The GOP is Gone
The National Republican Party’s Regression to a
Dependent-Conformer Leadership Culture – a case study analysis
The McGuire Consultant Group, John B. McGuire
‘When the delusion is deepest, the greatest intelligence is invested in ignorance.’
~Saul Bellow
From the post-WW2 Grand Ole Party’s conservative reformation to the GHW Bush international multilateralism and compassionate conservatism, principled Republicans defined themselves on the individual freedom and responsibility of classical liberal democracy, and the character it required. As guardians of tradition, caretakers of honor-bound propriety, and proud old-fashioned integrity in the higher art of governing was mostly the way. Even much of the hard-edge of Reagan’s white house held a respectful, gentlemen-of-democracy artifice from the Goldwater and Rockefeller era. By 2016 the party had reversed itself on all of those stated values and principles. “Now we’re the anti-character-counts party” said Stuart Stevens, the remarkably successful marketer of Republican campaigns for the last forty years (including the Bush’s 1988 Willie Horton ad). This devolution was not accidental. From the demagoguery of Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich forward the National Republican Party’s unspoken Us versus Them creed has been ‘the more thoroughly we demonize the “Others”, the more convincingly we sanctify ourselves’. This political behavior is not unilateral, yet the “well—what about them” defense, does not alter what is true about us. This creeping, morphing philosophy--a carbon copy of the Social-Identity theory that fueled the blow-torch of twentieth century despots who we fought across the globe to extinguish in order to save the world for democracy--has most unfortunately infused the National Republican Party. The Tea Party failed to achieve any fiscal policy goals at all, yet succeeded to embed the “not conservative enough” ethic in selections for elections. The question about democracy has always been the same: can a nation-state be governed by reason and truth rather than by accident and force, by reflection and election rather than by ignorance and violence (Lepore 2018). The founders brought a belief in reason and science, of facts, knowledge, experience, evidence and truth. Today’s conservative culture reality has instead devolved too often into beliefs in “alternative facts”, science-denial, delusional-conspiracies and a rationale of reality produced from protective feelings about the Others as the heathens at the gate.
HYPOTHESIS: In the twenty-first century
America’s current primary political battle is between Democracy and Autocracy.
Republicans have become measurably more extreme than Democrats.
The National Republican Party (NRP) has devolved into a Dependent-Conformer Leadership Culture.
INTRODUCTION
America’s primary political battle is now between Democracy and Autocracy.
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the resurgence of classical liberalism in a new world order based in the rule of law, individual rights and democratic government, and then George H.W. Bush’s next declaration of a new world order with the assumption of an unrestricted march of a single world power toward democracy, has crumbled (McMaster, 2020). Since the turn of the century, and within the rapid advance of globalization and social technology, the internal push for political parties in America to radicalize in a partisan divide remains strong (Pew Research, 2014, 2019). Rather than advancing, the new world order has instead eroded democracy and issued a new battle line drawn—the fight between autocracy and democracy. In this battle, nationalist-populist figures emerge, on the left and right. Both bear an Us versus Them message (B. Sanders, E. Warren, N. Gingrich, D. Trump), provoking social identity as the central defining factor of partisan politics.
When party traditions erode, then beliefs-driven policy wears-away and stated-values give way to actual values-in-action. According to the authors of the new paper, Political sectarianism in America explain that “the causal connection between policy preferences and party loyalty has become warped with partisans adjusting their policy preferences to align with their party identity.” (Merrefield, 2020). Yet, as Democrat’s policy lists grow, in contrast the national Republicans emerged from their convention with hardly any policy list at all beyond reverence for and compliance to their leader; and the common-ground bond of defeat of their “radical-socialist” Other adversaries. The NRP’s traditional policy list has all but disappeared. As long-established principles of fiscal restraint and free markets, institutional integrity, and personal freedom and responsibility have demonstrably diminished; only select social conservative issues remain alongside a common enemy prominent in the collective culture.
Republicans have become measurably more extreme than Democrats
Erosion on the right in the Republican Party is demonstrably more radical and extreme than erosion on the left in the Democratic Party. The Democrat left continues with a clear 50/50 split between progressives and moderates—and there is clear current proof with a moderate winning the presidency in 2020. Yet the National Republican Party (NRP) finds it hard to locate more than a few middle-right leaders as a common-sense accounting displays and requires.
