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An authoritarian inclination is in considerable part an inherited aspect of personality, according to behavioral economist and political psychologist Karen Stenner, author of The Authoritarian Dynamic, a groundbreaking exploration of the way a predisposition toward authoritarianism interacts with changing perceptions of societal threat. Its expressed as a desire for order through strong authority and shared values and norms that reinforce unity and conformity and minimizes differences, diversity, and discord.

Authoritarian voters, said Stenner in an interview, are highly sensitive to perceived threats to what she calls oneness and sameness.

That ends up being threats to authorities, institutions, and core values, she said. So the things that most upset them are loss of confidence in, and loss of shared respect for, leaders and institutions, and secondly, loss of a sense of shared values and norms. That impulse often manifests itself in a sense that we have lost the things that made us great, we have lost our way of life, the things that make us real Americans, the things that make us one and the same.

She estimates that about one-third of any population, across nations, has this inclination to some degree and that they are activated in times that are complex, chaotic, or stressful, periods that see challenges to authority, protests, dissent, and efforts to increase individual freedom.

The more tolerant a modern liberal democracy becomes, the more it emphasizes individual freedom and diversity, then the more complex political and social life becomes, the more chaotic and disorderly things feel, and the more distressing it is to authoritarians, Stenner explained.

Thats why societies that appear to be growing steadily more inclusive, tolerant, and pluralistic sometimes see sudden eruptions of intolerance or bigotry. The very complexity inherent to liberal democracy trips the authoritarian impulse that has until then lain dormant in the population, resulting in their increased demand for leaders and policies that shore up oneness and sameness, she said.

Trump clearly attracted those voters, said Matthew MacWilliams, author of On Fascism: 12 Lessons from American History, his cogent new book exploring the tension between democratic ideals and authoritarian impulses in American history. MacWilliams, who previously ran a political consultancy, was finishing a late-career PhD thesis on authoritarianism in 2015 when Trump jumped into the presidential race.

Trump comes down the escalator and I start listening to him, and during the first few months of his campaign, everything he was doing is what the strongman would do to activate authoritarians, he said in an interview.

That is, singling out an other different from, and a supposed threat to, mainstream America and its values, often as part of a broader conspiracy, and portraying himself as the only one willing to confront that problem.

Trumps others were illegal immigrants and Muslims, whose entry to the country he promised to stop by building a border wall and enacting a Muslim ban.

Fascinated, MacWilliams put a poll in the field and came away with this conclusion: The best single predictor of support for Trump wasnt a voters race or income or education level, but whether he or she had strong authoritarian tendencies.

Now consider conspiratorialism, the belief in and promotion of groundless and often wild-eyed conspiracy theories. Trump is not the first national leader prone to conspiracy theories. But we have never had a president so invested in alternative realities. Further, if polls are accurate in saying that one-third to one-half of Trump supporters credit some aspect of the QAnon whirl of absurdity in a nutshell, that Trump is heroically battling deep state pedophiles who run a child-trafficking ring this is a particularly fertile period for fever-swamp foolishness.

Another barometer of that propensity for the preposterous: Despite any credible evidence of widespread fraud, upward of 60 percent of Republicans at least profess to believe the recent presidential election was somehow rigged.

Conspiracy theories have long been a tool of authoritarian demagogues. Stenner also sees extensive overlap between authoritarian and conspiratorialist mindsets among voters, saying the closed personalities and cognitive limitations that underlie authoritarianism also render one susceptible to conspiratorialism. MacWilliams says it makes intuitive sense that there would be considerable convergence, given that authoritarians tend to be driven by fears and thus are more prone to perceive possible threats on the political horizon.

These are two areas I plan to explore further. But readers, I need your help. Have you seen a friend or relative surrender to authoritarian impulses or slide into conspiratorialism? Why do you think it happened? Have you had any luck in changing their perspective or disabusing them of factually unfettered fantasies, and if so, how? Do you see a way for political leaders to reduce the anxieties that activate the authoritarian impulse while also protecting rights and opportunities for all members of our pluralistic society?

Please e-mail your stories and thoughts to me at scot.lehigh@globe.com.

Scot Lehigh is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at scot.lehigh@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeScotLehigh.

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Beware of authoritarianism and conspiratorialism, twin threats to our democracy - The Boston Globe

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I dont remember who made this point a few days ago, but its worth repeating: Every Republican who yelled and screamed about Donald Trump being robbed was someone with no responsibility over election administration. Among those who did have responsibility for the counting of votes and the declaring of winners, every single one acted properly. That includes governors, secretaries of state, county clerks, registrars, election commissioners, judges (most of them, anyway), and the Supreme Court.

