Trump Supporters Populist, not Authoritarian-According to Reason Magazine Article

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

https://reason.com/blog/2016/03/14/d...e-less-authori

A new study mentioned in an article in libertarian magazine Reason. I thought I'd post since we just discussed another study with different conclusions (but I'm not a big believer in studies or polls).

You know the score about Donald Trump, right? He "is playing directly to authoritarian inclinations," says Ph.D. student Matthew MacWilliams in Politico,
...
Not so fast, say political scientists Wendy Rahn and Eric Oliver, who did their own survey and argue that Trump's followers aren't particularly authoritarian but populist in inclination.
...
Authoritarianism, as understood by political psychologists, refers to a set of personality traits that seek order, clarity and stability. Authoritarians have little tolerance for deviance. They’re highly obedient to strong leaders. They scapegoat outsiders and demand conformity to traditional norms.

Populism, on the other hand, is a type of political rhetoric that casts a virtuous “people” against nefarious elites and strident outsiders. Scholars measure populism in a variety of ways, but we focus on three central elements:
...
Rahn and Oliver conclude that Trump voters are less authoritarian than Ted Cruz's followers and about as authoritarian as Marco Rubio's (note: the standard way of testing for authoritarianism is to ask questions about child-rearing).

That may not be authoritarian, but it is deeply subversive and where exactly it will end up is far from clear. Alone among the GOP candidates, Trump has talked about being "flexible" when it comes to policy and positions, a stance for which he's taken tons of abuse from his rivals. "I’m changing, I’m changing," Trump said at one debate, while acknowledging a need for increased H1-B visa limits. "We need highly skilled people in this country." That sort of compromising (or pandering?) isn't common to authoritarians but it may actually allow for more discussion on issues than the hyper-partisan, calcified positions emanating from Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and all the GOP candidates too.

Second part underlined because I mentioned it in another thread as one of the reasons Trump isn't an authoritarian. The whole article talks about some of the other candidates too, particularly cruz and sanders.

[timosman]

The accusations of Trump supporters being authoritarian is bogus. Pretty much everyone in this country is an authoritarian, they would be diagnosed as mentally ill if it was not the case - http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...s-Mentally-Ill

[acptulsa]

Rahn and Oliver stress that authoritarian and populist traits can and do overlap, but I think they're onto something when stressing Trump as populist.

Translation: None of these experts believe 'populist' and 'authoritarian' are opposite or mutually exclusive, but I'm going to make it look like they do in my headline. Thus disguising my opinion as hard news. And then I'll deny I'm being a propagandist when I do it.

Because, you know, Reason calls itself 'libertarian', and it's against the laws of physics or something to call yourself 'libertarian' and engage in propaganda at the same time...

Of course, the Reason headline, 'Trump supporters are less authoritarian than Cruz supporters', is not a baldfaced lie. But the headline of this thread is a baldfaced lie. No one denied that Trump supporters are authoritarian but the OP of this thread. Reason did not say what the OP claims was said.

[CPUd]

[acptulsa]

Educational bump.

This, folks, is what propaganda looks like.

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

Educational bump.

This, folks, is what propaganda looks like.

Good to chime in on what you are doing is propaganda, but Reason magazine is a libertarian magazine, the poll looks at an equivalent study done earlier - but seems superior to me because the first was done by a student, while this was done by two actual political scientists.

The results also seem obvious. This isn't the first time Trump has run. Trump ran in the reform party primaries before,
which is a... populist.. party.

[acptulsa]

Good to chime in on what you are doing is propaganda, but Reason magazine is a libertarian magazine, the poll looks at an equivalent study done earlier - but is superior because the first was done by a student, while this was done by two actual political scientists.

The results also seem obvious. This isn't the first time Trump has run. He's run in the reform party primaries before,
which is a... populist.. party.