Both parties appear to pose the same radical level of risk to the safety and security of the Democratic-Republic. While there certainly is equivalent disdain and disrespect in the partisan divide on both sides, a closer accounting of the actual measure of extremism is not equal. First, the acceptance of and call for violence on the right is by far greater than on the left, as has the regard for scientific evidence and simple truth on the left significantly exceeded the once common truth-telling on the right. This occurs at just the same time as most Republicans have largely abandoned the principle of personal responsibility as core ethic, so the data say. In fact, a consistent 70% of Republicans (up to 33% of voting Americans) have abandoned the traditional conservatism established in the post-war era, and now identify with the demand for an autocratic form of leadership that demands strict compliance restricting individual free expression; and that openly disdains democratic institutions and ignores free markets and fiscal restraint. Consistently 70% of Republicans say their president-leader is not responsible for his actions and their results, while only 30% polled think and believe that their president is to blame for what happened in our legislative branch in the nation’s capital on January 6, 2021. (Lowry/editors 2016, Finkel 2020, Stevens 2020, Pew Research, 2014, 2019, Bartels-Vanderbilt 2019/Brooks 2020, Abcarian 2020, Gross, 2020, PBS/McGrew 2020)
Between 40 and 55 percent of Republicans support use of force as a means to stop the decline of the “traditional American way of life” (AEI, Cox, 2021). At the same time 66 percent of Republicans say Biden’s election win was not legitimate. Readily available U.S. and state government facts prove otherwise and suggest a delusional reality being suffered en-masse by a majority within the new NRP. Additionally, hard-right domestic group violence outpaces hard-left by a four-to-one factor and hard-right organizations out outnumber hard-left by a factor of ten-to-one (Abcarian, 2020). Antifa is philosophy more than organization.
This in not Bill Buckley or Barry Goldwater’s GOP anymore. Twentieth century conservative principles and beliefs of the National Republican Party’s Leadership Culture have given way to twenty-first century sectarian, emotionally driven, cult-like leadership culture. The myth that both sides are equally extreme quickly erodes under cursory data review and analysis.
The NRP has devolved into a Dependent-Conformer Leadership Culture
The United States began as a dependent culture—a group of colonies under the authoritarian rule of the king. Rebelling against this oppression, colonists developed more independent minds and declared so. The U.S. Constitution expresses a complex and intertwined form of interdependence that uses authority and compromise as tools within a broader vision of collaboration, itself capable of new frontier pathways of future transformation when and where humans are collectively mature enough to take advantage.
We are referring only to and about the National Republican Party (NRP) {not to state and local Republican Parties}. The strong tradition of middle-right Republican Governors, illustrated in Massachusetts, demonstrates the value and efficacy of leaders like Mitt Romney and William Weld in bringing conservative management to play in tension with liberal politics.
Interdependent-Collaborator: Leadership is a collective activity ~ Learning & Improvement is the unified goal
Independent-Achiever: Leadership emerges out of individual expertise and heroic action ~ Initiative & Courage is required
Dependent-Conformer ~ People in authority are responsible for leadership ~ Loyalty & Compliance is demanded
The expert-based, disciplined and policy-oriented Independent-Achiever culture of leadership in the NRP of the twentieth century, capable of principles-based strategic leadership, has devolved into a Dependent-Conformer culture. With diminishing strategic direction and eroded core beliefs it is in regression toward a cult-like dis-organization. Framed by the recent POTUS personality whose primary quality demands conformance, compliance and absolute loyalty is the autocratic requirement in direct opposition to the traditional value of individual freedom and choice. Developmentally speaking, this abandons an advancing declaration of independence and regresses rather to compliance and loyalty to the “crown”. The freedom claimed is sacrificed to the new king’s court under the willingness and new rules of NRP extremism (detailed research illustrations to follow).
As I will further define in the next section on Leadership Culture, the Dependent-Conformer culture is the earliest in the hierarchy and the majority of the NRP as evident in the data is the earliest form defined by an extreme need for control and an opportunist ethic. The roots of an opportunistic personality are related to sociopathic instincts where anything goes as-long-as control is secured. It is the lowest common denominator in a society that enables autocrats to emerge and allows them to rise.
This early and most primitive form of Leadership Culture is characterized by a) the need for dominance, a b) feeling-fueled bias-based justification that maintains identity versus the Other, and c) a deeply perceived threat of deprivation or loss. For domination, the bond between the dominators and the dominated are strong because the extreme need for control is satisfied for both. The requirement to incorporate bias stretches normal civic limits of reality to incorporate all manner of psychologically manufactured realities in “alternative facts” and conspiracy-based theories of reality. The sense of deprivation and loss of social identity is a powerful human factor, that more than any other, created the conditions for a World War in 1939.
The earliest signs of a migration to autocracy are seen through media practices, specifically in the choices between propaganda versus journalism. Journalism still exists in America; one need go no further than the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times to see both middle-right and middle-left bias operating inside the traditional standards of journalism. The same extends into the National Review and the Atlantic magazines; just as traditional research standards operate in both the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) with a conservative perspective and the Center for American Progress (CAP) with a liberal perspective, regardless of their right and left bias. NBC’s Lester Holt (a Republican) and Fox news Chris Wallace are journalists. But Sean Hannity is not, and makes no claim to be, though he became, and Fox News supported him in the role of a POTUS shadow press secretary (Garber, 2018).
