Over the Cliff

Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart both interviewed John Dean, infamous Watergate personality and Nixon White House counsel, about his new book, Conservatives Without Conscience. See Countdown and Daily Show.

The interviews are as fascinating as they are terrifying; a discussion of the "authoritarian" personality, which defines the core of the right wing of the Republican party. Dean says that he studied and pondered questions like: Why did the people of Italy and Germany follow Mussolini and Hitler. Could that ever happen here? He then concluded that unfortunately, it could happen here, although he believes that we're at "the Proto-fascist stage, we're not there yet." Dean also talks about the need to have a common enemy -- the Liberals -- to coalesce the conservatives and that the Bush Administration has worked to legitimate the authoritarianism in government and have taken it to an extreme that we've never seen in the US.

Daily Kos summarizes:

According to his findings, a vast majority of Conservatives are drawn into the Leader/Follower archetype, where the Leaders are considered infallible, and the loyalty of the Followers is completely unshakable. About "23% of the populace falls into the follower category" said Dean. "These people are impervious" to fact, rationality and reality. And their "Numbers are growing".

Dean refers to this 23% core group, who have tremendous influence over Republican politics, as the people who will "march over the cliff." I have also noted this phenomena within the Republican party, calling them the "Stepford Party" because of the control exerted to require members to act in lockstep fashion and do as they are told, see, e.g., Imagine that.

See also, blogger the new down, John Dean warns we are close to fascism.

As the BookList review at Amazon describes:

Dean takes a sincere, well-considered look at how conservative politics in the U.S. is veering dangerously close to authoritarianism, offering a penetrating and highly disturbing portrait of many of the major players in Republican politics and power. Looking back on the development of conservative politics in the U.S., Dean notes that conservatism is regressing to its authoritarian roots. Dean draws on five decades of social science research that details the personality traits of what are called "double high authoritarians": self-righteous, mean-spirited, amoral, manipulative, bullying. He concludes that Chuck Colson, Pat Robertson, Newt Gingrich, and Tom DeLay are all textbook examples. Dean calls Vice-President Cheney "the architect of Bush's authoritarian policies," and deems Bush "a mental lightweight with a strong right-wing authoritarian personality." Dean maintains that conservatives without conscience have produced such a hostile, noncollegial environment in Congress that threats of resistance through filibusters have been met with threats of a "nuclear option" and that conservatives have used fearmongering about terrorist attacks to the point where the nation faces a greater threat of relinquishing its ideals of democracy.

UPDATE: Will Bunch of Attytood has an excellent analysis of the media's role in the "fearmongering" tactic employed by the Bush Administration, as noted by Dean. In his post, A plea to America's news directors and editors: Cancel Bush's "Fear Factor", Bunch notes:

[S]ince Sept. 11, 2001, the media has become a giant amplifier, not a filter. When the subject is "the war on terror," no development is too small for wall-to-wall "breaking news" coverage, or a front-page scoop.

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So why does the media fall for bogus or misleading terror stories, Charlie-Brown-football-like, time after time? One answer is clearly: It works. The aftermath of 9/11 was the high water mark for cable news in terms of ratings, and it's hard to let go of that. A newspaper like the New York Daily News, which broke the vague "financial district plot" last week, was surely glad to "scoop" the New York Times on the terror beat. What's more, there is the acceptance of the notion that combating terrorism is indeed "a war," which merits amped up "war coverage."

But news outlets have another. more important role: To be responsible. Terror fears have warped the American political debate, from clearing the way for an unjust war in Iraq to papering over White House scandals. That type of influence is something that goes well beyond ratings. CNN would also get lots more viewers if Carol Costello or Anderson Cooper read the news in the buff, but that wouldn't be very appropriate. Scaring the American public needlessly, we'd argue, is a much greater sin.

(Transcript available here: Countdown with Keith Olbermann.)

Tags: Countdown, Daily Show, Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, John Dean, Video

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Absence of conscience doesn't necessarily mean evil. It means the ability to set aside what's right and wrong. --John Dean