Is Republicanism a mental illness?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

28. I think right-wing authoritarianism best explains it.

After all, it was supposedly right-wing authoritarian "personality" that best predicted if someone supported Trump during the 2016 GOP primaries.

The One Weird Trait That Predicts Whether You’re a Trump Supporter: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533/

Coincidentally, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) became a topic of interest after the rise of fascism in Europe prior to WW2. So calling them fascists is pretty accurate.

It requires strict adherence to group thinking (or tribalism) to be a RWA, under the guidance of a "strong leader", which usually means that critical thinking and logic are sacrificed by the individuals to maintain allegiance to their group. They'll either ignore or go through extreme mental gymnastics to defend their group, even when faced with contradictory evidence and logic.

Overview of RWA here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarian_personality#:~:text=In%20psychology%2C%20the%20right%2Dwing,conformist%20in%20thought%20and%20behavior.

Edit:
It's a very non-scientific way of thinking, since scientists will happily use evidence and logic to disprove the ideas of their own colleagues. If those colleagues are well-established and widely-respected, that's even better!
So it's not too surprising that only 6% of scientists identified as Republicans according to a Pew poll in 2013:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/only-six-percent-of-scien_n_229382/amp

I can usually spot a RWA pretty quickly, if they seem to value a particular group of people more than CONCEPTS!