The rise of Hype & Tripe non-journalism on the right has roots reaching back early into the Reagan administration, and the steady decline of journalism since the dissolution of the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine by conservatives in 1987. Combining with the 21st century rapid rise and dangers of social media, results in the chaos of social media’s non-standards where frightened people looking for a common enemy and a dominant leader congregate (Zuboff 2018, Netflix Documentary 2020). And while one person’s hero is often another person’s goat, the dilemma presented by social media has issued manufactured propaganda and outrageous lies into the sphere of “reality” like seldom before. The “Stop-the-Steal” campaign that lead to January 6 is a baseless, fact-free prevarication, proven false 60-0 by the (new-right) courts and patriotic Republicans at the state and local level alike. Still and yet, the emotions-driven majority believe their hearts and not their heads.
Journalist’s Chris Wallace, Brett Baier, Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, Mona Charan, George Will, Peggy Noonan, Megyn Kelly, Rich Lowry, Chuck Todd, David Brooks, Bob Woodward, Thomas Friedman, Maggie Haberman and Paul Thorton—conservative biased and liberal biased alike--all primarily practice under the traditional standards of journalism set forth in the Fairness Doctrine. However, the dangerous conspiracy theories and intentional lies embedded within much of social media and extreme talk shows do not. There are important insights from social science about why the strong-feeling, but dependent conformist thinking “ditto-heads” that comprised Rush Limbaugh’s audience are there. Social Identity theory and the Us versus Them theme is ever present—tear them down to build us up. As the post-WW2 William Golding novel, Lord of the Flies illustrates so forcefully as tribalism emerges almost overnight among adolescents after an airplane crash (“kill Piggy, drink his blood”).
WE THE PEOPLE: Who have the National Republican majority become?
Al Cardenas, Republican Strategist recounted: “Sadly or tragically I think, lying has become a character defect from the president that’s been accepted by his supporters – including twenty thousand (20k) lies – this huge character defect on the President of the United States; for some reason people are accepting it as a norm” (Cardenas 2020)
A consistent 70% of Republicans polled continued to support a POTUS regardless of how outrageous his unhinged behavior, reflected in these few facts to illustrate:
a) Told 20,000 lies while in office,
b) Fabrication of conspiracy theories like Stop the Steal and the Birther hoax to name only a few of dozens of bizarre “realities” floated in order to demonize the Other.
c) Inclusion of the hard-right, white supremacist, domestic terror organizations inside party functions, Eg., Proud Boys etc.
d) Exclusive use of far-right (non-journalist) media as propaganda platform, and open disregard of the press (legitimate journalism/first amendment) as an “enemy of the people”.
e) Willing acceptance of low-character POTUS; a demonstrable sociopath with multiple personality disorders and a primitive Opprtunist (earliest) stage of adult development (Trump 2020, Torbert 2017, APA/DSM5.)
One could reasonably inquire: How could one-third of our fellow citizens remain faithful to a dictatorial sociopath that even Four star Generals and CEOs alike inside his administration have successively named a “tyrannical, lying, stunningly uniformed, seven year old, idiot”.
Figure 1. Estimate for comparison; integrated from secondary research reference data
Core beliefs (principles) and practices (behaviors/actions) result in the kind of Leadership Culture produced, and determines the kind of direction, alignment and commitment outcomes of leadership. There is a hierarchy of Leadership Culture, and each successive culture is more capable of dealing successfully with more complexity and uncertaintly than the previous one. As previously stated, there are three basic types of Leadership Culture present in all organizations: Dependent-Conformer, Independent-Achiever, and Interdependent-Collaborator. In the complex challenges faced by democracy in the twenty-first century, a certain level of Both/And complex leadership capability is required.
THE RISK
Historically, moderate conservatives continuously make the mistake of a Hopeful-Rationale, explaining away risk and justifying that opportunistic temporary alliances with hard-right conservatives are worth the risk in the short-run, believing they can manage that risk in the longer term with consequent benefits for all. After-all, so the Hopeful-Rationale goes, the threat of the real enemy—the dread Other—is so profound we will bet on our strength to prevail into the future. But history clearly shows this is almost never the case. The autocrats who gain power become dictators and despots, and do not yield that power. In 1972 the middle-class citizens of Chile warmed to this rationale, as did the Soviet Sailors of Kronstadt, and as did thousands of good Christian Nationalist Socialists Germans in 1935. But in each case it is the autocratic cum dictatorial Pinochets and Lenins and Hitlers that co-opt “good” conservatives and take full control. After all, there were tens of thousands of “good” Christian Nazi’s by 1940. This serves to illustrate that a far right ideology doing business with hard-right power is difficult to recover from.
Autocracy is not the path to democracy—autocracy is the enemy of democracy.
