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Image courtesy of interviewee. December 12, 2024

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This video discusses the concept of authoritarianism and its relationship to political attitudes and behaviors. It traces the historical development of authoritarianism as a psychological construct, initially defined by Theodore Adorno and later redefined by political psychologists in terms of values. The speaker emphasizes that regardless of its definition, authoritarianism is a significant determinant in shaping political opinions and partisan affiliations among voters.

Authoritarianism is characterized as a worldview that influences evaluations of political candidates, issues, and party alignment. The speaker employs survey methods to assess authoritarian values and their stability over time, contrasting them with attitudes on moral issues like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. The analysis reveals that moral issue attitudes are more stable and predictable than authoritarian predispositions.

Empirical data suggests that moral values regarding abortion and gay rights have a more substantial impact on party identification than authoritarian attitudes. For instance, voters' strong feelings on these issues predict their authoritarian alignment rather than vice versa. This video contradicts the standard theory that assumes authoritarianism is a driving force motivating political identification and behavior.

This video also highlights evolving public engagement with moral issues through recent events, like state-level votes on abortion rights following the 2022 Dobbs decision. Such outcomes demonstrate that despite the enduring significance of these moral issues, they do not exist in isolation from other political concerns like the economy and immigration. Overall, the findings encourage a reevaluation of the role of authoritarianism in political behavior, particularly regarding its potency compared to direct moral issues.

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Here are five key points from the video :

1. **Definition and Nature of Authoritarianism**: Authoritarianism has been historically defined as a cluster of personality traits and later reconceptualized as a set of values promoting conformity, security, and tradition. It significantly influences voters' worldviews and political decision-making.

2. **Stability of Moral Attitudes vs. Authoritarianism**: Research indicates that attitudes toward moral issues like abortion and same-sex rights are more stable (correlation of 0.81) compared to authoritarian predispositions (correlation of 0.58). This suggests that moral issue attitudes are more enduring and predictive of political behavior.

3. **Predictive Relationship**: The evidence shows that moral attitudes can predict changes in authoritarianism over time, whereas authoritarian views do not effectively predict changes in attitudes toward moral issues. This challenges the notion of authoritarianism as a core worldview influencing all political judgments.

4. **Impact on Political Party Identification**: Morals around issues like abortion and gay rights play a significant role in determining political party identification, often overshadowing authoritarian values. The analysis suggests that strong feelings about these moral issues lead individuals to affiliate with the Republican party more than authoritarian values alone.

5. **Shifts in Political Landscape**: Recent events, such as Supreme Court rulings on abortion, have highlighted the enduring strength of voters' support for abortion rights, even in conservative states. This underscores the potency of moral issues in shaping political discourse and voter behavior beyond the influence of authoritarian sentiments.

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Here are some key quotes extracted from the video regarding authoritarianism, moral issues, and party identification:

1. **Definition of Authoritarianism**:
- "In the aftermath of World War II, Theodore Oro and his colleagues defined it as a cluster of personality traits that included things like rigid conformity to social norms, conventionalism, submitting to established authorities."

2. **Reconceptualization of Authoritarianism**:
- "In the 1990s, some political psychologists reconceptualized it and defined it as a cluster of values... like personal autonomy, freedom, diversity, and complexity."

3. **Impact on Political Judgments**:
- "Authoritarianism is seen as a core predisposition, one of the most important elements in the minds of American voters... it shapes your view of music, culture and politics, of course."

4. **Measuring Authoritarian Values**:
- "Researchers typically use to measure authoritarian values... they ask survey respondents to choose among a set of paired values which value they think is better for children."

5. **Stability of Moral Issues vs. Authoritarianism**:
- "The average or mean correlation for the moral issue scale is about 0.81... the average correlation for authoritarianism is 0.58."

6. **Predictive Power of Moral Issues**:
- "When trying to predict future moral issue scales... authoritarianism rarely predicts future values... moral issues predict change in authoritarianism over time."

7. **Role of Politicians**:
- "There is this reservoir of authoritarian sentiment in the mass public... it has to be activated by politicians who are skilled at activating it."

8. **Effectiveness of Authoritarian Appeals**:
- "Those issues... are strong enough that they don't need appeals to values."

