Is There a Bias Asymmetry Between Democrats and Republicans?

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Thereโ€™s a must read item today at the Huffington Post by Jonathan Weiler, co-author of the excellent book Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics. Weiler argues (as have I) that the โ€œRepublican war on science,โ€ a term that I coined, is really just a subset of the โ€œRepublican war onย reality.โ€

And not just that. Weiler further asserts that weโ€™re seeing this right now because the Republican party is full of authoritariansโ€”people who think theyโ€™re 100 percent right and everyone who disagrees with them is 100 percent wrong, and who have little tolerance for ambiguity orย complexity.

All my research on ideology points to this conclusion as wellโ€”but Iโ€™m not sure Weiler fully articulates how authoritarians can be so factually wrong, and also sure of themselves and unable to admitย correction.

To me, what seems to occur in authoritarian reasoning is that you firmly define in your mind an outgroup (liberals, environmentalists), and you then automatically take any claim that denigrates that outgroup (socialists, traitors) to be true. And then, if this claim is refuted, youโ€™re outraged and you come to believe the false claim even more strongly than before. You double down. (This, of course, would explain why Tea Party climate deniers are so sure ofย themselves.)

And thatโ€™s not all. If youโ€™re an authoritarian, you also probably leap to ideologically friendly conclusions to begin with. And when your ideological opponents are making an argument thatโ€™s characterized by a lot of nuance, you attack a caricatured, simplistic version ofย it.

Indeed, you probably find the making of nuanced argumentsโ€”and the expression of uncertaintyโ€”to be inherent signs of weakness. And you probably find people who constantly talk in nuanced ways, like President Obama or most university professors, to be suspicious, untrustworthy. Who do authoritarians trust? A strong leader who states it clearly, plainly, and toughly and doesn’tย waver.

If Weiler is rightโ€”and I think he isโ€”then what this means is that we probably have a bias asymmetry in American politics. And thatโ€™s a really bigย deal.

Journalists, fact checkers, and so on go around acting as though there is a โ€˜pox on both their housesโ€™โ€”everybody has their own biases, everybody lies and distorts, so we need โ€œbalancedโ€ journalism to handle this equally distributed nonsense. But Weiler suggests that this is not actually true. Rather, it should be the case that one group gets more things wrong, misrepresents and distorts more, and is less willing to admit to error or correction, or to change its mind.

Does that sound like modern American politics? Does that sound like the climate fight, or the healthcare fight, or arguments over economicย policy?

It sure does to meโ€ฆbut donโ€™t expect authoritarians to ever admitย it!

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