In Leadership Culture terms, a primitive political form of Dependent-Conformer culture is extremely vulnerable to excessive control and forced compliance inherent in autocratic leadership. We need to recall the demagogue Joseph McCarthy’s mythical claims of ‘known communists running rampant in the State department’ … all a pack of lies, based on conspiracy theories, floated through suggestion and innuendo propaganda, and fueled by fear, void of evidence and truth. Unchecked, concerns about the hard right are very predictable dangers. We want to believe that America is too institutionally stable to ever topple to either extreme. Considering both extremes is necessary, for both citizens and political leaders alike, in order to maintain a cautious and reasoned perspective, this requirement for such vigilance is further borne out given connections of party identity and loyalty exceeding party policy and principles. The Say-Do gap between stated-beliefs and beliefs-in-action drives behavior; only self-aware behavior can be changed.
ASSUMPTIONS
1) Healthy democracies requires healthy political parties living in creative tension
2) Where ideologies of political parties are opposite, with maturity complementarities can emerge where both sides are half right.
3) Achieving BOTH liberty AND justice requires both independence and aspirations toward greater interdependence
4) Healthy ascendant Leadership Cultures are essential “in order to form a more perfect union”
5) Both political parties need a moderate-middle in order to hold and grow democracy
6) America’s shift from white majority to white minority is driving our social identity crisis; and is socially class-driven
VERTICAL LEADERSHIP CULTURE: A brief didactic
Leadership culture is the self-reinforcing, evolving web of individual and collective beliefs and practices in a culture for producing the outcomes of shared direction, alignment, and commitment. The complexity of an organization’s strategic work is linked to the capability of its leadership cultures – typically plural in nature--to handle that complexity. This includes the collaborative capability to span boundaries among the multiple sub-cultures present in most organizations and communities.
Figure 2. The three vertical stages of Leadership Culture present in all organizational leadership.
There is a Hierarchy of Leadership Culture; each successive culture is increasingly more capable of dealing with complexity, uncertainty and volatility than the previous one.
Advancing levels of leadership “logics” are reflections of the relative maturity and capability that are developed over extended timeframes. These leadership logics are “vertical” and are earned learnings through intentional inside-out self-awareness practices and include facility with beliefs & assumptions, curiosity & imagination, identity & emotions and the human spirit.
Change Leadership is achieved through the balance, connection and integration of “vertical” inside-out awareness in sync with outside-in technical horizontal skills. They are not reflections of “horizontal” or technical knowledge.
Leadership Culture beliefs and practices determine the types of direction, alignment and commitment leadership results; based on learning agility the types of Leadership Culture can both ascend or descend in the face of volatility, uncertainty and complex challenges.
Figure 3, Leadership as Direction, Alignment & Commitment at three levels of Leadership Culture
CALL FOR A RETURN TO REASON
No single political party is capable alone of balancing and integrating all the complimentary oppositional values set forth for within the checks and balances of the U. S. Constitution; this was the brilliance of the framers—to manage diverse beliefs and interests. Healthy political parties, each with significant moderate-middles, are required to advance the Democratic Republic, and to utilize the separation of powers, and the evidence-based inquiry, dialogue and compromise intended by the framers. The vertical ascent from dependent culture under authoritarian rule to more independent minds is a natural evolution. The U.S. Constitution expresses a form of interdependence that uses authority and compromise as tools within a broader vision of collaboration for new and complex frontiers.
In 1998, Pulitzer prize-winning Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson revived the concept of consilience: Knowledge on all subjects is fundamentally unified. The enlightenment thinkers had it right in knowing a lot about everything, he argued. Today’s specialists know a lot about a little—a counterproductive approach in a world where science and art and everything in between stem from the same roots and grow toward the same goals. The issues that vex humanity can be solved but only by integrating fields of knowledge. Intentional transformation to a leadership culture of interdependence is feasible under the right circumstances. Collaborative work uses dialogue, not debate, to understand deeply the challenges we face. Collaboration generates multiple options and integrates the best ones into sustainable solutions. Compromise gives us incremental progress and there is an essential role for that. Collaboration is a creative learning process that combines perspectives and integrates them into something new, breakthrough.
THE PROFILE
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers (evangelicals) get control of the Republican Party—and they are sure trying to do so—it is going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they cannot and will not compromise. I know—I have tried to deal with them!”
~ Barry Goldwater
“Boy, did we screw up” (with the Tea Party). “What a Mess”!
~ Charles Koch
Demographic Shift – Thought-leaders abandoning the party, increase in white men and decrease in women, increase in working class white men, increase in hard-right (previously underground), fewer people of color than expected over twenty years though average 10% increase, strong rural socially isolated white middle class, decreasing youth as percent of whole. Evangelical Christians are 27% of voters in America, and four in five are Republican.
NRP Extremism Examples: NRP research evidence
Scholarly research has revealed that there has been a holistic radicalization of this right-wing media conglomeration--versus centrist or left-wing media (Benkler, Faris & Roberts, 2018). Conservative Republicans have built a political ecosphere that thrives on deceit and lies (Stevens 2020).