You going to address the point that these experts said 'authoritarian' and 'populist' are not opposites, and one can be both? Are you going to address the fact that Reason did not say that anyone at all was 'Populist, not Authoritarian'? You going to explain why you did say just that, carefully edited out the part which denies your headline, and are now trying to hide behind their expertise and Reason's claim of libertarianism rather than address your complicity? Or are you going to either try to thicken up your smokescreen or ignore this thread in hopes that the forum slide washes it away?

Just curious.

In any case, it seems obvious already that you aren't going to alter your headline enough that it can be called truthful.

[acptulsa]

Educational bump just in case someone doesn't know how to tell 'sharing news' from 'shameless promotion'.

[cajuncocoa]

Translation: None of these experts believe 'populist' and 'authoritarian' are opposite or mutually exclusive, but I'm going to make it look like they do in my headline. Thus disguising my opinion as hard news. And then I'll deny I'm being a propagandist when I do it.

Because, you know, Reason calls itself 'libertarian', and it's against the laws of physics or something to call yourself 'libertarian' and engage in propaganda at the same time...

Of course, the Reason headline, 'Trump supporters are less authoritarian than Cruz supporters', is not a baldfaced lie. But the headline of this thread is a baldfaced lie. No one denied that Trump supporters are authoritarian but the OP of this thread. Reason did not say what the OP claims was said.

I would love to see them attempt to make that case so we could laugh them off the political stage.
@acptulsa, this isn't directed at you because I know you know this....this is for the OP:

Everyone's seen those political spectrum charts that indicate where your political views are after taking a test, right? They usually look exactly like this:

On the above chart, Populist is directly opposite from the Libertarian position.


On the above chart, authoritarian is opposite from the libertarian position.





Not coincidentally, on the above chart, both terms are used opposite the libertarian position. That's because they mean the same thing, they're synonymous; the very opposite political position of what it means to be a libertarian. It would be better to be a progressive than to be an authoritarian/populist, in my opinion.

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

Sigh.

I forget I'm dealing with two foreigners, a canadian or two (clever of me to separate those as two groups), a hillary supporter, a member of democratic underground or two (likely), and someone who has only identified himself as *not libertarian*, but is against anything Trump without rational reasons given.

Like the definition of "conservative", or "liberal" - like "classical liberals" doesn't mean what we think of as liberal, populism means two different things depending on whether you are an American or not. I'm talking about the American populists, particular the movement around the 1900s that believed in free silver, and which some people think the Wizard of Oz symbolized. There's been elements of that movement ever since, and every once in awhile it is found in new parties - like united we stand, or the reform party, etc.

The interests in what is good for America, Trump saying gold is a good idea, but there is not enough of it ("so how about free silver?"), and wanting trade barriers to help American industry are all things a modern populist might say. Only a nincompoop could miss is - and no, that isn't a european or academic definition - it's a political party from American history and those movements that resemble it later.


photomechanical print, Anything to oblige, July 11 1906, Udo J. Keppler, LOC
Question
Why were the people living in rural areas more likely to support "free silver" in 1896 than urban dwellers?

Answer
Gold bugs v. Silverites
Political battles over currency issues became intensely divisive during the last quarter of the 19th century as industrialization accelerated in the Northeast, while the South and newly settled areas of the Midwest remained dependent on farming. From 1873 through the late 1890s, the U.S. suffered through two major economic depressions that heightened sectional and class conflict. By the 1896 election, designated by historian Walter Dean Burnham as “the first confrontation . . . among organized political forces over industrial capitalism,” positions on currency had solidified into a “battle of the standards.” “Gold bugs” believed that a “sound” national economy must be based on the gold standard to ensure the dollar’s stability, guarantee unrestricted competition in the marketplace, and promote economic liberty. “Silverites” believed that currency should be redeemable in silver as well as gold. They agitated for “free silver,” or unlimited coinage of silver, a metal that could be mined in abundance in the West, to produce an increased and more flexible money supply that they hoped would lead to a more equitable economy and foster social reforms.

