Support for authoritarianism can spread person to person, like a disease. Here's how to stop it.

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In this week's episode, Andrea Pitzer looks at recent research suggesting that support for authoritarianism spreads socially from person to person. Researchers from the University of Oslo in Norway and the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment surveyed recruits before and after boot camp and found that those assigned to peers with greater support for authoritarian rule would end up adjusting their views to support strongmen too. The authors also surveyed Norwegians outside the original military setting, as well as 25,000 others from nearly 30 countries.

Andrea considers the results in light of other ideas about authoritarianism and ponders how the reverse effect might work—whether making others aware of one's rejection of authoritarian rule might likewise be "contagious." The episode closes with a list of ways to think about reestablishing democracy and better safeguarding it in the US.

Get ONE LONG NIGHT: A Global History of Concentration Camps by Andrea Pitzer https://bookshop.org/p/books/one-long-night-a-global-history-of-concentration-camps-andrea-pitzer/ea53c06c993f6ad0?ean=9780316303569

0:00 Why Trumpism Is Contagious: Democracy Under Siege 0:25 Rush Limbaugh, Fox News & The Collapse of American Democracy 1:40 How Propaganda Shapes Authoritarian Movements Worldwide 2:26 The Study: Is Support for Authoritarian Rule Contagious? 3:29 Norway Boot Camp Experiment: How Peer Pressure Spreads Authoritarianism 6:32 The Psychology Behind Why People Support Strongmen 8:54 Cultural Backlash: Pippa Norris on the Rise of the Authoritarian Right 13:33 The Three Components of Authoritarianism Explained 16:01 How Populist Rhetoric Destroys Trust in Democracy 19:58 How to Fight Back Against the Authoritarian Contagion