Charles Koch and his late brother David helped turn the Tea party into a huge political force, now regrets it
A bellicose fundamentalist evangelical movement, based in dominion theology, threatens the foundation of democracy claiming a theocracy right to rule “unbelievers” (Goldberg, 2006).
American sectarianism is that politicians and political elites themselves are more likely today to push ideologically extreme ideas and language, “with Republican politicians moving further to the right than Democratic politicians have moved to the left.” (Finkel 2020)
NRP thought-leaders abandonment of the party: Eg., George Will, Steve Schmidt and Lincoln Project members, Stuart Stevens; disagree with POTUS and forced to hire security; the Republican Cult (Will, 2017, Boot 2018, Stevens 2020)
Wholesale acceptance of the “Stop the Steal” lie, created in league with POTUS; refusal of peaceful transition of power in a lost election
The emergence of populism as a warning system; movements in America from McCarthyism to Perot, to Buchanan and to the Tea Party and on to the POTUS personality cult
Disinformation: Lying as standard practice, protocol: “Consider the Birther lie about Obama to see how deep is the disregard of seeking objective truth (Boot, 2018). “Alternate Facts” (Conway, 2017). “Tragically lying has become a character defect from the president that's been accepted by his supporters (NRP) … 20,000 lies … this huge character defect on the president of the United States and for some reason people are accepting it as a norm” (Cardenas, 2020).
Loss of a legitimate moral platform of character and justice by admitting all comers from hard-right; this in counter-opposition to actively ridding itself of radical element—like John Birch Society and Ayn Rand—as did the constructionist framers of the 1950’s (Buckley, 1955).
NRA-driven ring-wing militia is 10 times more prominent that left-wing militia (Powell 2020. GHW Bush 1995, Stevens 2020)
Demand for compliance and strict conformance by autocratic POTUS; no loyal opposition; no individual liberty in expression of political point-of-view is tolerated
NRP players regularly suspend U.S Constitutional duties for partisan political wins. Defenses of behavior includes: “it’s not criminal” (McConnell 2016)
Tyranny of majority squelching minority voices. Bill Kristol and Mona Charen castigated for political views and previous NRP Presidential candidates rebuked for exercising their individual liberties and constitutional responsibilities
According to research done by Larry Bartels of Vanderbilt, 50% of Republicans believe “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” (Brooks, 2020)
Propaganda: Since the new conservative post-war movement of the 1950’s a broad and deep network of conservative media activists erected a vast media collection of publishing houses, radio programs, magazines, book clubs and television shows (Hemmer, 2016); much dedicated to non-journalism
Coarse rhetoric as homing device for extremists
Waves of unhinged falsehoods, outright lies and gross manipulations by POTUS
Party over country: 1) NRP in business with Russian intelligence (previous KGB), and 2) when a special investigation revealed several substantial allegations of the President’s obstruction of justice, the Attorney General (Department of Justice) flagrantly lied saying there was no evidence of obstruction of justice. 3) A POTUS like no other--pervasive pattern of contact with Russian Intel that they are all hiding; “No exaggeration that there is no president in modern history who has the same broad and deep connections to any foreign intel service, let alone a hostile government like Russia” (Strozk, 2020).
Primitive defenses, persistent propaganda; an absence of truth-telling in extreme forms of Us V. Them in isolation
National Republican Party
Radical Shift in Beliefs = Radical Shift in Practices:
Stated-Beliefs versus Beliefs-in-Action
I. Fiscal Restraint/Responsibility including free trade, free markets, balanced budgets and small government.
a) Abandonment of free-trade/free-markets: A little over $50 billion is spent annually on social welfare programs whereas a little under $100 Billion is spent on corporate welfare (aka subsidies) and farm subsidies were $22 Billion in 2019. The U.S. government spent nearly 60% more on corporate and farm welfare than it did on social welfare. “Welfare” or “give-away” programs are the right thing to do when recipients are predominantly middle-class and white and not the right thing to do when recipients are predominantly not.
b) Repeal of NAFTA and advance of a Trade-Wars
c) $20 Trillion national debt and growing; no longer discussed, no planned re-payment
d) The Tea Party, built ironically on only fiscal conservative issues, failed to reinstate or reform fiscal policy, but succeeded in making the party more extreme through its “not conservative enough” campaigns (Belkin 2020, Koch 2020)
e) Tax breaks of 2017/18 assisted only the wealthy and aspiring plutocrats, not the middle-class
f) The Tax & Spend Democrats on the 1990s were replaced by the twenty-first century Tax & Spend NRP, just spending on different things
II. Institutional Integrity
a) The conspiracy theory called the “Deep State” can only be suggested and not defined; it makes any government institution suspect
b) American Intelligence community under attack, our safety-net for all
c) International partnerships for national security such as NATO discounted and it’s future threatened
d) All international friends are treated as enemies (public condescension and disrespect); while autocratic enemies are elevated and respected in the public forum
e) Strong defense against traditional enemy Russia is suspended
f) Cabinet agency heads hired with hostile disregard for purpose; example Pruitt in EPA and DeJoy in USPS.
g) POTUS purpose to lay waste to the whole system of the Democratic-Republic as the articulation of ideas about the public good; suspension of respect for evidence, truth, argument and rationality that keeps democracy alive; instillation of tribalism and fear of “the-government” itself.
