Authoritarianism and Support for Violence
Not just limited to one side
Brett Byll a Master’s student in Television, Radio, and Film in the S.I. Newhouse School Of Public Communications at Syracuse University writing on substack (Journal of Black Thought) about how both those on the Left and Right support violence as a means of advancing their respective political or social agendas. Here’s conclusion:
The results here show that authoritarianism of the left and right predicts support for escalating means to advance one’s political goals, and particularly so in the case of the left. The political left is engaged in a fierce struggle to advance social causes, and the results of this study may help explain why it is resorting to escalating means in order to do so.
It’s evident that the state of modern politics is tense. The fear that authoritarianism, rearing its head at both ends of the political spectrum, will erode American democracy is a real one. Generally speaking, the political left continues to advocate for greater social equity and for establishing legal remedies to prevent harms based on biases against immutable “identities.” Black Lives Matter offers evidence of this trend. The political right generally strives to limit government control over personal freedoms. The COVID-19 restriction protests offer evidence of this.
What is unclear from this study is whether American authoritarianism is actually on the rise, or whether it’s always been there, but has, for some reason, only now become virulent. The findings of this study are especially important because of the influence political identity currently exercises in our public discourse. It is particularly important to gauge the extent to which people on either end of the political spectrum are willing to align with and enforce authoritarianism, even to the extent of engaging in or excusing violence.