Double Highs
Authoritarians
[Double highs score high on tests for Authoritarian followers & Authoritarian leaders. ]
See: Authoritarian followers Authoritarian leaders Psychopaths
Authoritarian Personality TraitsExamples: Frist Tom DeLay Bush Cheney Newt Gingrich
Books
[2006] The
Authoritarians” by Bob Altemeyer
Conservatives Without Conscience by John Dean
Quotes
“Frist is Richard Nixon with Bill Clinton’s brains, and Nixon
was no mental slouch. Frist is without question a social dominator
[authoritarian] … No one describes Bill Frist’s dominating personality better
than Frist himself in his first book, Transplant: A Heart Surgeon’s Account
of the Life-and-Death Dramas of the New Medicine.” In his book, Bill wrote
that he could “hardly help but be a demanding little tyrant. … I ruled not just
over my family but over my friends – or should I say subjects – who always opted
to come to my house.” Conservatives Without Conscience by
John Dean
"Bush and Cheney are Double High authoritarians, far above Nixon’s league."--John Dean
Let's play a game. I'll describe a well-known American politician, the
description being unceremoniously lifted from John Dean's book,
Conservatives Without Conscience. See if you can
figure out who it is, and whether you can make a diagnosis of his personality,
doctor.
Double Highs, however, have a big head start over ordinary social dominators
in politics, because they are the consumate leaders of a readily-formed army of
zealots longing for a great warrior. Ordinary authoritarian followers....tend
to be highly religious (in a fundamentalist way), and their highly ethnocentric
minds probably evaluate people on religious grounds more than any other.
Ordinary social dominators, who have little religious background or impulse,
will have to fake being super-religious to get these followers' support. They
might succeed if they are good actors and clever, especially since RWAs throw
the door open to whoever tells them their beliefs are right.
But a Double High has the best chance of attracting this army
of yearning and loyal supporters. He comes packaged as "one of our own," one of
the in-group. He not only shares their prejudices, their economic philosophy,
and their political leanings, he also professes their religious views, and that
can mean everything to high RWAs. He too may be faking his religiousness to some
extent, but he will have the credentials up front, and the phrase-dropping
familiarity with the Bible to pass the test with flying colors. He'll know the
code words of the movement. He'll appear to believe everything "all the good
people" believe about Satan, being born again, evolution, the role of women,
sex, abortion, school prayer, law and order, "perverts," censorship, zealotry,
holy wars, America-as-God's-right-hand, and so on. Given this head start. you
can expect to find a Double High leading most of the right-wing authoritarian
groups in our country. p.181
[2006] The Authoritarians” by Bob Altemeyer
I noted in chapter 3 that designing despots will usually slither over to the
political right, not just because their hearts and minds lead them there, but
because that' s where the '"easy sell" high RWAs congregate, wanting to play
follow-the-leader. It' s the easiest place to pick up a loyal following cheap,
especially if you're a Double High. Therefore, were the high RWA state
legislators in these studies not just high RWAs, but usually Double Highs? Were
they social dominators as well?
Nothing would clarify' that as quickly as scores on the
Social Dominance scale. But, as mentioned earlier, the test had not been
invented back then. However I did ask all the state lawmakers in Georgia,
Indiana, Massachusetts, and New Mexico to rank nine values, such as Happiness,
National Security, and A World at Peace. I included in the list two of the core
values of democracy. Freedom and Equality. Almost everyone ranked freedom first,
but no such consensus existed about equality. Low RWA lawmakers ranked it third
on their list, on the average, while the high RWAs ranked it seventh out of
nine. Recalling that we identify social dominators by their disdain for
equality, most of the high RWAs in this study thus appear to be high social
dominators as well—which makes them Double Highs. This makes sense,
doesn't it? Authoritarian followers probably don't run for public office very
often. So ordinary high RWAs are not at all likely to become lawmakers, unless
they are hand-picked for the role of Unquestioning Party Supporters by powerful
leaders to run in safe, "yellow dog" districts. Thus when you find someone in a
legislature who scores highly on the RWA scale, it figures that he's probably a
Double High, as this study indicates
.......Despite their pronouncements about freedom-this and freedom-that, high
RWA lawmakers would like to pass laws that restrict freedom of the press, the
right to protest, the right to privacy, the right to belong to the political
organization of one's choice, and they certainly would trample all over freedom
of religion once they made the teaching of Christianity compulsory in public
schools. p.203-204
[2006] The Authoritarians” by Bob Altemeyer