This is, needless to say, not a defense of the jackasses who kowtowed to Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh by going on Fox News every day to whip the Republican rank and file into a frenzy over a stolen election. They did real damage, and they deserve to be shunned. That said, even direct, personal pressure from Trump himself failed to move any of the Republican officials who actually had the power to aid his doomed cause.

Im not entirely sure what lesson to take from this, but at the very least it suggests that democracy in the United States is a little stronger than we might be giving it credit for.

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So How Is Democracy Doing These Days? - Mother Jones

There are indications that President-elect Joe Biden intends to make supporting democracy a key element of his administrations foreign policy. This is a pragmatic decision based in an understanding of national interest that recognizes that threats to democracy overseas imperil U.S. security and prosperity at home.

Some of the most critical challenges to democracy the new administration will face on day one include the erosion of democratic rights at the hands of authoritarian regimes that have exploited COVID-19 to expand their power; the persistent and pervasive effects of expanding kleptocracy; violent conflict rooted in a breakdown of the state-society contract; and a version of governance antithetical to individual freedoms that China is proffering in tandem with opaque investment deals.

The Biden administrations strategy to strengthen democracy will need to address each of these threats, offer a positive vision for democracy globally, and harness the full range of available U.S. tools, both diplomacy and foreign assistance. One of us, with another colleague, recently outlined a five-part agenda for doing just this.

Shoring up citizen-centered governance in countries that are strategically important to the United States will be central to addressing many of these challenges, and a key component of such a democracy agenda. Citizen-centered governance means that institutions and processes are open and transparent, informed by citizens views, and address peoples needs. A citizen-centered governance roadmap focuses on creating the enabling environment for responsive, responsible, and accountable government. This includes supporting reforms that allow for greater democratic participation, decentralized public management, and the provision of citizen-friendly official information.

Here, we outline why bolstering governance in priority countries can help address some of the most pressing democracy challenges and offer three ways the new administration can do so.

Ineffective governance is both cause and consequence of some of the most urgent democracy challenges globally, including mounting kleptocracy, the resurgence of authoritarian rule, and protracted violent conflicts. A common denominator of poorly governed societies is the lack of citizen involvement in the decisionmaking process. Conversely, citizen engagement is associated with better governance outcomes. To advance democracy, the Biden administration needs to pair convening like-minded leaders with sustained efforts to address the root causes that preclude democracies from delivering by empowering citizens as change makers.

Kleptocratic leaders continue to enrich themselves at the expense of their citizens, siphoning public assets to offshore jurisdictions and diverting government resources to regime cronies. Weak domestic institutions, opaque government spending, and a permissive international financial environment combine to enable kleptocrats to steal public resources, which not only deprives the citizenry of much-needed resources but in many cases fuel criminal activities that can threaten U.S. interests.

COVID-19 has given kleptocrats and other authoritarian-leaning leaders an excuse to extend their reach and suppress dissent from opposition groups and civil society organizations, reducing their capacity to hold government accountable. This in turn makes it less likely that pro-democracy activists effect change, depriving the U.S. of new potential allies and partners. Poor governance in the form of absent institutional safeguards, generalized opacity, and limited oversight enables overreach.

In many weak or failing states, the breakdown of the state-society contract, the governments inability to deliver, and predatory elites using public office for private gain continue to fuel instability.

The pandemic has exacerbated these challenges, weakening the capacity of people across the globe to make their voices heard and endangering their livelihoods in the process.

As the new administration crafts its democracy agenda to address these and other challenges, it should make reinforcing citizen-centered governance a central element. Widespread disillusionment with democracy can only be addressed if the public perceives democracy as a system that actually helps solve citizens problems. This requires tackling the governance shortcomings that prevent citizens from directly participating in the democratic process: entrenched corruption, feeble representative institutions, and the hyper-centralization of power. To do so, the Biden administration can take three steps.

First, it should fight global corruption by eliminating impunity for kleptocrats, using open data platforms and policies to increase transparency, and re-invigorating bilateral reform assistance to bolster domestic anti-graft campaigns. The beneficial ownership transparency requirements included in the National Defense Authorization Act recently passed by Congress provide the upcoming administration with a phenomenal tool to tighten the grip on corrupt foreign nationals. To hold kleptocrats accountable, the administration should promote the adoption of similar standards internationally and enhanced asset recovery frameworks, and work with allies to improve enforcement of U.S. anti-corruption laws. The scope of anti-corruption programs and initiatives should be expanded to more seriously counter foreign malign actors attempts to weaponize corruption to exert undemocratic influence abroad, including by supporting investigative journalists and democratic activists in exposing capture of political and business elites. Throughout, the United States would do well to deemphasize big-bang-type legal reforms, which are often elusive, and instead prioritize and support home-grown solutions and gradual improvements.

