Stephan: Regular SR readers will recognize this line of research, the psychophysiology of politics, because I have been writing about it for the last six years. (See SR archives). The paper upon which this report is based is freely available to read, although not downloadable or open to copy, and I urge my readers to click through and read it since fear coupled with a sense of entitlement, low IQ, and willful ignorance are the sources of fascism in America.
Citation: "Cognitive Sophistication, Religion, and the Trump Vote," Social Science Quarterly Volume 102, Issue 1 January 2021 Pages 179-197. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ssqu.12906
Supporters gather at a rally by former President Donald Trump at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds on January 15, 2022 in Florence, Arizona. The rally marks Trump’s first of the midterm election year with races for both the U.S. Senate and governor in Arizona this year. Credit: Mario Tama/Getty
The United States is experiencing an existential democracy crisis, with leading Republicans and millions of their voters and supporters either tacitly or explicitly embracing authoritarianism or fascism. Democrats, for the most part, have not responded with the urgency required to save America’s democracy from the rising neofascist tide.
American society was founded on white settler colonialism, genocide and slavery. This unresolved birth defect at the foundation of the American democratic experiment meant that the country was racially exclusionary by design, from the founding well into the 20th century. At present, American politics is contoured by asymmetrical political polarization, in which Republicans have moved so far to the right that the party’s most “moderate” members are far more extreme than the most “conservative” Democrats. This makes substantive compromise and bipartisanship in the interests […]
