Who were the early conservatives? They emerged out of the group of former fascists and Nazi sympathizers in the US. 1930s opposition to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal 2 main right-wing factions then: After the Allies won World War II, a number of the early Hitler sympathizers “hid out” in anti-communist circles, allowing them to cloak […]
The demagogue is the creature the Founders of America most feared: the authoritarian-style leader who would stir the passions of the mob and use them to overthrow the more moderate democratic norms and checks and balances of the republic in order to stay in power. Yet the United States has had a flirtation with demagogues […]
Cultural Marxism is a conspiracy theory originally promoted by ultraconservative American political operatives William S. Lind and Paul Weyrich, claiming the existence of an organized conspiracy against the “traditional Christian values of America.” It’s a modern derivative of the Nazi propaganda term “Cultural Bolshevism,” which was used as a derogative slur against anything progressive, modernist, […]
The phenomenon of QAnon may have come seemingly out of nowhere to some, but will be familiar to many as a much older series of conspiracy theories that have been used repeatedly throughout history to stoke fear and hysteria, thus controlling populations more easily. At its core, QAnon is a recycling of the Protocols of the Elders of […]
Research has shown that emotional repression causes authoritarianism (Altemeyer, Adorno, Stenner et al). Fundamentalist religious groups favor the most repression, culturally — ergo, fundamentalist groups are at the highest risk for nurturing authoritarian traits. Emotional repression is the keystone of fundamentalist parenting. The strict application of “Biblical law” as cherry-picked by extremists is inherently contradictory […]
It feels like the 1930s all over again — and with good reason. The rise of American fascists and right-wing extremism around the world has been a known trend for decades, and America’s past flirtations with fascism had been largely swept under the rug by the then anti-semites who tried to put a stop to […]
Malignant narcissism is a more severe and more dangerous version of narcissistic personality disorder. NPD is an extreme and pervasive set of traits associated with narcissism, a common human quality that most of us possess in small amounts — while some have it to excess, and even great excess. Those folks conversely have less or […]
Hierarchy vs. Fairness is the dominant Manichaean struggle of our age, and perhaps every age before it: shall we structure our society with a strict hierarchical system of highs and lows, with power concentrated at the top? Or shall we have an egalitarian society where truth, justice, and fairness rule the day? There are a […]
The Lone Wolf myth is pervasive in Western culture — the idea that what really moves the needle and has the power to make change is a single solitary force: an exceptional, rugged individual who can brute force his (and it’s usually a he) way through all opposition and Get Things Done. It’s the seductive […]