In tandem with these efforts to bring kleptocrats to account, the U.S. should aggressively pilot and scale innovative digital tools for improving transparency and accountability in the e-governance, civic tech, and private sectors. Blockchain, data analytics, and artificial intelligence have significant potential to help reduce costs in public procurement and other sensitive sectors as well as increase the efficacy of anti-corruption measures. Machine reading, for instance, allows for the rapid analysis of public records to reveal fraudulent bids. These efforts need to be complemented with improving internet penetration in underserved areas and coupled with interventions that address political incentives, rent-seeking, and other complex corrupt behaviors that cannot be changed with technology alone. Supporting civil society in credibly imposing costs on incumbents, through improved monitoring and mobilization capacities, is a necessary step in this direction.

Revitalizing bilateral anti-corruption reform assistance in priority regions (Central America, Eastern Europe, South East Asia), especially during windows of opportunity due to domestic political changes, will help bolster domestic anti-corruption efforts. While the challenges to international assistance to anti-corruption reform in Ukraine shows the limits of this approach, the now-dismantled U.S.-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) provides a potential roadmap of what can be accomplished when the United States couples diplomatic pressure with support for technical assistance.

Second, the U.S. should counter executive overreach by helping parliaments become more professionalized, interconnected, and transparent, including by working with the U.S. Congress to expand efforts such as the House Democracy Partnership. Especially in presidential systems, legislatures provide executive oversight that when endowed with full law-making and financial autonomy can help keep the government in check. Strong judiciaries complement robust parliaments in limiting executive overreach. Beyond capacity building for judicial staff, the United States can support reforms that grant tenure to judges, which can insulate them from political pressures, and ensure judiciaries randomly assign cases, which can help avoid executive interference in judge selection.

To complement these initiatives targeted at government actors, the United States should continue equipping civil society organizations with resources to operate in difficult environments and ensure the sustainability of their efforts through fomenting collaboration with the private sector and technology companies. This includes fostering a free media environment where foreign entities can invest to support local outlets.

Finally, the administration should support effective decentralization and prioritize piloting and scaling governance solutions generated at local levels. In many emerging democracies, the gap between the center and the rest of the country is widening in terms of socio-economic indicators and the quality of government services. Helping rebalance the political weight of remote, rural, or otherwise disadvantaged areas is critical for ensuring cohesive communities, mitigating conflict, and increasing domestic support for democracy. But more can also be done to harness the extensive innovation local officials and political actors are undertaking, especially in urban areas. During COVID-19s initial wave, for example, city-to-city exchanges were critical to share lessons and expertise. Many low-cost initiatives that were started at the municipal level, such as participatory budgeting, can help democracies deliver. This requires ensuring that subnational governments have the ability and funds to experiment with solutions.

In the face of new and old threats to freedom and prosperity globally, a reinvigorated U.S. push to strengthen citizen-centered governance abroad will fill a critical gap in the Bidens democracy agenda as currently outlined. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically exposed the consequences of opaque, ineffective, and exclusionary management of public affairs in terms of human loss, negative health impacts, and economic destruction. By shoring up citizen-centered governance, the new administration will help position its partners to address current challenges and be more capable to respond to the next big crisis. By emphasizing the importance of strengthening democracy at home, the new administration will make sure the United States can lead by example and that its offers of assistance abroad are credible.

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Strengthening citizen-centered governance should be a core element of the Biden administrations democracy agenda - Brookings Institution

Im a lifestyle columnist who promotes optimism and positivity in our daily lives. Im not a political pundit. Occasionally, a subject arises that connects the two areas of positivity and politics, and I feel its important to address. We have a problem.

Depending on which poll you believe, almost 40 percent of all Americans believe our recent election was either dishonestly counted or was unfair, while 77 percent of Republican voters say their candidate was fraudulently defeated. There has never been so much distrust in our voting system.

Former U.S. Congressman and retired Army Lt. Colonel, Allen West is now floating the idea of secession for those states who feel election laws were broken to elect Joe Biden.

This was an unprecedented election, with new rules and extreme methods, designed to accommodate voters due to our current COVID-19 pandemic. Former President Jimmy Carter, a longtime global advocate and judge for free elections, a Democrat, says that mail-in ballots are wrought with the opportunity for fraud. Never in our history have we had the massive number of vote-by-mail ballots as we did in this 2020 election.

