Conservatives Without Conscience

Nixon White House chief of staff Bob Haldeman, along with John Ehrlichman and Chuck Colson, had asked Buchanan to create what would become known as the Plumbers Unit to investigate the leak of the Pentagon Papers and to drive the prosecution of Dan Ellsberg, both criminally and in the court of public opinion. Buchanan refused to take the assignment, but had he accepted it, it is difficult to imagine his hiring Gordon Liddy or Howard Hunt, who together incubated the mentality behind the Watergate break-ins and ensuing cover-up. When testifying before the Senate Watergate Committee Buchanan made this telling statement: “Charles Colson was quoted as saying, ‘I would do anything the President of the United Sates would ask me to do, period.’ I would subscribe to that statement for this reason: The President of the United States would not ask me to do anything unethical, improper, or wrong, or illegal.” (Nixon’s tapes later confirmed Buchanan’s testimony.) Committee counsel pressed Buchanan, asking, “What tactics would you be willing to use?” To which he responded, “Anything that was not immoral, unethical, illegal, or unprecedented in previous Democratic campaigns.” He did not hesitate to describe dirty politics he considered unacceptable. “Now there is a line across which political tricks should not go, quite clearly. One of them obviously was in Florida. The salacious attack on Senator Jackson and Senator Humphrey.” (This dirty campaigning had in fact been sponsored by the Nixon White House, which was unknown at the time by Buchanan.)[42]

Profile of Authoritarians

No question hovered at the front of my mind more, reading through Altemeyer’s studies of authoritarian behavior, than, why are right-wingers often malicious, mean-spirited, and disrespectful of even the basic codes of civility? While the radical left has had its episodes of boorishness, the right has taken these tactics to an unprecedented level. Social science has discovered these forms of behavior can be rather easily explained as a form of aggression.

Altemeyer’s studies of authoritarian aggression are groundbreaking and have been recognized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[*] Altemeyer discovered that the aggression of right-wingers seems to be not merely instrumental—that is, expressed for some political purpose—but engaged in for the pure pleasure of it. Torture is an extreme example, yet apparently authoritarians can find even that enjoyable, as the Abu Ghraib photos tragically illustrate. But on a more pedestrian level, he found it difficult for most right-wingers to talk about any subject about which they felt strongly without attacking others. This heightened level of aggressiveness has a number of psychological roots. Right-wing authoritarians, as we have seen, are motivated by their fear of a dangerous world, whereas social dominators have an ever-present desire to dominate. The factor that makes right-wingers faster than most people to attack others, and that seems to keep them living in an “attack mode,” is their remarkable self-righteousness. They are so sure they are not only right, but holy and pure, that they are bursting with indignation and a desire to smite down their enemies, Altemeyer explained.

When one examines authoritarians closely, their propensity to attack others by any means fair and foul is not surprising, for they are fundamentally fierce people. Yet Altemeyer’s studies indicate that if they could see themselves as others do, which they are seldom able to, they might gain perspective on their conduct. Their blinders, however, help make them who they are. Because there is so little information available for the general reader about authoritarians, notwithstanding literally reams of scientific reports that have accumulated since 1950 when this work commenced, it is as if the public has been hindered in understanding authoritarians by its own set of blinders. This is risky, for authoritarianism, which is a key but overlooked reality of contemporary conservatism, can be ignored only at our collective peril. Social scientists would do well to make more of their work in this area accessible to the general public, and journalists and political writers should avail themselves of this data.