The Covid pandemic is finally dying now. But there is another pandemic that is still churning along. The other pandemic is authoritarianism. And this pandemic has existed for most of recorded human history and was taken for granted as the normal way for governments to operate for a long time.
But during the last few centuries, governments have been meandering away from authoritarian rule. And meandering is a good term to use when describing our journey from authoritarian rule because some nations, like China and Russia, are deeply authoritarian. But we are seeing a going-back-and-forth in some nations that sell themselves as democracies, are now, to say the least, flirting with authoritarianism. Israel, U.S., and Hungary are examples of such nations. And there are others. For example, Brazil has been going back and forth in terms of becoming more authoritarian. And in some European nations, though they are committed to democracy, they have significant movements in their respective countries that clamor for an authoritarian government provided that the their preferred leaders are the authoritarians in charge.
But what is meant by authoritarianism? There are two different definitions we a use here. One refers to a kind of control that a single person or political party exercises, or desires to have, over the nation they govern (click here for a definition). But authoritarianism can also refer to a personality type (click here for a description). And when we look at the different way in which authoritarianism applies, there is no need to choose between one concept over the other. That is because these concepts can feed each other.
Here we should note that when a society has enough people with authoritarian personality types, they favor authoritarian rulers. In fact, revolutions in authoritarian nations often produce new authoritarian regime that merely follow that merely follow a different ideology than the previous regime. That is because once an authoritarian mindset is entrenched in a society, breaking away from authoritarianism is very difficult for the people. Russia provides an example of such a nation.
Here in America, we've always had exhibited authoritarianism in our foreign policies. Even democratic nations that did not do the bidding of some of our big businesses soon soon found themselves on the short end of U.S. foreign policies. And that short end often involved attempts at destabilization followed by regime change with either U.S. support or approval. Examples include Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, and Chile in 1973. The U.S. has also acted in other nations since 1973.
The Vietnam War saw American insistence on who would rule over South Vietnam. That was despite an international call to allow the reunification of Vietnam to be democratically decided.
But authoritarianism in America can be most easily found in what has become of the Republican Party. Donald Trump has remade the Party in his image and that image is extremely ugly and arrogant. We saw previews of the authoritarianism in Trump's party just by watching how Trump responded to dissent. His hostility, via ridicule, to dissent, which is a sign of authoritarianism, even when that dissent was expressed by reputable politicians, like John McCain, and public figures, like Meryl Streep revealed Trump's leanings toward authoritarianism.
That authoritarianism expanded to other members of the Republican Party as seen in the Republican Party's treatment of those Republicans who supported the January 6 hearings. And now, Trump is threatening to take vengeance on his political enemies should he be elected to the Presidency in 2024.
Other Republicans, such as Ron DeSantis, have taken up the Trump call to authoritarianism in the Republican Party by how they govern their states. DeSantis has used his political power to try to take vengeance on DisneyWorld simply because DisneyWorld took a public stand against one of his bills that targeted the LGBT community. His approach to education shows that his complaints about the Left attacking free speech is mere projection. Projection is another trait of the authoritarian personality type. Here we should note that both Trump and DeSantis are currently the leading the Republican field for running for President.
An article posted on The Conversation's website showed survey results that pointed to calls for authoritarian type leadership from members of both major political parties (click here). We should also note that the Republican Party, because of its conservative ties, would naturally lean toward favoring some degree of authoritarianism. That is because conservatives tend to be traditionalists. And traditionalism leans toward varying degrees of exclusive possession of truth.
But conservatives are not the only ones who lean toward authoritarianism. Ideologues from all political sides also favor authoritarianism for the same reason that traditionalists do. And, unfortunately, so do religiously conservative Christians and for the same reason. Our reliance on the Scriptures unfortunately cause some of us to believe that we have exclusive possession of political and economic truth.
The only way to escape this authoritarian trap in the public sector is to recognize that nobody's political-economic ideology is omniscient. The more one believes that their ideology has the all of the answers, the more easily that person favors authoritarianism. For if one believes that their ideology has all of the answers, then all other ideologies must either agree or pose a threat. And note the binary thinking that such faith in one's own ideology causes. Here we should note that this binary thinking, or black-white thinking, is a natural part of authoritarianism.
Another way to escape this authoritarian trap is to promote a consistent democracy, which limits how majority rule will govern.
The desire of some members from both parties for either a strong leader who pulls not punches or the desire expressed by Marjorie Taylor Greene for the red states to separate themselves from the blue states and to limit the voting rights of democrats who would move to the red states shows how more and more people are leaning toward conformity. And that leaning toward conformity needs authoritarianism to maintain that conformity.
Finally, we should note that the progression toward authoritarianism in the U.S. is part of a pattern that we see in the world. This is especially true for nations like Russia, China, Hungary, Turkey, North Korea, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Israel, and others. For what we are seeing in these nations is either a move from democratic principles to authoritarianism or a more passionate embrace of authoritarianism. This is what makes authoritarianism the other pandemic. Only this pandemic has a rich history of causing global wars. And in a nuclear age, where the proliferation of WMDs is inevitable, one would think that our knowledge of history would cause us to shy away from authoritarianism.
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