The beacon of democracy? The Land of the Free and Home of (because) of the Brave now floating a break-up of our union?

Yes. I believe our union is at risk, but let me be clear: I do not advocate overturning the recent election. I accept the results based upon the election rules that were in place. The problem I see, and it should disturb both sides, is that the looseness of rules, methods, techniques, and monitoring of the last election places our democracy at risk. This isnt about Trump or Biden. This is about election security. We can and must do better.

You may say Allen West isnt representative of most voters on the right, but Id say you may be wrong. This shouldnt be a left or right issue, its an American issue. We should be united in preserving the integrity of our elections.

Im born and raised in Illinois and for as long as I can remember, there has been, and continues to be, a desire for the Illinois outside of Chicago to separate from the Windy City. The Chicago machine rules Illinois with an iron fist and has for almost 100 years. Look no further than the 1960 presidential election if you want to understand the power of the machine and how a small dishonest group can impact an entire nation.

There has been a movement over the last few years for the vast expanses of red California to break away from the influence and control of blue Los Angeles and San Francisco. And red Western Washington and Oregon could not be more polarized from their fellow statesmen in Seattle and Portland. They are now discussing breaking away and joining Idaho. Then back to Texas, theres been a group calling themselves the Republic of Texas that has been pushing secession from the U.S. for years. And now a former congressman, retired Lt. Colonel (Army) and head of the GOP in Texas, calling for a discussion of secession.

The secession movement is growing and gaining momentum. Its fueled by a large minority (upward of 40 percent) that believe their candidate was cheated and the rightful winner was denied. Yes, the country is divided almost perfectly down the middle by a different ideology but that alone isnt enough to fuel a dissolution of our union that has lasted since 1776. A lack of trust in our elections ... just might be. If we believe our elections are not honest and fair ... how can we possibly be the Beacon of Democracy? Why should we vote if every legal vote isnt counted? It is a national dilemma.

To those calling for secession, let me remind you how well it worked for our nation last time this idea reared its ugly head. The southern states paid a devastating price, while the whole nation suffered the massive losses of our Civil War. I cannot believe anyone would want to risk a second American Civil War, but there are those who do, and the numbers are growing. Ideology alone will not cause this break-up, but a lack of a reliable, honest, and trustworthy voting system can and maybe will.

If we want to secure our union, we must secure our voting system.

We must show picture identification for many less important reasons in our states and our nation. Whats more important than voting? Picture ID must be shown to vote. And no ... this is not voter suppression but reasonable election security.

Absentee ballots must be used for legitimate reasons for being absent on Election Day and should not be available to the masses because they dont want to vote in person. If you care about the future of your nation, show up at the voting booth, show your ID and vote. How is this asking too much?

Counting of every single vote must be done with poll watchers from each party. Any vote that is illegally counted under the view of only one side must be either thrown out or counted again, with proper witnesses.

As for voting machines and the allegations they are easily open to fraud, I dont know enough to comment, but Ive heard enough to believe they must be examined before they are used again.

Then you have our tech giants who I believe clearly favor one side over another and influence voters by their bias. Why is this allowed and how do we stop this?

Want to preserve our union? Secure our elections. Taking the steps to secure our elections is not voter suppression but election security. Without election security, everything we say we stand for is a lie.

I love my blue friends and love my red friends. If we love our union, we must join hands and engage in election systems we can all trust. The risk of not doing so is unfathomable.

My prayer for our nation this Christmas is that we can come together and reflect the values that have held us together for almost 250 years. If we only agree upon one thing, lets agree that our United States of America is worth preserving and saving. Imagining the world without our influence creates a frightening picture. Lets set aside our political and ideological differences and preserve our nation.

God bless America and may God save and preserve our troubled union.

Gary W. Moore is a freelance columnist, speaker, and author of three books including the award-winning, critically acclaimed, Playing with the Enemy. He can be contacted

through the Daily Journal at

editors@daily-journal.com.

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Gary Moore: Are we still a beacon of democracy? - Kankakee Daily Journal

After the Electoral College vote on Monday affirming his election, Joe Biden declared that nothing, not even a pandemic or an abuse of power, can extinguish the flame of democracy. Mr. Bidens speech and the vote capped a series of victories for democratic institutions, including the Supreme Courts dismissal of a Texas lawsuit that sought to overturn the election results just the latest turn in the extended refusal of President Trump and his Republican enablers to accept the outcome.

