Article 2 - REVIEW OF "Conservatives without Conscience" NOVEMBER 2006 edition of First Church of The Streets

    What happened to Barry Goldwater's Republican Party? And is there some kind of polarization going on in politics? In "Conservatives without Conscience", John W. Dean investigates these questions, explores the dynamics that lead a people to autocracy and the acquiescence to the death of the democratic process, and the people that will hijack that process for them. He explains the rise of angry politics and the radio hacks that cheerlead it, and how and why that appeals to certain people as the real thing.

    Dean was White House counsel briefly in the Nixon White House, uncovering and testifying about the plot to blow up the think tank, the Brookings Institution. Afterwards, he took himself out of politics for over a decade. He became aware of the shift of the Republican Party from classical conservatism to autocratic control when he had to fight off a smear campaign through the publication of a book, "Silent Coup". In this book, it appeared that there was some agenda to malign those who brought the Nixon administration down. The book was proved to be nearly baseless in its charges, and seemed to do nothing but be a character assassination attempt in a salacious attack.

    But it wasn't so much the book that convinced him that the Republican party had changed, but the call to arms the book sought through right-wing radio shows and grass-roots conservatism. Though Dean proved the book to be baseless, the authors of the book still received air time from the likes of MSNBC's Monica Crowley, and Fox News' Brit Hume and James Rosen. Why would talented journalists promote such false smear? Dean wondered. This is when he decided to see what happened to the gentlemanly Republican Party promoted by Barry Goldwater, and how it degenerated to such and authoritarian state.

    The book covers his findings and investigations. Dean describes in depth the studies of two analysts with two different findings: the Right-Wing Authoritarian Personality by Bob Altemeyer, and the classic study on obedience to authority by Stanley Milgram, whereby a subject is told by an authoritarian figure to torture another. Dean studies these psychological dynamics in depth, describes how they have infiltrated the conservative wing of the Republican Party, and why Democrats, libertarians, and liberal and moderate Republicans are less likely to be afflicted with the authoritarian personality. He explains why this conservative cohort is more likely to harbor authoritarians, and how and why this is a challenge to a democratic society in detail.

    Dean's book is a polemic which criticizes others in its genre, such as the work of Ann Coulter. However, his tone is gentlemanly, thoughtful and respectful, unlike much of the vitriol that tends to come from similar rhetoric. Dean has taken the time to research the subject and use scholarship to back his argument, as well as personal experience and opinion. His discourse would provide a good framework for conducting dialectic between the parties on equal terms, which is what is best to include all in the democratic process. And discourse is needed if all are going to be afforded the equality guaranteed to them in the Constitution that conservatives, including the authoritarian ones, so vehemently defend.