(2023-10-28) Kanefield The Misinformation/Outrage Cycle Part1: There Are No Yankees Here

Teri Kanefield: The Misinformation-Outrage Cycle, Part 1: "There are no Yankees here!"

Overview:
Democracy requires adherence to facts.
Because of the current information disruption, facts get lost in a firehose of lies, misunderstandings, speculations, and opinions.
This creates misinformation-outrage cycles, which then activate authoritarian impulses in ordinarily pro-democracy people, thereby endangering democracy.

About a third of the population is, by nature, authoritarian and anti-democracy

German sociologist Theodor Adorno began studying what came to be called the authoritarian personality. The authoritarian personality describes the people who fall in line behind an authoritarian leader

The authoritarian personality is also called an anti-democratic personality.

A criticism of Adorno’s work was that he focused on right-wing authoritarianism

authoritarian traits have been identified in people across the political spectrum. Political psychologist Karen Stenner cites this chart:

If those who are anti-democratic are only 1/3 of the population, there shouldn’t be a problem, right? The 2/3 can simply outvote the 1/3. So why doesn’t it work that way?

Those who are anti-democracy don’t follow the rules. Duh, right?

You can’t save democratic ideals by abandoning them

The only way to save democracy is with more democracy. This requires a population that can adhere to facts.

The way people get their information today is bringing out authoritarian tendencies in otherwise pro-democratic people