This OTYCD entry originally posted in November 2017.
Read a piece by John W. Dean–yes, the John W. Dean who served as counsel to President Nixon in the early 1970s–in which he talks to Bob Altemeyer, a retired psychology professor who specialized in authoritarian thinking, about Trump supporters.
Altemeyer authored the books The Authoritarian Specter, Right Wing Authoritarians, and Enemies of Freedom. He talks with Dean about how Trump supporters think, why they think that way, and what it would take to get them to change their thinking.
It’s not an inspiring read, so we’re going to jump to the end and quote Dean’s final paragraph:
“With that information in mind, from someone who may understand Trump supporters better than Trump does, it is clear that to prevail in 2018 and 2020, Democrats must focus on getting sympathetic non-voters to the polls, and bring back into the fold the anti-Hillary folks, who suffered from Clinton exhaustion—voters who are clearly not right-wing authoritarians.”
Read Altemeyer on Trump Supporters, which Dean wrote as an entry for his column on the Verdict website:
https://verdict.justia.com/2017/07/07/altemeyer-trumps-supporters
…Once you’ve done that, go to our “Voting Rights, Fighting Voter Suppression” category, pick something that sounds good to you, and act.
You can also subscribe to Verdict, the folks who publish Dean’s column:
http://law.justia.com/subscribe
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