9. **Moral Issues and Party Identification**:
- "Moral issues do a much better job predicting the party our respondents identify with... the effect of moral issues on party identification is three to 500% larger than the effect of authoritarianism."

10. **Implications of Supreme Court Decisions**:
- "Since that time, 16 states have voted on constitutional amendments... in 13 of those 16 states, voters have come out with a strong endorsement of abortion rights."

Each quote encapsulates a central idea from the video, highlighting the relationships between authoritarianism, moral issues, and political behaviors.

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Study of authoritarianism has a long history in the social

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sciences in the aftermath of World War ii, Theodore Oro

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and his colleagues defined it as a, as a cluster

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of personality traits

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that included things like rigid conformity to social norms,

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conventionalism submitting to established authorities

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and things of that nature.

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In the 1990s,

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some political psychologists reconceptualize it

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and defined it as a cluster of values,

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authoritarian support, conservative values like,

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social conformity, security, uniformity and certainty,

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and the non authoritarians,

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or as we sometimes call them, libertarians, tend

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to endorse values like personal autonomy, freedom, diversity

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and complexity.

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But regardless of how you define it, whether it's defined

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as a personality trait

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or a cluster of values, authoritarianism is seen as a,

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a core predisposition, one

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of the most important elements in the minds

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of American voters and voters

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across the world for that matter.

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Authoritarianism develops early in life as we're socialized

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by our parents and affected

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by the material conditions in which we are raised.

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Authoritarianism endures over time,

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and it influences a lot of the political judgments we make

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in standard accounts in American politics and,

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and, British politics

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and West European politics studies as well.

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Researchers look at authoritarians as, as a kind

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of worldview, it shapes your view of, of music, culture

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and politics, of course.

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Um, it's a worldview that really functions as a kind

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of a perceptual screen that shapes

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how you evaluate political candidates, parties

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and issues, in standard accounts.

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Then, if authoritarianism is in fact a worldview,

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it should shape the political parties that we identify with,

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the candidates we support on election day

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and the positions we take on controversial social issues

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like immigration, national security, abortion,

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and same sex rights.

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I use a combination

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of standard survey questions on panel studies,

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and let me break each of those down.

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Uh, the survey questions I use are the ones that

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researchers typically use to measure authoritarian values.

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Um, the questions ask survey respondents, to choose

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among, a set of paired values which value,

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the survey respondent thinks is better for children.

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So here are a couple of examples from the most

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widely used scale.

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Um, one question asks if it's more important for a child

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to have independence or respect for elders.

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A second question asks if it's more important for a child

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to have curiosity or good manners.

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And the idea here is that if you choose the,

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the more authoritarian or traditional

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or conservative values that is respect for elders

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and good manners, then you would be counted

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as an authoritarian, someone who chose curiosity and,

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and, independence.

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That person will be,

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Uh, categorized as a libertarian.

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And then you can have kind of, you know, a mixed pattern

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of results where you're neither one or the other,

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but endorse some combination.

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So respondents who prefer independence and curiosity

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and similar values, they count as as as libertarian.

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If you endorse respect for elders, good manners,

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you're an authoritarian for abortion and gay rights.

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There's a series of standard questions that I use

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that ask if re respondents favor

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or oppose abortion under different scenarios.

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If the, if the pregnancy is the result of rape

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or incest, if the woman is,

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doesn't wanna have any more children, it's a couple

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of standard questions on same sex rights, do you approve

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or disapprove of gay marriage favor or oppose gay marriage?

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Do you approve or disapprove of, same sex relations?

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And so using those survey questions

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and combining them, I can build a measure of moral issues.

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I'm calling, abortion and gay rights, moral issues.

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So that's what I do on the, the measurement side.

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And then in the actual surveys, I use what are known

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as panel surveys.

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And so the way these work, say in 2006, 2000,

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US voting age adults will be interviewed,

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and then four years later, in 2010, most

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of those maybe 1700, 1600

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of those people in the first survey will be re-interviewed.

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And so you can track,

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whether people's scores on the authoritarianism scale

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and the moral issues scale change over time.

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And with that, you can figure out, which

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of those predispositions is more stable.

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You can figure out if 2006 issues predicts authoritarianism

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in 2010,

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and then if 2006 authoritarianism predicts issues in 2010.

