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Authoritarian Nightmare

Trump and His Followers

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Authoritarian Nightmare

By: John W. Dean, Bob Altemeyer
Narrated by: Rick Adamson
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About this listen

How did America end up with a leader who acts so crudely and despotically, and counter to our democratic principles? Why do his followers stick with him, even when he acts against their interests?

To fully understand, John Dean, a man with a history of standing up to autocratic presidents, joins with Bob Altemeyer, a psychology professor with a unique area of expertise: authoritarianism.

Together, using psychological diagnostic tools, as well as exclusive research and analysis from the Monmouth University Polling Institute - one of America's most respected public opinion research foundations - the authors provide us with an eye-opening understanding of the Trump phenomenon...and what we may be able to do to stop it.

©2020 John W. Dean and Robert A. Altemeyer (P)2020 Kalorama Americas Corruption & Misconduct Politics & Government United States World
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A great insight into the first term of Trump, with warnings which proved to be true on how he would react to a lost election. insightful into his character and likely influences in his life.

Accurate, alarming and I do hope they are writing another about what now.

I hope they do a follow up

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This book with its well documented narrative of Trump's life pre-politics will cause some to shut down. But this has been a topic of Bob Altemeyers for some time and I read his original 'The Authoritarians' and this is a great bookend to that with more relevant political context. Most interesting for me was the predictions made for the election considering this was published prior.

Amazingly confronting and relevant

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pros - solid use of the research to analyse the specifics of American politics in the buildup to the 2020 elections.

cons - a frustrating tendancy to romanticise the Republican party of old as being more principled than it was.
I'm not an American, but I'm moderately read on their politics, and even I know that the Republican party's relationship with what we'd label RWA voters started long before even Regan.
Reformed ex-conservatives turned libertarians like Barry Goldwater (or Dean himself), who are appalled by the state of their former party, may find it useful to look backwards at their own role in driving the GOP into the hands of the rising influence of people for whom prejudice is always going to drive voting behaviour.
I'm not saying this makes the conclusions about modern RWA behaviours in the modern era wrong, but that while the author takes an "all this started after the period I liked" perspective on what can be more objectively traced to earlier actions and policies then their ideas about addressing the issues of that behaviour misses a root cause.

A solid use of the research, and retrospectively interesting for how predictive it proved.

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This Author has opened his first chapter with a lie, then he goes on to insult the intelligence of his reader in the same breath.

A book written by an arrogant man with very little wit or self-awareness. A self-proclaimed expert, this book is not going to give people insight, People will listen to this and become less intelligent and more radical.

The first chapter opened with a lie.

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