I have this good friend from childhood who is now a Republican. I was almost as dismayed as he must have been when he found out I was an atheist. I mean, I like him a lot and he’s a great guy, but a Republican? What could have made him align with the most corrupt, incompetant, and dishonest American political movement in living memory?

Today I’m grappling with why people are political conservatives, especially in the current environment. I went through the ‘Stern Father’ theory — that Bush reminds them of their pushy, distant male authority figure. Then I tried out the ‘Obligatory Enemy’ theory, and the ‘Parents Let Them Cry’ theory, followed by the ‘Locked in a Treehouse with Too Little Air in It’ theory. None really explained the phenomenon in a meaningful way. At the moment I’m working off a really unhelpful theory called the ‘Bad Person Hypothesis’. Seriously, what else could turn someone into the trigger-happy, paranoid, finger-pointing, xenophobic, snotty ball of aggression that characterises the right-wing blogospherian? Except that they’re bad people. Like it’s only been a week since a major gun incident, and already Dinesh D’Souza has lambasted atheists, and Newt Gingrich has blamed liberalism. It’s like I’ve been attacked twice, and I haven’t even shot anyone. It’s enough to make you want to… well, you can imagine.

On better days, I decide that conservatives are the way they are because they’re at the mercy of emotions they cannot control nor understand. And if I had to pick one emotion that motivates them, I’d say fear. Conservatives are fearful. Look at how they respond to the fear button, which gets pressed at every opportunity. Out pops the template: “What are you going to do when they come for your…” and then you can fill the space with the noun du jour: guns? or your women? Your hetero marriage. Or your bibles, or your jobs. Your money or your fetus.

Fortunately, fine minds have been working on the psychological profile of the American conservative, and their results appear in this article from 2003: “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition”. Here are some findings from the abstract, and note the numbers:

A meta-analysis (88 samples, 12 countries, 22,818 cases) confirms that several psychological variables predict political conservatism: death anxiety (weighted mean r .50); system instability (.47); dogmatism–intolerance of ambiguity (.34); openness to experience (–.32); uncertainty tolerance (–.27); needs for order, structure, and closure (.26); integrative complexity (–.20); fear of threat and loss (.18); and self-esteem (–.09).

Ouch.

The paper helps to answer one of the trickiest questions of electoral behaviour: why do the poorest Americans overwhelmingly vote Republican, even though they are hurt most by its policies?

[M]any of the theories we integrate suggest that motives to overcome fear, threat, and uncertainty may be associated with increased conservatism, and some of these motives should be more pronounced among members of disadvantaged and low-status groups. As a result, the disadvantaged might embrace right-wing ideologies under some circumstances to reduce fear, anxiety, dissonance, uncertainty, or instability, whereas the advantaged might gravitate toward conservatism for reasons of self-interest or social dominance.

Isn’t that something? So if I were a Machiavellian bastard, I’d realise that the more uncertain I could make the lives of the poor, the more I could count on their support. Until they figured it out. Which they never will if I can keep hitting the fear buttons. Fnord! FNORD!

The rest of the paper is dotted with interesting insights. Worth a read, despite the length. I’d be interested in using this thread as a book-club type discussion. Anyone find anything else interesting?

Someone at the dear old BYU was dumb enough to invite the Dark Lord Cheney to speak at commencement. And students — normally obedient, complacent, and Republican — are taking it to the barricades.

The invitation extended to Vice President Dick Cheney to be the commencement speaker at Brigham Young University has set off a rare, continuing protest at the Mormon university, one of the nation’s most conservative.

Some of the faculty and the 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, who are overwhelmingly Republican, have expressed concern about the Bush administration’s support for the war in Iraq and other policies, but most of the current protest has focused on Mr. Cheney’s integrity, character and behavior.

Really? Like what?

Several students said, for example, that they were appalled at Mr. Cheney’s use of an expletive on the Senate floor in a June 2004 exchange with Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont.

Gah! Right answer, wrong reason! Are naughty words all these people care about?

Here’s someone who gets a bit closer:

“It just feels like too much sleaze and not the right values for B.Y.U.,” Mr. Woodworth said. “We espouse honesty, chastity, integrity, ethics, virtue and morality, and he does not epitomize those values.”

Maybe he knows something about Cheney that I don’t know. I just know that I didn’t need that image.

Several students said they would welcome Mr. Cheney on campus at a forum where he could be questioned. “I just don’t feel that Cheney represents what we want B.Y.U. to represent,” said Sharon Ellsworth, 23, a junior and a Democrat from Marietta, Pa. “It would be cool to have him in a different setting.”

This would be delicious. Imagine Darth thinking he’s heading into the Green Zone, and instead he gets pelted with marshmallows. Stale ones.

But what’s this? A swipe at Bush from the chair of College Dittoheads?

Some students said they were looking forward to Mr. Cheney’s speech. David Lassen, 23, the chairman of the B.Y.U. College Republicans, said he hoped to present the vice president with petitions of support for his appearance on campus, signed by about 2,000 students and alumni.

“We’re excited for the world to see what B.Y.U. really is,” Mr. Lassen said. “No matter what you think of Cheney, he’s easily the most powerful man in the world.”

Choice.

But fear not, Utah citizens. Cheney will speak at the commencement, with only one minor incident: some wild-eyed radicals will attempt to shout something during the address, and will be quickly subdued by the studentry. The 12th Article of Faith will carry the day. That’s the one about not questioning authority of any kind, ever.

Perhaps Giuliani would have made a good Democrat.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told CNN Wednesday he supports public funding for some abortions, a position he advocated as mayor and one that will likely put the GOP presidential candidate at odds with social conservatives in his party.

“Ultimately, it’s a constitutional right, and therefore if it’s a constitutional right, ultimately, even if you do it on a state by state basis, you have to make sure people are protected,” Giuliani said in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash in Florida’s capital city.
…
“I’m in the same position now that I was 12 years ago when I ran for mayor — which is, personally opposed to abortion, don’t like it, hate it, would advise that woman to have an adoption rather than abortion, hope to find the money for it,” he said. “But it is your choice, an individual right. You get to make that choice, and I don’t think society should be putting you in jail.”

Like Giuliani, I’d love to see fewer abortions. (I wish they’d promote contraceptives more aggressively in schools, actually.) But how’s the Right going to react to this? When you make an ounce of sense once in a while, it tends to disqualify you in the eyes of those who make no sense.