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And by exploiting the power of panel data, you can sort

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of get a sense, a good sense, not a definitive sense,

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but a good sense of what's more stable over time

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and what causes, what, what predicts what my analysis

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of panel data, starts with the the stability question.

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Uh, what I do is a very simple test.

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Um, I run the correlation between people's scores on issues,

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moral issues in 2006, let's say in 2010.

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And then I do the same thing on authoritarianism in 2006

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and 2010.

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And I have about six or seven panel studies, kind

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of depending on the measures

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where I can do this in multiple different time periods.

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And you can just look at the correlation over time.

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A correlation of 1.00 means that variable,

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that orientation is perfectly stable.

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Uh, correlation of 0.00 means there's no relationship

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between the, the time one and time two scores.

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And so you can just calculate the,

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the overtime correlations.

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When I do that, what those correlations tell me is

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that the average

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or the mean correlation

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for the moral issue scale is about 0.81.

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Not perfectly 1.00, but it's close.

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And for folks who do survey research,

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that's a very high number.

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The most stable political orientation in the minds

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of American voters at least, is their party identification.

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Whether they think of themselves as a democrat

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or Republican correlations from moral issues.

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0.81 again, is my mean correlation.

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That's right about where party ideas.

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And so this is about as stable as an orientation gets.

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Um, when I do the same thing,

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I calculate the overtime correlation

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for the authoritarianism scales, again, across six

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or seven different panel studies.

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The mean correlation there is only 0.58.

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So that's a respectable figure that indicates a fair degree

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of solidity, a fair degree of durability.

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But again, moral issues, the average correlation is 0.81.

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That's much higher than the average correlation

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for authoritarianism, which is 0.58.

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So that piece of evidence suggests

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that moral issue attitudes whether Americans favor

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or oppose abortion and, and equal rights for gays

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and lesbians, those feelings about

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that issue are stronger than the authoritarian variable,

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which in some accounts is a worldview.

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If it's a worldview, why is it less

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stable than moral issues?

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Because people have strong feelings about those issues.

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So that's the stability part of the analysis, the evidence

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with respect to the actual what predicts what over time.

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So again, I use, we'll use 2006, 2010.

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That panel study is an example.

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I can use 2006 issues to predict authoritarianism in 2010,

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controlling for 2006 authoritarianism.

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And then I can predict issues in 2010 from authoritarianism

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in 2006, controlling for issues in 2006.

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And what I find is that when we're trying

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to predict future moral issue scales,

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that is whether people are pro-life, pro-choice or pro

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or anti-gay lag.

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The authoritarianism rarely predicts, future values of,

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of, moral issues.

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In other words, if authoritarianism is a worldview,

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it should be predicting change in the positions people

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take on these issues.

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That's what the theory of authoritarianism calls for.

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And again, the evidence I have in about six

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or seven panel studies suggest authoritarianism is not

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predicting change over time in these issues.

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Now, on the flip side, since I'm making the argument

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that people feel very strongly, not all Americans,

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but many Americans have strong feelings about abortion

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and gay rights, if that's the case,

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then their feelings about these issues in 2006 should

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predict, where they line up on the authoritarianism

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scale in 2010.

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And again, that's exactly, I find that in six

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of the seven panel data sets that I have,

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what I typically are averaging across all

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of the panel data sets, what I find is the,

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strongest pro-life anti-gay respondents in my surveys at

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time one become 13% more,

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authoritarian at time two.

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And so 13% is a decent size effect.

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And again, the standard effect,

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the standard theory says authoritarianism

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today should predict moral positions four years

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down the line, and it doesn't.

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The mean effect there is approximately zero.

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So again, to summarize that,

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the evidence I have suggests two things.

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Number one, the overtime correlation suggests

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that moral issue attitudes are more durable,

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more stable than, authoritarianism.

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And number two, the evidence I have suggests

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that moral issues predict change in authoritarianism over

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time, but it doesn't work the other way around.

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And the standard view, the idea here is

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that authoritarianism has really, rocked the foundations

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of American democracy for over two decades.

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Um, the idea here is that in the standard accounts,

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there is this reservoir

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of authoritarian sentiment in the mass public.

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It's always there. It has to be activated by,

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politicians who are skilled at activating it.