III. Individual Freedom and Responsibility
a) Conformity is the fundamental rule of the NRP
b) Non-compliance will face the tyranny of the majority; direct threats to individual safety and security are joined with “scarlet-letter” type brand—a public censure, reprimand and condemnation
c) The tribal requirement for conformity and compliance removes respect for individual freedom, integrity and the responsibility to learn and advance
d) POTUS sets primary example for absence of personal responsibility
IV. Social Conservatism
The tradition of guardians of character tracing to the Gentleman conventions of the framers, the caretakers of honor-bound propriety, pride and integrity in the higher art of governing, have fallen silent in the face of condescension, disrespect, prideful mockery, and the disingenuous false claims of spurious mendacity
Tradition and morality focused, though sectarian, social conservatives hold and teach regard for religious and family institutions, and hold court in the public discourse of what is virtuous for civil society
Reserve the right to not only limit the individual freedoms of others, but to criminalize victimless and private activities of alternate choices in private matters of marriage, sexuality, substance-use, lifestyle and personal expression.
Though conservatism has dramatically switched political parties since 1964, social conservatism holds the long black line that connects white separatism to segregation to Jim Crow to slavery; William F. Buckley was famous for the Oxford debate with James Baldwin in 1964 as pro-segregation.
Ironically, and left alone, it is social conservatives in the majority that will seek to commit tyranny on the individual freedom of the minority that they claim to revere, as depicted in Inherit the Wind, a depiction of the Scopes Monkey Trial.
DEPENDENT-CONFORMER CULTURE: How Autocratic Leadership Works
Authoritarian despots in the first fifty years of the 20th Century caused the death of 50 million human souls. The second fifty years were spent in the study of social psychology to explain how it happened. Cultural beliefs are the operating system that drive behaviors. (McGuire & Rhodes, 2009). We have learned how leadership cultures both progress and regress. Changes are driven through the shifts in collective beliefs about what is true and not true. The change map is the gap between stated-beliefs and actual beliefs-in-action. Humans are very adept at tricking themselves into believing in their own rationalizations, justifications and BS.
The insanity of those years is held in the process of Social Identity theory; a normal process of defining our own in-group in comparison to the other’s out-groups. This normal process of knowing who we are in relation to others becomes dangerous when skewed with the intent to make the “others” group as worse than they are so as to fabricate a perception of our group as better than it actually is. Closed mindsets are required to create destructive social identities, radical sectarianism and tribalism (Hogg & Abrams 1988, Tajfel 1979, Ernst 2010). Japan and Germany in the 1930’s are two clear examples of this extreme pathological process at work.
The process of creating negative Social Identity for the vilification of “Other” uses five drivers:
1) Fixed mindsets are closed in the absence of curiosity and inquiry required for learning in growth-mindsets (Dweck, 2006). Absent curiosity and questions the closed mind is geared primarily to defend its turf. This has nothing to do with IQ or technical knowledge. Closed-mindsets is an endless loop of half-truths and innuendo, plagued with self-deluding ignorance.
2) Primitive defenses of denial, projection and obfuscation rely on the inability of the defender to be self-aware. They are not psycho-socially mature enough to (literally) see themselves. Denial is the most primitive and relies on suppression, repression and blocking. Projection is the mental process by which people attribute to “others” what is buried deep in their own psyche; obfuscation makes the intolerable unintelligible, scrambling data/facts into meaninglessness. These defend against personal responsibility and find fault outside with the “other”.
3) Confirmation bias is a fixed-mindset pretzel-twisting of new facts/data such that it confirms the non-evidenced bias belief already committed to. Rather than new facts and evidence changing my growth-mindset, ironically it strengthens my bias in support of prescribed beliefs
4) Polarization is the dogged commitment to either/or thinking, and the rejection of both/and critical thinking. In refusing to accept that complex dilemmas hold two things that are true at the same time; the I-Am-Right therefore they-are-wrong reasoning persists. Either/or choice leads to increased conflict. Both/and choices lead to reduced conflicts. (Johnson, 1996).
5) Fundamentalist ideology -- Exhaustive research confirms how religious and political ideology baked into social-identity sustains itself, especially when facing denied truth, fact and reason. Strict ideologues are fundamentalist-like personal psychology, dedicated to the absence of doubt and the pursuit of non- learning—they don’t have to because they are already right!
