Washington Post: Authoritarian Nightmare

As the Washington Post reports:

Some of the biggest questions about President Trump involve his followers. Who are they, what do they want, and why do they support him no matter what? “Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers,” co-authored by John W. Dean and [UM’s] Bob Altemeyer, is an effort to answer those questions. Without his supporters, “Donald Trump would be nothing but a Twitter troll,” they assert….

Altemeyer, a retired psychology professor at the University of Manitoba, has studied authoritarianism for many years and is the author of “The Authoritarians” and “Enemies of Freedom: Understanding Right-Wing Authoritarianism.”

“Authoritarian Nightmare” effectively combines Dean’s knowledge of politics and the presidency with Altemeyer’s expertise in authoritarianism. The first hundred pages deal with Trump’s upbringing, business career and presidency, and cover some of the same ground as Mary L. Trump’s recent “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.” Like her, Dean and Altemeyer consider Trump to be a narcissist with an incessant need for attention and praise who was indoctrinated by his authoritarian father “to intimidate and control others” and whose bullying behavior was evident even in childhood.