Like many progressives, I find myself at a loss at times understanding how friends and acquaintances who seemingly are nice and decent people can support today's Republican Party much less have voted for Donald Trump. Why do they look the other way when Der Trumpenführer engages in the use of language and behavior that they would never tolerate at their country club or yacht club - indeed, such behavior (e.g., "pussy grabbing") might cause one to have one's membership suspended. Similarly, how do they support a party agenda that directly harms those they act as if they care about. Is the friendly facade and civility just a charade? Yes, there are truly foul supporters of Trump - e.g., white supremacists and Christofascists - but these labels don't outwardly apply to many. It is a paradox that has led me to unfriend some on Facebook and lessen social interaction with some. Equally baffling is the fact that some of these Republicans, if engaged in a one on one conversation actually support policies much more liberal and compassionate than what they political party stands for. A column in the New York Times looks at this bizarre paradox. Here are excerpts:
Roy Moore’s decisive victory over Luther Strange in the Republican Senate primary runoff on Tuesday in Alabama confirms — as I have reported before — that many Republican voters have a strong sense of white identity, that they harbor high levels of racial resentment and that they sometimes exhibit authoritarian leanings.
At the same time, that’s not a complete picture.
A 2013 study of red and blue America, conducted well before the seismic events of the last two years, sheds additional light on the Republican electorate and provides a more complicated understanding of contemporary conservatism.
In “Divided We Stand: Three Psychological Regions of the United States and Their Political, Economic, Social, and Health Correlates,” Peter J. Rentfrow, a reader in the psychology department at the University of Cambridge, along with five co-authors, explores the results of standardized personality tests given to 1.6 million people in the United States from 1999 to 2010.
The Rentfrow paper breaks the country into three “psychological regions” and ranks each region on personality dimensions known as the big five traits: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience.
The most conservative and most Republican of the three psychological regions — which Rentfrow labels “Cluster 1: Friendly and Conventional” — extends across the northern tier of the United States from Montana to Michigan, down through the Midwest to almost all of the South for a total of 26 states. Rentfrow found that the Cluster 1 region is
less affluent, has fewer highly educated residents, and is less innovative compared with states in the other regions. States in this region also appeared to have higher levels of social capital and less social tolerance compared with states in other regions. Moreover, friendly and conventional states were more politically conservative and Protestant compared with other regions.
My question went as follows:
Some research shows that Republicans, and Trump voters in particular, score high on measures of authoritarianism and on critical, if not hostile, views of African-Americans and immigrants. How does this fit with your finding that residents of the most Republican region are friendly, sociable and considerate?
Rentfrow replied that
individuals high in authoritarianism score low in openness. So in this sense, the patterns of results we find at the regional level are consistent.
Many whites in the South, he argued, abide by an “honor culture.” As long
as everyone is respectful and abides by the social norms, everyone is happy and agreeable. But when threats are made against one’s reputation or values, acts of violence and physical aggression are considered appropriate forms of retribution. In some ways, the profile we observe touches on the surface of this profile — the friendly and considerate aspect when all is well. But I think we’re now beginning to see more of the aggressive aspects. I think many people, perhaps especially in this region, have begun to feel threatened by the changes taking place in society and are reacting with anger.
Karen Stenner, the author of “The Authoritarian Dynamic,” pointed out that the Rentfrow study found that red state voters were simultaneously “friendly” and less “socially tolerant.” Stenner explained this seeming contradiction by noting that
it is a lot easier to be generous and considerate and civic-minded and invested in one’s community if one’s community is full of people much like oneself. The kinds of behaviors we get out of authoritarians depend critically on how and where they have drawn the boundaries of “us” and “them.” They can be very attentive to “us,” but also tend to be very particular about whom “us” includes.
John Jost, a professor of psychology and politics at N.Y.U., expands upon the implications of the word “conscientiousness” in describing red state voters:
Conscientiousness is correlated with measures of racism, sexism, homophobia, prejudice, authoritarianism, social dominance, and system justification. I suspect that this personality factor has more to do with a need for order or desire for rule-following, which can easily take an authoritarian turn, than other aspects of conscientiousness that we might associate with, say, honesty or integrity.
Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at N.Y.U.’s Stern School of Business . . . cited an essay that he and Emily Ekins, the director of polling at the Cato Institute, published in February 2016, “Donald Trump supporters think about morality differently than other voters.” In contrast to Republican primary voters who supported candidates other than Trump, they noted, voters who supported him “score high on authority/loyalty/sanctity and low on care.” These voters, according to Ekins and Haidt, “are the true authoritarians — they value obedience while scoring low on compassion.” In fact, authoritarian voters with a sense of besieged white identity are more than a “grain” in the Republican electorate. . . . And the clout of the authoritarian, white identity wing of the Republican Party is such that Trump is governing to please this wing first and foremost.
From his apocalyptic threats to Kim Jong-un to his call for the firing of protesting N.F.L. players, from his pardon of Joe Arpaio to his defense of pro-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville, Trump has remained the leader of hard-right, white America.
This strategy won him the presidency in 2016 when millions of non-authoritarian white Republicans — sympathetic, kind, affectionate, conscientiousness, persevering, thorough and reliable — made a pact with the devil and chose party loyalty over conscience.
The take away? Some friends and acquaintances seem to put order - which equates to blacks, gays, and other minorities "knowing their place" - above kindness and compassion. To me, that is a serious moral defect. I am left still not sure of how to interact with such people when I must do so. I surely am left feeling that I cannot trust them.
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