Listen, I am not saying that James Dobson is personally responsible for our authoritarian moment in the U.S.*

But I absolutely am saying that when you take a half century of religious authoritarian parenting practices in which violence and submission to authority were the foundation stones of the upbringing of several generations of people,** and simultaneously there was an entire infrastructure funded by huge amounts of money dedicated to getting those very same people*** into politics...

it is no surprise that we're currently having an authoritarian moment in the U.S. And I don't understand why everyone else isn't talking about this all the time.



*There's an upswing around the world that also has to be taken into account. And also there's always been an authoritarian streak in American culture

**For the explicitly-stated reason of undoing the cultural revolution of the 1960s and in ways that scarily reflect religious authoritarian parenting practice in Germany in the late 19th and early 20th century...

***Two of the most horrifying words in the English language are "Joshua Generation"