing evangelicals, militias, Qanon conspiracists and oligarchs (Movement Conservative members) turned the GOP into purely self-interested, self-promoting, fringe and fringe-of-the-fringe, dysfunctional institution. Those Republicans who were considered moderate have been primaried from the party. Those moderates have been replaced by blue-dog Democrats from the '90s while the Progressive Caucus of the 2020s now represents the 'radical' FDR Democrats of the 1930s.
Even the fringe of the fringe, represented by "Big Lie" promoter, Ginny Thomas, is falsely labeling the Republican fringe, represented by Keven McCarthy, as "moderates" just to make themselves, the fringe of the fringe, seem less extreme.
