{"id":57170,"date":"2021-10-04T06:00:26","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T10:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=57170"},"modified":"2021-10-02T09:40:50","modified_gmt":"2021-10-02T13:40:50","slug":"americans-who-want-authoritarianism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2021\/10\/americans-who-want-authoritarianism\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans Who Want Authoritarianism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In our recent post, Our Elective Monarchy<\/a>, we discussed how our presidents\u2013including the current one\u2013have been seizing more and more power, far beyond that given them by our Constitution, and that many Americans like it that way.<\/p>\n

The point was that our Constitutional system of democracy, the rule of law, and personal liberty is in danger, once broad commitment to those principles is lost.<\/p>\n

According to an article<\/a> on the subject, one-third of Americans (33%) have said that they would like a strong ruler unencumbered by Congress or elections.\u00a0 And nearly one-fourth (24%) would be fine if the military just ran the country.<\/p>\n

\n

I dug out that study<\/a> and found that the state of Americans\u2019 openness to authoritarianism is not quite as dire as that sounds, though it is plenty dire enough.\u00a0 It also had some other findings that you should know about.<\/p>\n

The research was conducted by the Voter Study Group of the Democracy Fund<\/a>, a non-partisan institute that promotes the practice of democracy.\u00a0 The study of citizens\u2019 attitudes towards democracy has been carried out every year since 2017.\u00a0 It is distinctive because it surveys the same 5,900 Americans every year so that changes in attitudes can be tracked.<\/p>\n

So we have data from 2017, 2018, and 2019.\u00a0 Thus, the latest data is from when President Trump was in office but before<\/em> the 1920 presidential election.<\/p>\n

The report on the data was published in June 2020, after the COVID lockdowns and after the Black Lives Matter protests occasioned by the death of George Floyd in police custody, but also before the election.<\/p>\n

According to the report, entitled Democracy Maybe:\u00a0 Attitudes on Authoritarianism in America<\/a>, written by Lee Drutman, Joe Goldman, and Larry Diamond, those statistics of 33% of\u00a0 Americans open to authoritarianism and 24% open to a military dictatorship refer to members of the survey group who, at one time or another<\/em> during those three years, advocated those positions.\u00a0 The report said that quite a few respondents changed their minds over the years.\u00a0 This percentage, in the language of the report, can be said to \u201chave dabbled\u201d in authoritarianism.<\/p>\n

It would be more accurate to say that 24% of this representative sampling of Americans in 2019 agreed with the statement that a \u201ca strong leader who doesn\u2019t have to bother with Congress or elections\u201d would be a \u201cgood system of government.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0And just less than one in five, 18%, believe that \u201carmy rule\u201d would be a good system.<\/p>\n

To be sure, 87% of the respondents said that democracy is a \u201cgood system of government,\u201d with 77% saying that it is preferable to all of the others.\u00a0 Still, 47% are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working, and a significant minority is open to authoritarian alternatives.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the proportion of Americans supporting a strong unencumbered leader has been stable for all three years, with 24% in 2017, 23% in 2018, and 24% in 2019.\u00a0 And less we assume that this yearning for a strongman is an effect of Donald Trump, the report notes that this support may have actually gone down, based on other studies, one of which found 34% holding that view in 2011, when Barack Obama was president.<\/p>\n

The study also broke down the question further according to political party.\u00a0 Of those who wanted a strong leader who didn\u2019t have to deal with elections or a legislative body, 25% were Democrats and 27% were Republicans, which is statistically very close, but 39% were Independents.\u00a0 Breaking it down still further, of those who just wanted to do without Congress, 23% were Democrats, a whopping 39% were Republicans, and 45% were Independents.\u00a0 Of those who just wanted to do without elections, 24% were Democrats, only 18% were Republicans, and 35% were Independents.\u00a0 So it appears that Republicans are more hostile to Congress, while Democrats are more hostile to elections.<\/p>\n

Speaking of which, we come to a particularly interesting finding.\u00a0 Keep in mind that this was before the presidential election and its associated controversies.\u00a0 A significant percentage from both<\/em> parties expressed a willingness to not accept the election results if their candidate was not elected.<\/p>\n

Respondents were given three scenarios, then asked if each was appropriate or inappropriate:<\/p>\n

President Trump loses the election but refuses to leave office because he claimed to have credible evidence of illegal voting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Among Republicans, 29% thought that would be appropriate.\u00a0 Actually, President Trump did claim to have evidence of illegal voting and, while he did leave office, he claims that he was actually the winner.\u00a0 And 78% of Republicans<\/a> agree with that.\u00a0 That is far more than said they would before the election, but it shows that a significant number of Republicans were already willing to question election results.<\/p>\n

But then again, so were Democrats, in this scenario:<\/p>\n

The Democratic candidate loses the election but calls for a new election because there is evidence that a foreign government influenced the election:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Among Democrats, a large majority, 57%, thought that would be appropriate.\u00a0 This, of course, is what Democrats did believe happened in Trump\u2019s election in 2016, that the Russians interfered with our elections and put Trump in office.<\/p>\n

The third scenario reflects what actually happened:<\/p>\n

A candidate calls for a new election because of winning the popular vote while losing the electoral college.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Among Democrats, 38% thought that was appropriate.<\/p>\n

Clearly, our Constitutional democratic republic is in trouble.\u00a0 As the report<\/a> says,<\/p>\n

What distinguishes stable liberal democracies from their more endangered peers is not just the quality and integrity of their democratic institutions but the depth of their people\u2019s commitment to them. Democracies are stable when citizens with diverse \u2014 and even intensely opposing \u2014 views nevertheless accept the legitimacy of their political rivals, commit to peaceful and legal means of contesting for power, and support the rules and restraints of their constitutional system.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Our national commitment to our system of government is eroding.\u00a0 Can anything be done to bring it back?<\/p>\n

UPDATE:\u00a0 A brand new study has found that roughly two out of ten\u2013that would be around 20%\u2013of both Trump and Biden supporters<\/em> strongly agree that it would be better if the \u201cPresident could take needed actions without being constrained by Congress or court.\u201d<\/p>\n

(The higher percentage in the Voter Study Group study comes from adding up all who \u201cagree\u201d to some measure, strongly or not.\u00a0 In that study from just over a year ago, only 7% were strongly committed to authoritarianism.\u00a0 That number has apparently tripled.)<\/p>\n

But finally we have found something that both sides in our polarized country can agree on!\u00a0 This recent study has even more disturbing findings.\u00a0 We\u2019ll talk about those next time!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo via Piqsels, CC0, Public Domain<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The study that found that a third of Americans would be fine with a strong leader unencumbered by elections or legislators shows other disturbing surprises about the trouble our democracy is in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":57302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,12,19,36,42],"tags":[9992,240,2473],"class_list":["post-57170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america","category-culture","category-government","category-politics","category-social-science","tag-american-democracy","tag-authoritarianism","tag-political-polarization"],"yoast_head":"\nAmericans Who Want Authoritarianism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The study that found that a third of Americans would be fine with a strong leader unencumbered by elections or legislators shows other disturbing surprises about the trouble 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