There are enough tankies and left wing TERs (sometimes but not always the same people) in the UK to make me question that part. Then there are groups like the National Bolsheviks in Russia
For sure and agree, not all the authoritarians are on the right. But from looking at the demographics in the US, saying most are right-wing still seems very accurate. From looking at population numbers, right wing authoritarians massively outnumber leftwing authoritarians and have for decades. Altermeyer’s experience among studying authoritarian followers found a complementary association from the other direction - most surveyed authoritarian followers tended to have right-wing “conservative” political views and ideologies.
This is also borne out by the face that there was no left-wing authoritarian who was anywhere near as well supported as Nixon, or Reagan, or either Bush, or Trump. The most you might get are populists like Huey Long or arugably George Wallace, who still at their most popular still had much, much smaller loyal voting bases. And also were by no means dedicated to left wing policies.
I’m also not a UK expert by any means, but I can’t think of any reliably left-wing UK politician who is as solidly supported as Boris Johnson, who appears to be appreciated by the authoritarians of the right.
I saw how the alt-right rose, and I am not about to let the worst of the left-wing do the same and dictate what is correct to the rest of us on the left.
For sure, absolutely agree. I just think it’s useful to call the numbers what they are, to make sure we’re not slipping into false equivalence. From all the numbers I can see, right-wing authoritarian followers are currently much more numerous and much more dangerous, in the US and arguably most of the developed world.