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Um, skilled politicians,

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if they can activate authoritarianism in the standard

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account, then they can draw authoritarian voters out there

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into their, to back their candies

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and into their political parties fold.

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Lemme give you a couple of examples.

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Um, in 2016, Donald Trump attacked,

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Mexican American, Mexican immigrants and Muslim immigrants.

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Uh, he claimed threaten America's safety way of life.

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In 2004, president George HW Bush came out in favor

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of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

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At the time, president then President Bush suggested that,

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gay marriage, same-sex marriage was a threat

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to America's way of life and normative order.

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And in the standard theory, the idea is that when Trump

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and Bush are making these kinds of appeals,

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immigrants threaten our security as Americans.

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Uh, same-sex marriage threatens the traditional normative

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order that is going to draw people

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to back both their candies

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and into the GOP party fold, to back the Republican party,

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to become Republican party

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because the candidates are using those issues,

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those messages, they're embedding them with these kind

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of author, these latent authoritarian appeals.

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And consistent with that argument, a lot of the research

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to date has shown that if you try to predict,

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the party someone identifies with, that

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that child rearing scale, that authoritarian scale,

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it does a good job predicting who lines up on

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where they line up on the party side.

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People who endorse, of values like,

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independence and,

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and curiosity lineup Democrat, people who endorse respect

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for elders and good manners lineup Republican.

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But the issue with that is potential,

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potential challenge with that is that authoritarianism,

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that child rearing variable may be picking up the influence

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of issues like abortion and gay rights or some other issues.

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And my argument is that people feel strongly enough about

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those moral issues, abortion

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and gay rights, that those issues will affect both their

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party ID and the effect authoritarianism has.

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And some other research I've published,

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coincidentally in a book that's just come out this week,

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I show that moral issues do predict,

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where you line up on the party Id scale.

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So what I do in the analysis in this project is I try

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to predict party identification using both the authoritarian

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variable that child rearing scale, as well

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as my moral issues scale,

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and just see the relative impacts that issues

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and authoritarianism have on partisan identification.

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I look at data from 1992 to 2020,

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and what I find is that across that three decade period,

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moral issues do a much better job predicting the party our

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respondents identify with.

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Uh, and authoritarianism has as weak effects

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until the 20 16, 20 20 period,

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not coincidentally the period in which Donald Trump rose

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to national prominence.

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This effect where moral issues has a stronger impact on

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party ID than authoritarianism,

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it holds up in every cross-sectional survey.

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I look at every panel data survey, I look at every kind

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of model in the pre-Trump years,

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and even in the Trump years.

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Um, overall, the effect

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of moral issues on party identification is three

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to 500% larger than the effect of authoritarianism on,

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on party identification.

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And so setting aside the statistical details, I think

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that makes a lot of sense.

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Intuitively, it seems likely to me

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that I think the standard account is right.

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Uh, authoritarians do prefer the GOP,

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the Republican Party over the Democratic Party,

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and that Republican party leaders like Bush in 2004,

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Trump in 2016, Trump in 2024 would try to make appeals

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that would be sort of coded for authoritarian content.

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Um, but those are subterranean appeals

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and on issues that people feel really strongly about,

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like abortion, like, gay marriage, like immigration,

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when Bush makes a an anti-gay marriage appeal,

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I think people feel strong enough about the issue

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that it's the issue that draws them to the GOP

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and not whatever subterranean values are sort

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of embedded in that issue.

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Messaging. When Trump attacks immigrants in 2016,

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it could be that that's appealing to authoritarians,

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but I think it's more likely

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that anti-immigrant Americans are attracted by

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that anti-immigrant message from Trump.

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And some of them are drawn into, the,

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the Republican fold and backing Donald Trump.

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So again, authoritarianism,

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I do think shapes party sentiments,

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but on at least some issues,

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these issue messages are strong enough

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that they don't need appeals to values.

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If you are pro-life, anti-gay marriage

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and anti-immigrant,

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you don't really need to worry about your values.

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Those issues are enough to say, Hey, hey,

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the GOP is the home for me.

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And again, my statistical analysis suggests

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that it's those issues, abortion

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and gay rights in particular, that drive party attachments

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much more so than these sort

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of more distal authoritarian values.

