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“The central premise of Dean’s argument is that the current ‘conservative’ movement shares none of the core principles of the political conservatism which attracted Dean to its movement . . . . [it] has nothing to do with restraining government power or preserving historical values. Instead, it has transformed into an authoritarian movement which largely attracts personality types characterized by a desire and need to submit to and follow authority.”
So what holds today’s conservative movement together? Hatred of “liberals.” Attacks on enemies, writes Greenwald, “have become the conservative movement’s defining attribute. And that is sufficient to maintain allegiance because, argues Dean, what Bush followers crave more than anything else is submission to a powerful authority as a means of alleviating their fears of ambiguity, uncertainty and complexity — the same attributes which are common to all followers of authoritarian movements on both the right and the left.”