When the delusion is deepest, the greatest intelligence is invested in ignorance.
CONCLUSION
As political organizations become more extreme, their policies in action and their actual practice become less cohesive. The more radical a political party becomes, the more tribal or sectarian it becomes.
Where there is no consciousness there is no conscience.
In the extreme, the integration of beliefs to policy to practice come to not matter; only social identity in counter-opposition to the Other matters. And belonging, membership in the cult matters.
Pledges made to protect the U.S. Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic become background noise where traditional enemies of America move to the fore and become allies in order to defeat the fellow-citizens who have become the Other as political enemy. The foundational practices of a Democratic-Republic fade and extremism becomes its own reward. As the defensive structures of social identity gain traction, anything can and will be rationalized. Political practices add behaviors previously considered odius, and what once seemed ludicrous becomes normalized.
The National Republican Party is a shell of its former self—the GOP from the 1950s--where the gap between stated-beliefs and beliefs-in-action have fundamentally shifted from market and fiscal, institutional and individual principles of governing to psycho-social requirements of autocratic dominance and racial-social separation and isolation. The key principle and driver of 18th Century Western Classical Liberal Democracy and the radical principle of Independence and individual freedom has regressed into a culture of Dependence and conformance to autocratic compliance with the “crown”—the very condition for which the revolution was fought over two Centuries ago.
It remains to be seen whether the National Democratic Party (NDP) will continue its advance further left, and this author intends a corollary report on that movement. For now, our Democratic-Republic is in trouble without a viable middle-right and middle-left required to conduct the basic processes of our constitutional democracy.
For the National Republican Party there is no simple way back to balance and integrity, though much can be learned from our history including the recent past. The way forward is not at all clear, but we have more profound work to do beyond primitive partisan problems.
In the twenty-first Century, our strategic intent in advancing the growth and the integration of Capitalism and Democracy awaits. In this century, America’s Democratic-Republic, and its place in the global future depends on it.
AUTHOR DISCLAIMER ~ This author is a member of the Colorado Republican Party, a self-proclaimed political Independent for thirty years, and aspirant to a more mature political spectrum across our country; one that takes seriously the constitution’s call for freedom and equality, liberty and justice for all. Since 2010 he has called for the advance of a new political inquiry-based, growth and learning mindset, and the rise of a newborn and future worthy Declaration of Interdependence for America—one intentioned in the tradition of the founders. The data, facts, knowledge and evidence set forth in this paper are drawn fairly across the spectrum of traditions and standards of research and journalism from the right and the left.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
John B. McGuire, 2020
John is Principal of the McGuire Consultant Group, an Honorary Senior Fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) and co-founder of CCL’s Organizational Leadership Transformation practice, and an Action Inquiry Associate charter member. He specializes in Vertical Leadership Culture as the core mechanism in his change leadership methodology for the transformation of executives, their teams and organizations. As an action-research practitioner, speaker and author, John’s innovation essentially reforms traditional change methods to be consciously driven toward senior leadership’s culture developing interdependent beliefs and practices. Embedded in leader’s strategic mindsets and implemented through organizational systems, structures and processes, the MCG transformation methodology improves the performance of collective leadership and organizational operations simultaneously. Since 2006 his publications comprise the book Transforming Your Leadership Culture, professional journal articles from Integral Review and Leadership Quarterly to Forbes.com and HBR; multiple Handbook chapters from Sage to Harvard Business School to CCL; Op-ed columns in the Washington Post and other popular press; and an action research series of CCL Vertical White Papers. John has assisted organizations across market sectors in transformation toward Interdependent Leadership Cultures, and previously practiced vertical transformation through senior business management positions across industries. He holds master’s degrees from Harvard and Brandeis Universities.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: References are from credible and reliable researchers, journalists and institutions; and primarily stem from conservative Republican thought leaders.
American Enterprise Institute, Cox, D., Survey Center on American Life: NPR, February 11, 2021.
American Psychological Association, Diagnostical and Statistical Manual V.5. (APA DSM5). See Sociopathy: Anti-Social Personality Disorder; and Dependent Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Belkin, Douglas. Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2020.
Boot, Alex. The Corosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right. New York, Liveright, 2018.
Brooks, David. What Will You Do If Trump Doesn’t Leave? NYT, September 5, 2020.
Buckley, William, F. National Review Editor, 1955-1990.
Bush, G.H.W. Letter of Resignation, Bush to National Rifle Association. New York Times, May 11, 1995.
Cardenas, Al. Republican Strategist, Meet the Press, September 13, 2020.
Conway, Kelly-Anne. “Alternate Facts” declaration/comment, NBC Meet the Press. January 2017.
Dweck, Carol S. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Ballantine Books, Random House, New York, 2006.
Finkel, Eli J. Et al. Political Sectarianism in America, Science. October 30, 2020. {Construct of political sectarianism; identifying three core ingredients: othering, aversion, and moralization.}
Garber, Megan. Sean Hannity Is Trump’s Shadow Press Secretary. The Atlantic, Nov 6, 2018.