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First, the evidence suggests that some issues, abortion

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and gay rights in this case,

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people really do feel strongly about,

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and this may seem odd to some of the audience,

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some in the audience, I think to sort of, a lot of,

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non-experts, if you claim that abortion

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and gay rights people feel strongly about

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or shape their partisan attachments

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and it shapes their partisan choice,

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people will say, yeah, of course.

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But in the public opinion

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and political science literature among social scientists

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who study this, it turns out most issues most

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of the time have little impact on the party attachments

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and the, and the electoral choices of most voters.

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So issues are a weak predictor of partisan choice

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and a weak predictor of candidate choice.

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But again, I think abortion gay rights,

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the reasons I detail in the project, people just feel

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so strongly about those two issues.

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That's a a, an exception to the general rule.

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All issues are not equal. Most issues are weak.

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Abortion and gay rights are an exception.

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A second key, point from the work moving forward.

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I think the evidence I present here,

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weakens the argument that authoritarianism really is a,

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a kind of worldview that pushes some people

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to the Republican party and,

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and pushes other people away from the Republican

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party to the Democratic party.

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We hear a lot of talk,

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in journalistic accounts about the role

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that these authoritarian sentiments play in, you know,

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motivating support for Trump in the United States,

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and more motivating support for, for,

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populist authoritarian leaders in Europe.

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Um, and there may be something to that,

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but again, on these high profile issues like abortion,

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same sex rights in the us, anti-immigrant sentiment,

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United States and Europe, those issues are strong enough.

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They don't need to be driven by authoritarianism.

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I think authoritarianism may not have as big of an impact.

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Um, but that's, that's something future work

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will have to look at, right?

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The issues I've identified, abortion

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and gay rights, maybe the exception to the rule,

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and maybe authoritarianism works the way it

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does for all other issues.

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Immigration may be an exception, I don't know.

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But I do think that this is kind of weakens the case

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for the authoritarian voter being, the huge factor.

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I think it's the issues more than authoritarianism.

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Uh, the last takeaway implication is the on the ground

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evidence we've seen over the past couple

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of years when the Supreme Court,

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outlawed a federal right

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to abortion in the United States in its 2022 Dobbs decision.

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Um, there have been in the United States since that time,

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16 states have, voted

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on constitutional amendments on ballots at the state level,

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to make it harder or easier to restrict abortion access.

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And in 13 of those 16 states,

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including red states like Kansas, Missouri,

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and Montana, voters have come out with a strong endorsement

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of abortion rights.

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So that really underscores the power of abortion

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in the United States today,

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and I think moving forward,

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to play an important role in the politics of,

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of ballot initiatives.

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But at the same time, I wanna underscore that the, the power

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of moral issues like abortion

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and gay rights as well, they're quite strong,

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but their power is not unlimited.

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Uh, I think abortion was a big issue in the 2024

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presidential election, and I suspect it helped

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to get a Kamala Harris, a number of,

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of swing votes in swing states.

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But the issue itself wasn't enough to overcome some

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of the other issues on, on the, on, on the American,

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public's agenda, the economic hangover from inflation,

403
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a long tail of covid.

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Um, immigration again, was a huge issue.

405
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And so what I wanna underscore here is I expect abortion,

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gay, gay rights, transgender rights as well

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to continue being important issues in Americans,

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America's electoral scene.

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But by no means are they the only

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issues that are gonna matter.

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And, immigration,

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I think's gonna be a big one moving forward as well.

Authoritarianism: Historical Perspectives and Political Implications

00:00:00 - Study of authoritarianism has a long history in the social sciences in the aftermath of World War ii, Theodore Oro and his colleagues defined it as a, as a cluster of personality traits that included things like rigid conformity to social norms, conventionalism submitting to established authorities and things of that nature. In the 1990s, some political psychologists reconceptualize it and defined it as a cluster of values, authoritarian support, conservative values like, social conformity, security, uniformity and certainty,

00:00:37 - or as we sometimes call them, libertarians, tend to endorse values like personal autonomy, freedom, diversity and complexity. But regardless of how you define it, whether it's defined as a personality trait or a cluster of values, authoritarianism is seen as a, a core predisposition, one of the most important elements in the minds of American voters and voters across the world for that matter. Authoritarianism develops early in life as we're socialized

