John Dean and contemporary "conservatism"

Found this at the dailykos:

Tonight former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean discussed his intriguing new book "Conservatives without Consciences" as the lead story on Keith Olbermann. In it he described how his discussions with the late Barry Goldwater, the nominal father of the modern conservative movement, evolved from talking about just how far afield that movement has grown to a discussion of how authoritarianism has crept in and taken over the Republican Party.

Sparked by Goldwater, Dean continued to research on the subject with various scholars looking into the psychology of authorianism and found a wealth of information on the subject.

Acording to his findings, a vast majority of Conservatives are drawn into the Leader/Follower archetype, where the Leaders are considered infallable, 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".[emphasis added]

I guess when you have 23% of the population all feeling that the leader is considered infallable, that explains the "The President is never wrong." line discussed here by the Other Political Junkie a few days ago (just scroll down - you'll find it).

It also explains the utter lack of rational thinking displayed by members of that particularly odious segment of the body politic. In order to maintain loyalty to the infallable leader, everything else has to be bent around it. So Bush could not have lied about WMD - Even with no evidence, it's obvious that they were moved to the Bekaa valley before the war. Or they really WERE found recently - only the lib'rul media won't let you know about it. Bush's poll numbers don't reflect reality - the polling companies show their true colors by withholding the Republican/Democrat distribution of the people polled. It's obvious they're skewing the numbers to damage our president. And so on.

Reality isn't what it is - it's the opposite.

Technorati Tag:John Dean