Goldberg, Jonah. Suicide of the West: How Tribalism, Nationalism and Socialism is Destroying American Democracy, Random House, (2018) 2020 paperback edition.
Goldberg, Michelle. Kingdom Coming: Rise of Christian Nationalism. Amazon.com, 2006.
Gross, Jenny. NYT, Center for Strategic and International Studies, DHS Report: Far-Right Groups Are Behind Most U.S. Terrorist Attacks, Report Finds. October 24, 2020.
Haidt, Jonathon. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Random House, 2012.
Hogg, Michael A. and Dominic Abrams. Social Identifications: A Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations and Group Processes. London: Routledge, 1988.
Johnson, Barry. Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems. Amherst MA. HRD Press, 1992.
Kazin, Michael. The Populist Pursuasion, Cornell University Press, 1995
Koch, Charles. Wall Street Journal, Tea Party editorial. November 14, 2020
Lepore, Jill. These Truths; A History of the United States. W. W. Norton, 2018
Levitsky, Steven and Ziblatt, Daniel, How Democracies Die, Penguin, Random House. 2019.
Lowry, Rich, et al. The National Review: (editors) Against Trump. February 15, 2016
McCarty, Nolan, What we know and don’t know about our polarized politics, Washington Post. January 8, 2014)
McGuire, John B., Rhodes, Gary B. Transforming Your Leadership Culture. Jossey-Bass, 2009
McGuire, J.B., Palus, C.P. The Vertical Transformation of Leadership Culture, Integral Review, 2018.
McGuire, John B. Growing Up Fundamentalist: Reflections on Two Opposing Experiences. Essay, 2020
McCarty, Nolan, What we know and don’t know about our polarized politics, Washington Post, January 8, 2014
Meacham, Jon. The Battle for the Soul of America, Penguin Random House. 2018.
Merefield, Clark. Political Sectarianism in America: Three things driving the ‘ascendance of political hatred’, Journalist’s Resource: Research on today’s New Topics; Harvard Kennedy School
Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. October 29, 2020.
Perlstein, Rick. Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980, Simon & Schuster. 2020; (also as reported in interview with Michael Bobelian, Washington Post, 8/28/20)
Pew Research Center. Report: Political Polarization in the American Public, June, 2014; Report: Partisan Antipathy, October 2019.
Powell, Josh, The NRA and Wayne LaPierre’s Next Foe: One of their Own. 2020
Rooke, D. & Torbert, W. Seven Transformations of Leadership. Harvard Business Review. April, 66-77. 2006.
Schmidt, Steve, et al. Republican Strategist, The Lincoln Project. 2020
Seib, Gerald F. (Wall Street Journal, Executive Editor), We Should Have Seen It Coming, 2020.
Social Dilemma: Netflix documentary. 2020
Stevens, Stuart. It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party became Donald Trump. Penguin, Random House, 2020.
Strozk, Peter. Compromised. Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt. 2020 .
Torbert, William. Williamtorbert.com, Trumping Trump: profile as Opportunist leader logic, January 3, 2017.
Trafjel, Henri. Individuals and Groups in Social Psychology (the advent of Social Identity theory), The British Psychology Society, 1979.
Trump, Mary L. Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. Simon and Schuster, 2020.
Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste, Random House. 2020.
Will, George. The Conservative Sensibility. Hatchett Books, New York, 2019.
Wilson, Rick. Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever. New York: Free Press, 2018.
Zuboff, Shoshona. In the Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 2018. (also referenced in Netflix documentary film, the Social Dilemma)
ADDENDUM 1
Philosophy: the McGuire Consultant Group
The Pursuit of Truth, 2019.
“We mean truth simply and directly. By the process of truth-telling we mean to be active in the pursuit of truth. Whether evidence based scientific truth or truth as perception and faith, or a combination of both; we mean the process of truth-telling as the intent to be conscious and self-aware; and to advance our knowledge, and perhaps even our collective wisdom. In truth-telling, the difference in your perception and my perception form in combination to construct new democratic forms and socio-political orders: truth is worth pursuing together. Through inquiry in action we seek to generate multiple right answers that advance our team, organization and society, and provide competitive edge that stretches the independent mindset: I am right versus you are right perpetual arguments. The absence of the pursuit of truth is either likely dedicated to maintaining the status quo by failing or refusing to consciously examine beliefs and assumptions that block our progress, or the outright conscious manipulation of truth for political or personal gain—these are not in the pursuit of truth. Undiscussable topics create toxic underground cultures that are ruinous to people and their organizations and societies. Open, learning dialogue through Action Inquiry creates a pathway from healthy exploration of data to knowledge to adaptive and generative learning for the good of “freedom and justice for all.”
ADDENDUM 2
Leadership Culture GAP quick tool: upon request