00:01:08 - by the material conditions in which we are raised. Authoritarianism endures over time, and it influences a lot of the political judgments we make in standard accounts in American politics and, and, British politics and West European politics studies as well. Researchers look at authoritarians as, as a kind of worldview, it shapes your view of, of music, culture and politics, of course. it's a worldview that really functions as a kind

Assessing Authoritarianism Through Value-based Surveys

00:01:39 - how you evaluate political candidates, parties and issues, in standard accounts. Then, if authoritarianism is in fact a worldview, it should shape the political parties that we identify with, the candidates we support on election day and the positions we take on controversial social issues like immigration, national security, abortion, and same sex rights. I use a combination of standard survey questions on panel studies, and let me break each of those down.

00:02:11 - researchers typically use to measure authoritarian values. the questions ask survey respondents, to choose among, a set of paired values which value, the survey respondent thinks is better for children. So here are a couple of examples from the most widely used scale. one question asks if it's more important for a child to have independence or respect for elders. A second question asks if it's more important for a child to have curiosity or good manners.

00:02:43 - the more authoritarian or traditional or conservative values that is respect for elders and good manners, then you would be counted as an authoritarian, someone who chose curiosity and, and, independence. That person will be, categorized as a libertarian. And then you can have kind of, you know, a mixed pattern of results where you're neither one or the other, but endorse some combination. So respondents who prefer independence and curiosity

Measuring Authoritarianism through Moral Issues

00:03:13 - If you endorse respect for elders, good manners, you're an authoritarian for abortion and gay rights. There's a series of standard questions that I use that ask if re respondents favor or oppose abortion under different scenarios. If the, if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, if the woman is, doesn't wanna have any more children, it's a couple of standard questions on same sex rights, do you approve or disapprove of gay marriage favor or oppose gay marriage?

00:03:45 - And so using those survey questions and combining them, I can build a measure of moral issues. I'm calling, abortion and gay rights, moral issues. So that's what I do on the, the measurement side. And then in the actual surveys, I use what are known as panel surveys. And so the way these work, say in 2006, 2000, US voting age adults will be interviewed, and then four years later, in 2010, most

00:04:15 - of those people in the first survey will be re-interviewed. And so you can track, whether people's scores on the authoritarianism scale and the moral issues scale change over time. And with that, you can figure out, which of those predispositions is more stable. You can figure out if 2006 issues predicts authoritarianism in 2010, and then if 2006 authoritarianism predicts issues in 2010. And by exploiting the power of panel data, you can sort

Stability of Moral Issues and Authoritarianism Over Time

00:04:48 - but a good sense of what's more stable over time and what causes, what, what predicts what my analysis of panel data, starts with the the stability question. what I do is a very simple test. I run the correlation between people's scores on issues, moral issues in 2006, let's say in 2010. And then I do the same thing on authoritarianism in 2006 and 2010. And I have about six or seven panel studies, kind

00:05:17 - where I can do this in multiple different time periods. And you can just look at the correlation over time. A correlation of 1.00 means that variable, that orientation is perfectly stable. correlation of 0.00 means there's no relationship between the, the time one and time two scores. And so you can just calculate the, the overtime correlations. When I do that, what those correlations tell me is that the average or the mean correlation for the moral issue scale is about 0.81.

00:05:52 - And for folks who do survey research, that's a very high number. The most stable political orientation in the minds of American voters at least, is their party identification. Whether they think of themselves as a democrat or Republican correlations from moral issues. 0.81 again, is my mean correlation. That's right about where party ideas. And so this is about as stable as an orientation gets. when I do the same thing, I calculate the overtime correlation

Moral Issues vs. Authoritarianism: Stability and Predictive Power

00:06:23 - or seven different panel studies. The mean correlation there is only 0.58. So that's a respectable figure that indicates a fair degree of solidity, a fair degree of durability. But again, moral issues, the average correlation is 0.81. That's much higher than the average correlation for authoritarianism, which is 0.58. So that piece of evidence suggests that moral issue attitudes whether Americans favor or oppose abortion and, and equal rights for gays

00:06:53 - that issue are stronger than the authoritarian variable, which in some accounts is a worldview. If it's a worldview, why is it less stable than moral issues? Because people have strong feelings about those issues. So that's the stability part of the analysis, the evidence with respect to the actual what predicts what over time. So again, I use, we'll use 2006, 2010. That panel study is an example. I can use 2006 issues to predict authoritarianism in 2010,

