How far can a truly authoritarian leader go in America?

[Tom Joad]

This article explains the Trump phenomena as I see it and also explains why I believe he has a really good shot at winning the Republican nomination. I've quoted excerpts from it, but you really should read the whole thing. It's written by John Dean, the guy from Watergate.

http://www.alternet.org/election-201...e-been-waiting

Donald Trump has emerged as America’s leading authoritarian political figure, representative of a type of leadership for which many Americans yearn.

I am only going to briefly summarize the authoritarian types, who can be broadly broken down into “leaders” and “followers.” Starting with the followers, who are more prevalent and who are characterized by their submissiveness to established authorities, a trait that becomes combined with a general aggressiveness toward others. I developed a laundry list of characteristic and traits consistently found in these people.

Specifically, the authoritarian followers are both men and women, who tend to be highly conventional, always and easily submissive to authority, while willing to work aggressively on behalf of such an authority. They tend to be very religious, with moderate to little education, trusting of untrustworthy authorities, prejudiced (e.g., with respect to gay marriage); they are typically mean-spirited, narrow-minded, intolerant, bullying, zealous, dogmatic, uncritical of their chosen authority, hypocritical, inconsistent, prone to panic easily, highly self-righteous, moralistic, strict disciplinarian, severely punitive; they also demand loyalty and return it, have little self-awareness, and are typically politically and economically conservative Republicans.

These are the characteristics and traits of Donald Trump’s followers.

.

Authoritarian Leaders

These authoritarian leader types, who are typically men, will always have four clear characteristics or traits that distinguish them: They are dominating; they oppose equality; they desire personal power; and they are amoral.

Among the additional personality features, these people are usually intimidating and bullying, faintly hedonistic, vengeful, pitiless, exploitive, manipulative, dishonest, cheat to win, highly prejudiced, mean-spirited, militant, nationalistic, tell others what they want to hear, take advantage of “suckers,” specialize in creating false images to sell self, may or may not be religious, and are usually politically and economically conservative and Republican.

It is striking that Donald Trump appears to have all these characteristics. Without question, Trump is the most prototypical authoritarian leader to ever so prominently seek the American presidency,

In my informal conversations with many people who view themselves as part of the GOP base, Trump is very popular. He is telling them what they want to hear. Trump will not appeal to the Iowa evangelicals who dominate the Iowa caucuses, but if he makes a strong showing in New Hampshire and South Carolina, there will be no stopping him.