Farmers for Free Silver
Congress had discontinued the minting of silver coins in 1873 in an act that came to be known as the “Crime of ’73.” Professor of government Elizabeth Sanders includes the demonetization of silver as one of a few significant policies of the period that led many working people, especially farmers, to believe that a “fraud against the people” was being “perpetrated by the national state on behalf of a financial elite.” With silver coins delegitimized, the amount of money in circulation decreased. A tightened money supply benefited creditors, like banks and merchants, at the expense of debtors, especially farmers who had to borrow annually from banks and merchants in order to plant cash crops that could bring in money for the repayment of their debts only at harvest time. Farmers sought inflation of the money supply so that more money would be available to them for credit, prices for their crops would rise, and debts would become easier to repay.

Advocates for inflating the money supply ranged from those who proposed that the federal government print paper money not backed by either gold or silver to those who called for the remonetization of silver. Free silver proponents came to believe in the 1890s that unlimited coinage of silver, a reform less extreme than others that agrarian radicals earlier had supported, could unite divergent groups into a national coalition to challenge politicians who supported monied interests.

The People’s Party, also known as the Populists, formed as a political party in 1891. As Sanders emphasizes, “Its philosophy was anti-corporate, though not anti-capitalist.” The Populist platform during the 1892 election campaign advocated free silver and other reforms with the intent, Sanders writes, “not to turn the clock back on industrial development but to harness the new technological power for social good, to use the state to check exploitative excesses, to uphold the rights and opportunities of labor (farm and factory), and to maintain a healthy and creative business competition.”

Election of 1896
Populists hoped to win the 1896 election and supplant the Democrats as one of the nation’s two major national parties. Their strategy relied on convincing silverites from the Democratic Party to vote with the Populists rather than for the expected Democratic nominee, President Grover Cleveland, who supported the gold standard, as did the Republican nominee, Ohio governor William McKinley. The Democrats, however, selected as their candidate William Jennings Bryan, a strong advocate for free silver. McKinley forces, mounting a well-funded campaign supported by the Northern intelligentsia, church and business interests, and the urban press, tarnished Bryan as a radical with an economic program that would lead to disastrous consequences for the nation. McKinley soundly won the election, and although Bryan triumphed in 22 states to McKinley’s 23, McKinley captured nearly 100 more electoral votes and prevailed in every city of more than 100,000, with the exception of Denver, where the silver mining interest was strong.
....
http://teachinghistory.org/history-c...istorian/25222
http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/populists.html

[acptulsa]

Did you ask Wendy Rahn and Eric Oliver what they meant by it before you altered Reason's headline, and cut out the part where Wendy Rahn and Eric Oliver said they didn't consider the traits to be mutually exclusive when they wrote up their study?

[jmdrake]

LOL @ the entire thread. I could care less whether his supporters are authoritarian or populist. (Bernie Sanders and his supporters are textbook populists FWIW). I'm concerned about the positions of Trump the man.

1) Support for eminent domain for private business? Authoritarian.
2) Support for banker bailouts over the will of the American people? Authoritarian.
3) Support for torture? Authoritarian.
4) Support for lowering the burden of proof for libel of public figures? Authoritarian.
5) Seeking to "close down" parts of the internet to "fight terrorism?" Authoritarian.

Then there are the authoritarian positions that Donald Trump only renounced when he ran for president like his call for a total assault weapons ban.

[timosman]

Are Bernie supporters authoritarian? What about Hillary? Cruz?

[cajuncocoa]

Are Bernie supporters authoritarian? What about Hillary? Cruz?

Authoritarians are the candidates that populists support.

[Origanalist]

I think stupid and gullible pretty much covers the whole spectrum.

[cajuncocoa]

@jmdrake Trump supporters are textbook populists too, they just have different issues.

Whenever people are whipped up by a demagogue telling them the system is working against them and he's going to fix it for them, populism is in play.

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

Did you ask Wendy Rahn and Eric Oliver what they meant by it before you altered Reason's headline, and cut out the part where Wendy Rahn and Eric Oliver said they didn't consider the traits to be mutually exclusive when they wrote up their study?