00:07:27 - And then I can predict issues in 2010 from authoritarianism in 2006, controlling for issues in 2006. And what I find is that when we're trying to predict future moral issue scales, that is whether people are pro-life, pro-choice or pro or anti-gay lag. The authoritarianism rarely predicts, future values of, of, moral issues. In other words, if authoritarianism is a worldview,

Exploring the Influence of Moral Issues on Authoritarianism

00:08:00 - take on these issues. That's what the theory of authoritarianism calls for. And again, the evidence I have in about six or seven panel studies suggest authoritarianism is not predicting change over time in these issues. Now, on the flip side, since I'm making the argument that people feel very strongly, not all Americans, but many Americans have strong feelings about abortion and gay rights, if that's the case, then their feelings about these issues in 2006 should predict, where they line up on the authoritarianism

00:08:30 - And again, that's exactly, I find that in six of the seven panel data sets that I have, what I typically are averaging across all of the panel data sets, what I find is the, strongest pro-life anti-gay respondents in my surveys at time one become 13% more, authoritarian at time two. And so 13% is a decent size effect. And again, the standard effect, the standard theory says authoritarianism

00:09:03 - down the line, and it doesn't. The mean effect there is approximately zero. So again, to summarize that, the evidence I have suggests two things. Number one, the overtime correlation suggests that moral issue attitudes are more durable, more stable than, authoritarianism. And number two, the evidence I have suggests that moral issues predict change in authoritarianism over time, but it doesn't work the other way around. And the standard view, the idea here is that authoritarianism has really, rocked the foundations

Activating Authoritarian Sentiment in Politics

00:09:37 - the idea here is that in the standard accounts, there is this reservoir of authoritarian sentiment in the mass public. It's always there. It has to be activated by, politicians who are skilled at activating it. skilled politicians, if they can activate authoritarianism in the standard account, then they can draw authoritarian voters out there into their, to back their candies and into their political parties fold. Lemme give you a couple of examples.

00:10:09 - Mexican American, Mexican immigrants and Muslim immigrants. he claimed threaten America's safety way of life. In 2004, president George HW Bush came out in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. At the time, president then President Bush suggested that, gay marriage, same-sex marriage was a threat to America's way of life and normative order.

00:10:39 - and Bush are making these kinds of appeals, immigrants threaten our security as Americans. same-sex marriage threatens the traditional normative order that is going to draw people to back both their candies and into the GOP party fold, to back the Republican party, to become Republican party because the candidates are using those issues, those messages, they're embedding them with these kind of author, these latent authoritarian appeals.

Party Identification and Moral Issues

00:11:12 - to date has shown that if you try to predict, the party someone identifies with, that that child rearing scale, that authoritarian scale, it does a good job predicting who lines up on where they line up on the party side. People who endorse, of values like, independence and, and curiosity lineup Democrat, people who endorse respect for elders and good manners lineup Republican.

00:11:44 - potential challenge with that is that authoritarianism, that child rearing variable may be picking up the influence of issues like abortion and gay rights or some other issues. And my argument is that people feel strongly enough about those moral issues, abortion and gay rights, that those issues will affect both their party ID and the effect authoritarianism has. And some other research I've published,

00:12:13 - I show that moral issues do predict, where you line up on the party Id scale. So what I do in the analysis in this project is I try to predict party identification using both the authoritarian variable that child rearing scale, as well as my moral issues scale, and just see the relative impacts that issues and authoritarianism have on partisan identification. I look at data from 1992 to 2020,

Moral Issues and Party Identification: The Influence of Social Values Over Authoritarianism

00:12:45 - moral issues do a much better job predicting the party our respondents identify with. and authoritarianism has as weak effects until the 20 16, 20 20 period, not coincidentally the period in which Donald Trump rose to national prominence. This effect where moral issues has a stronger impact on party ID than authoritarianism, it holds up in every cross-sectional survey. I look at every panel data survey, I look at every kind of model in the pre-Trump years,