Political scientists like us are trying to assess the damage from Mr. Trumps baseless, inept and ultimately doomed attacks on democracy. Do the sharp rebukes from our courts and other institutions mean that democracy survived, and we can simply move on? Or does all the talk about what saved American democracy really show that its in deep trouble?

After all, that Texas lawsuit had the public support of more than half of the Republican House members. And it looks like even Vladimir Putin beat Mitch McConnell to congratulate Mr. Biden.

The problem is weve been treating Mr. Trumps attacks on democracy as if they are a pass-fail test. We should instead think of democracy as both damaged and resilient, like a forest after a powerful windstorm.

In our research, we argue that though all democracies are imperfect, one of their central virtues is that they are built to be resilient to bend without breaking, even when elected leaders pull institutions in an authoritarian direction. But just because theyre more flexible doesnt mean democracies cant break. Resilience the ability to adapt and keep functioning under strain is a resource that needs replenishing, not a guarantee of safe passage.

Its normal for institutions to face challenges from events or from politicians who try to use them for their own purposes. When institutions survive a stress test, they may come out stronger or weaker. Ambiguous laws can be clarified to withstand abuse; regulations can be updated; and public officials gain experience in how to prevent or defend against future tests. But it can take time for the strengthening to occur.

The 2020 election provides a clear example of democratic resilience to authoritarian pressure. Election officials and judges fielding legal challenges had to adapt not only to the enormous logistical challenges of the pandemic but also to Mr. Trumps rhetoric. His attacks and those from elected officials in his party and from the conservative media put additional pressure on election officials and poll workers, who faced threats, intimidation efforts and overt pressure to ignore the will of the voters.

Yet in most of the more than 10,000 electoral jurisdictions across the country, voters cast ballots without incident and Election Day was peaceful. International election observers praised the election as orderly and organized.

Both democracy optimists and pessimists can draw the conclusions they want to see from this example. Optimists can say that our election system faced the 2020 test admirably, and those who run it will be better prepared for future efforts to undermine their work. Pessimists can say that Mr. Trumps attacks will leave lasting scars. Next time, election officials might give in to political pressure. Or the damage might be invisible, like a trees weakened root system, deterring people from running for office or working at the polls.

Right now, theres no way to know if the damage will be permanent. But we do know that democracies are better able to recover from such assaults because they allow for routine, peaceful replacement of leaders or parties. Dictators are more likely to be replaced through rebellion, military coup or civil war than through constitutional processes like elections and impeachment.

This is what democracy optimists get right. Mr. Trumps abuse of foreign policy got him impeached. His spectacular failure to govern during a pandemic got him voted out of office.

But eventually, if stretched too far, democratic institutions will reach a limit. There may not be a dramatic break, like a coup, but democracy will be twisted and warped and cannot return to its original shape.

Take the example of Nicaragua. President Daniel Ortega, after losing several elections, conspired to change the voting rules such that he was able to win the presidency in 2006 with just 38 percent of the vote. He has since moved Nicaragua further toward authoritarianism.

Here at home, Mr. Trumps refusal to accept his defeat is his most blatant threat to democracy. He has generated worrisome precedents and undermined shared assumptions about what happens after an incumbent loses. His bizarre legal strategy has failed, but he has turned the base of the Republican Party and many congressional Republicans against valuing democracy for its own sake. And those values are the ultimate source of democratic resilience.

But has Mr. Trump stretched democratic institutions beyond recognition, or, provided that they survive their near-term vulnerability, could U.S. democratic institutions grow back stronger?

There are already many reform proposals that could help rebuild democratic resilience. Many are focused on what can be reformed: institutions and the rules that govern them. For example, the nonpartisan Election Reformers Networks proposal to reduce conflicts of interest among secretaries of state, based on successful models in other countries, and other proposals to rectify Mr. Trumps attacks on checks and balances across the government.

But a healthy, resilient democracy also requires sufficient citizen support for democracy across the political spectrum. And that, in turn, depends on both parties embracing a commitment to democratic principles a tall order given the Republican Partys recent behavior.

The trouble for those wanting to put this period behind them is that its hard to assess whether the damage is lasting until its too late. Our democracy has survived for now, but we dont yet know whether some crucial democratic institutions bent so far that faced with the next test, theyll break.

Susan D. Hyde (@dshyde) is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. Elizabeth N. Saunders (@ProfSaunders) is an associate professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Read the rest here:
Trump Didnt Break Our Democracy. But Did He Fatally Weaken It? - The New York Times