You're living in a weird black / white world based on the pythagorean (and then Aristotelian) myth of the either or fallacy, or false dichotomy. I would blame you for using a propaganda technique, because it is a propaganda technique, but it is also a way of being brainwashed, and perhaps the most effective way there is.

1) I didn't say Trump, I said his supporters.

2) I never said they were mutually exclusive. the authors of the study think there is authoritarianism traits in all of us. They only measured degree, and found Trump supporters less than a lot of other candidates.

3) they carefully defined why populism isn't the same word - I suggest you read their article, not the headlines. I quoted part of it.

3b) look up and understand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma really well. Understand it till you understand how it can affect your soul, and then understand it more.

The real world is not composed of black or white, either or, linear or two dimensional thinking. And the problem isn't just the false dichotomy, false dilimenia, false binary, or false choice fallacy. It's the same error that caused the Hippasus disaster of the Pythagoreans (there is not just rational numbers, there are irrational and real numbers); The Aristotle problem - there is not just true or false, you can have multi logic and infinite logics; and it is not just a logical problem - It will affect your soul, and no less than Plato's cave, where you are a slave being fed information from the philosopher king.

And yes, the greeks did it on purpose. get over it.

[acptulsa]

The real world is not composed of black or white, either or, linear or two dimensional thinking. It is not just the false dichotomy, false dilimenia, false binary, or false choice fallacy. It's the same error that caused the Hippasus disaster of the Pythagoreans (there is not just rational numbers, there are irrational and real numbers), The Aristotle problem - there is not just true or false, you can have multi logic and infinite logics, and it is not just a logical problem - It will affect your soul, and no less than Plato's cave, where you are a slave being fed information from the philosopher king.

I don't know about all that silly-assed ramble. But I know I don't live in such a monochromatic gray world that paid commercial messages like this thread are just as relevant to liberty as any other thread.

[cajuncocoa]

The title of the article only compares the authoritarian tendencies of Trump supporters to Cruz supporters, and the article goes on to say that Trump's supporters are more populist (see my explanation in the previous post) than Cruz supporters who want many things banned on religious grounds (authoritarian.)

I don't disagree with this, but OP's topic title is very misleading.

[Rad]

You're living in a weird black / white world based on the pythagorean (and then Aristotelian) myth of the either or fallacy, or false dichotomy. I would blame you for using a propaganda technique, because it is a propaganda technique, but it is also a way of being brainwashed, and perhaps the most effective way there is.

1) I didn't say Trump, I said his supporters.

2) I never said they were mutually exclusive. the authors of the study think there is authoritarianism traits in all of us. They only measured degree, and found Trump supporters less than a lot of other candidates.

3) they carefully defined why populism isn't the same word - I suggest you read their article, not the headlines. I quoted part of it.

3b) look up and understand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma really well. Understand it till you understand how it can affect your soul, and then understand it more.

The real world is not composed of black or white, either or, linear or two dimensional thinking. And the problem isn't just the false dichotomy, false dilimenia, false binary, or false choice fallacy. It's the same error that caused the Hippasus disaster of the Pythagoreans (there is not just rational numbers, there are irrational and real numbers); The Aristotle problem - there is not just true or false, you can have multi logic and infinite logics; and it is not just a logical problem - It will affect your soul, and no less than Plato's cave, where you are a slave being fed information from the philosopher king.

And yes, the greeks did it on purpose. get over it.

lol, deep! I wonder how they picked their sample. I always hated the idea of philosopher kings. It made me think of sophist/neocons. Plato's Republic is like Western Hinduism with society broken down in a pyramidal fashion so you know only what the rulers wanted you to know (and behave).
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...-and-npd-trait

Still does this belong in the news section? I thought they wanted Trump pooped at 11 am today, Cruz said he did it better and stole the Lincoln logs from Trump to show that he sure did. You know facts.

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

I don't know about all that silly-assed ramble. But I know I don't live in such a monochromatic gray world that paid commercial messages like this thread are just as relevant to liberty as any other thread.