00:13:15 - overall, the effect of moral issues on party identification is three to 500% larger than the effect of authoritarianism on, on party identification. And so setting aside the statistical details, I think that makes a lot of sense. Intuitively, it seems likely to me that I think the standard account is right. authoritarians do prefer the GOP, the Republican Party over the Democratic Party, and that Republican party leaders like Bush in 2004, Trump in 2016, Trump in 2024 would try to make appeals

00:13:52 - but those are subterranean appeals and on issues that people feel really strongly about, like abortion, like, gay marriage, like immigration, when Bush makes a an anti-gay marriage appeal, I think people feel strong enough about the issue that it's the issue that draws them to the GOP and not whatever subterranean values are sort of embedded in that issue. Messaging. When Trump attacks immigrants in 2016,

Impact of Strong Moral Issues on Party Affiliation

00:14:21 - but I think it's more likely that anti-immigrant Americans are attracted by that anti-immigrant message from Trump. And some of them are drawn into, the, the Republican fold and backing Donald Trump. So again, authoritarianism, I do think shapes party sentiments, but on at least some issues, these issue messages are strong enough that they don't need appeals to values. If you are pro-life, anti-gay marriage and anti-immigrant, you don't really need to worry about your values.

00:14:51 - the GOP is the home for me. And again, my statistical analysis suggests that it's those issues, abortion and gay rights in particular, that drive party attachments much more so than these sort of more distal authoritarian values. First, the evidence suggests that some issues, abortion and gay rights in this case, people really do feel strongly about, and this may seem odd to some of the audience, some in the audience, I think to sort of, a lot of, non-experts, if you claim that abortion

00:15:22 - or shape their partisan attachments and it shapes their partisan choice, people will say, yeah, of course. But in the public opinion and political science literature among social scientists who study this, it turns out most issues most of the time have little impact on the party attachments and the, and the electoral choices of most voters. So issues are a weak predictor of partisan choice and a weak predictor of candidate choice. But again, I think abortion gay rights, the reasons I detail in the project, people just feel

Examining the Influence of Issues Over Authoritarianism in Political Alignments

00:15:54 - That's a a, an exception to the general rule. All issues are not equal. Most issues are weak. Abortion and gay rights are an exception. A second key, point from the work moving forward. I think the evidence I present here, weakens the argument that authoritarianism really is a, a kind of worldview that pushes some people to the Republican party and, and pushes other people away from the Republican party to the Democratic party. We hear a lot of talk,

00:16:25 - that these authoritarian sentiments play in, you know, motivating support for Trump in the United States, and more motivating support for, for, populist authoritarian leaders in Europe. and there may be something to that, but again, on these high profile issues like abortion, same sex rights in the us, anti-immigrant sentiment, United States and Europe, those issues are strong enough. They don't need to be driven by authoritarianism. I think authoritarianism may not have as big of an impact.

00:16:57 - will have to look at, right? The issues I've identified, abortion and gay rights, maybe the exception to the rule, and maybe authoritarianism works the way it does for all other issues. Immigration may be an exception, I don't know. But I do think that this is kind of weakens the case for the authoritarian voter being, the huge factor. I think it's the issues more than authoritarianism. the last takeaway implication is the on the ground evidence we've seen over the past couple of years when the Supreme Court, outlawed a federal right

Significance of Abortion and Moral Issues in U.S. Politics

00:17:30 - there have been in the United States since that time, 16 states have, voted on constitutional amendments on ballots at the state level, to make it harder or easier to restrict abortion access. And in 13 of those 16 states, including red states like Kansas, Missouri, and Montana, voters have come out with a strong endorsement of abortion rights. So that really underscores the power of abortion

00:17:59 - and I think moving forward, to play an important role in the politics of, of ballot initiatives. But at the same time, I wanna underscore that the, the power of moral issues like abortion and gay rights as well, they're quite strong, but their power is not unlimited. I think abortion was a big issue in the 2024 presidential election, and I suspect it helped to get a Kamala Harris, a number of, of swing votes in swing states. But the issue itself wasn't enough to overcome some

00:18:59 - public's agenda, the economic hangover from inflation, a long tail of covid. immigration again, was a huge issue. And so what I wanna underscore here is I expect abortion, gay, gay rights, transgender rights as well to continue being important issues in Americans, America's electoral scene. But by no means are they the only issues that are gonna matter. And, immigration, I think's gonna be a big one moving forward as well.

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