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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Authoritarianism | 8/8 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T14:56:26.680758+00:00 | kb-cron |
In United States politics, white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi skinheads, and adherents of the Christian Identity, ideology have long operated as a loose network. In the internet age, far-right extremists throughout the U.S. and much of the West have consolidated further into a movement known as the Alt-Right, which has inspired numerous terrorist attacks while at the same time increasing the mainstream appeal of white supremacism. According to Azani et al.:The current resurgence of far-right ideology may be explained by a variety of factors, primarily, the strategic adjustment of white supremacists to soften overtly racist rhetoric in order to appeal to a wider audience. This new discourse attempts to normalize white supremacy, developing intellectual and theoretical foundations for racism based on the notion that the white race is at risk of eradication, threatened by the growing population of immigrants and people of colour. The pre-existing, offensive white supremacist, fascist and neo-Nazi ideas that drove the white power movement of the twentieth century were thus rebranded through a new innocuous defensive frame of white victimhood. As such, the new strategy of racist rhetoric has allowed the movement to co-opt mainstream political debates surrounding immigration and globalization, drawing large audiences through a deliberate obfuscation of the underlying ideology.Far-right extremism has played a key role in promoting the Great Replacement and White genocide conspiracy theories, and an "acceleration" of racial conflict through violent means such as assassinations, murders, terrorist attacks, and societal collapse in order to achieve the building of a white ethnostate. While many contemporary extreme far-right groups eschew the hierarchical structure of other authoritarian political organizations, they often explicitly promote cultural authoritarianism alongside xenophobia, racism, antisemitism, homophobia and misogyny, as well as authoritarian government interventions against perceived societal problems.
=== Contemporary === There is no one consensus definition of authoritarianism, but several annual measurements are attempted. States characterized as authoritarian are typically not rated as democracies by The Economist Democracy Index or as 'free' by Freedom House's Freedom in the World index, and do not reach a high score on V-Dem Democracy Indices. According to an April 2025 survey, known as Bright Line Watch, of more than 500 U.S.-based political scientists, the vast majority think the United States is moving from liberal democracy to a form of authoritarianism.
== See also ==
== Notes ==
== References == Citations
== Bibliography == Amandae, Sonja (2003). Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy: The Cold War Origins of Rational Choice Liberalism. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-01654-2. Huntington, Samuel P. (1970). Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society: The Dynamics of Established One-party Systems. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00569-7. Linz, Juan J. (1964). "An Authoritarian Regime: The Case of Spain". In Allard, Eric; Littunen, Yrjo. Cleavages, Ideologies and Party Systems. Helsinki: Academic Bookstore. Löwy, Michael (1986). "Mass organization, party, and state: Democracy in the transition to socialism". Transition and Development: Problems of Third World Socialism. 94.
== Further reading == Frantz; Erica; Geddes, Barbara; Wrights, Joseph (2018). How Dictatorships Work. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316336182. Sanna Lundquist, Jan Teorell, Michael Wahman & Faradj Koliev. 2026. "Updated data and new insight: a new version of WTH’s authoritarian regime type dataset." Democratization.
== External links == Quotations related to Authoritarianism at Wikiquote