Nice you gave up when I carefully linked the populism to the original historical movement in America, showed how the word was used in the article, and how it plays out in America - and after you asked. Populism means anti-establishment in America - and usually not an ideological pure type like libertarianism, but a big tent one that tends to take a lot of ideas from different sides. Establishment and Populism - in America - are almost polar opposites.

Don't let the door kick you in the ass on the way out.

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

@jmdrake Trump supporters are textbook populists too, they just have different issues.

Whenever people are whipped up by a demagogue telling them the system is working against them and he's going to fix it for them, populism is in play.

And whenever anyone says anything that appeals to most people with reason, and isn't a demagogue, that is still populism in the most general sense. You're still using the european and socialist definition, but as not a few sites online explain, populism isn't a political ideology - it's a description of appeal.

However, I'm not using it in the general sense, but the usual American sense, and what appeals to most people here, due to who we are, is anti-establishment, outsider, anti-globalist, best for america. Particularly resembling in some part to the original movement from around 1900, and usually not so much ideology but a practical recognition of how the elite is screwing everyone - ie fiat money, cheap (slave) labor, military state, and looking for solutions that work to counter it- and tending to adopt ideas from all sides (that give and take makes it more popular).

That's how most people in America understand it. I'm not a populist, but I've always been irritated in how communists redefine words.

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

Still does this belong in the news section? I thought they wanted Trump pooped at 11 am today, Cruz said he did it better and stole the Lincoln logs from Trump to show that he sure did. You know facts.

Probably not, but it's a slow news day!

Good idea, I'll ask for the thread to be moved.

[acptulsa]

You've been tap dancing all around my questions throughout. I guess the tapdancing subforum would be spin, chaff and flak. Have them move it there.

[cajuncocoa]

And whenever anyone says anything that appeals to most people with reason, and isn't a demagogue, that is still populism in the most general sense. You're still using the european and socialist definition, but as not a few sites online explain, populism isn't a political ideology - it's a description of appeal.

However, I'm not using it in the general sense, but the usual American sense, and what appeals to most people here, due to who we are, is anti-establishment, outsider, anti-globalist, best for america. Particularly resembling in some part to the original movement from around 1900, and usually not so much ideology but a practical recognition of how the elite is screwing everyone - ie fiat money, cheap (slave) labor, military state, and looking for solutions that work to counter it- and tending to adopt ideas from all sides (that give and take makes it more popular).

That's how most people in America understand it. I'm not a populist, but I've always been irritated in how communists redefine words.

Maybe you're a communist and you just don't realize you are.

[Origanalist]

Maybe you're a communist and you just don't realize you are.

Academia can do that to you.

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

Ah, home sweet home.

To answer your ultimate question:

No, the populist - american style that tends to forever be similar to the 1900s one, aren't so different that we can't work with it. That sort of thing tends to see a lot of issues - problems, the same as we do, but the solutions - because they grab from wherever looking for practical solutions and listening to everyone because they are a big tent, aren't. They in other words could use some education.

Our ideas are better. You just need to explain them in terms of how to accomplish them and why they work, not ideals. We can probably convert a lot of the movement to libertarianism through sound education initiatives this election - focused on how to (examples including historical - how we use to do it that way - work too), and not abstract arguments we tend to engage in too much sometimes. The common issue with fiat money, and forced nwo style globalism are some of the big ones. Showing how some of their ideas are incompatible with other things they are trying to achieve works too.

So, in other words, trying to ignore or hate (tm) populists, instead of converting them is the exact wrong idea this election. It's not that hard, and now is the ideal time to do it. We aren't doing anything else anyway.

[r3volution 3.0]

Suddenly I'm reminded of Keynes' review of the Webbs' panegyric to Soviet communism.

[euphemia]

Whenever people are whipped up by a demagogue telling them the system is working against them and he's going to fix it for them, populism is in play.

Kind of like Ross Perot, if anyone remembers him.

[cajuncocoa]

Kind of like Ross Perot, if anyone remembers him.

I do, and yes.