Applying For A Romanian Age Limit, Early Retirement Or: Fill & Download for Free

I was born in Bangalore, got very interested in computers at a young age of 8.At age 11.5, I, my two siblings, brother (age 16.5) and sister, (age 20.5) and mother (and 3 other kids of my sisters age) left Bangalore and went and lived in a remote forested part of the upper Himalayas (why? that's too long a story)Eleven years we lived there (obviously I got no formal education, but learned most of what I know by self study).The other three kids had to leave after a few months due to immense parental pressure.The relationship between the rest of us turned from a mere family thing to one similar to a survival team, it's not easy living in such places if you are a city person, and if your finances are very limited.Those 11 years deserve a book on their own. Actually several, because between the four (or maybe seven) of us, there is a lot that we experienced, both together and personally.Some stuff about that time I have written here :The elements - WaterThe elements - FireThe fear of death, to the death of fearMy other blogs are :Antics with semantics - Code relatedCranks, Shafts and etc. - Motorbike relatedYou can find links to my mothers blog (massive amounts of content there) and my siblings blogs in the "Blogs of note" section.Age 22, I come to Bangalore, get hired at a startup over a yahoo conversation in the "Programming:1" chatroom - I wasn't even looking for a job. I'm serious!I move to Chennai, work from end 2002 to early 2005.2003 I buy the then most powerful motorbike in India,2004 April I buy a flat.2005 Jan, I crash and break my left knee.I quit my job, loaded with debts (didn't have complete medical insurance cover), move to Dehradun on an impulse, stay with my brother.I start freelancing, initially make a few dollars, but soon things get better and I'm financially OK after 3 or 4 months. I sell my flat and pay off all debts, we rebuild the bike, and I can walk and ride reasonably normally again.In early 2006, I meet a Romanian girl in _ where else? Yahoo "Programming:1" _ and we slowly fall in crazy love. After several months we decide to get married. It's not easy for an "unqualified person" to move to Europe, nor is it easy for East Europeans to get visas to India easily. So we both fly to Mauritius, meet for the first time face to face, and in 7 days were legally married.Then I applied for a visa to go there on the basis of that marriage and I live there.I completely turned my life inside out and managed to get there.It was quite wonderful, but after a period of time things do not work out, so about 20 months later, we mutually agree to part ways, and I flew back to India and settle in Bangalore.Since then I "de-geeked" myself quite a lot, turned a bit extrovert, got into fitness and martial arts, learned a bit of improv dance, wrote fiction, taught myself the harmonica and the flute (somewhat), made a number of friends from diverse backgrounds, tried to do as many new and unique things as possible (Still trying to do that).As of now I'm trying to learn to rebuild/modify motorbikes and am looking to make a career out of it. I also have an idea that might improve efficiency of I.C. engines by a good amount, and I will be prototyping that over the course of this year.Life looks great, except I'm once again in the "Damn I wish I had that special someone" phase of relationships. But things generally tend to fall into place when the time is right.Lessons I learned (caveat emptor)1) Formal education is less valuable than the paper on which the degree is printed.2) If you never do heavy physical activities, you will live in a delusion that mental "white collar" work requires more skill3) Financial security is a myth - For the past 7.5 years I have never had savings of more than a few 100$. I live month to month, never knowing whether I will get a project to cover next months bills. I just knew I would get enough projects and I always have. Understand risk factors rationally - ATGATT is more rational than an insurance policy.4) Specialization is for insects... If you do not develop diverse interests and skills, you limit your experience. I can do at least 5 things as a career and many more as hobbies. The more things you do, the more your big picture knowledge grows and the more awesome people you meet.5) Change is inevitable, things will be lost. You cannot cling to geography, people, things, relationships and so on forever. Everything will be different some day. Better accept that than live in a delusion.6) Your self is the most important thing in the world - Build a strong unshakeable identity like an oak tree. Grow, but don't mutate. Don't hold yourself to any standards but your own. Don't change depending on the situation or the people around you. Don't hide parts of your self simply to look politically correct or get social approval. Be a consistent self, who thinks acts and speaks the same in all situations. Never be embarrassed for your self or actions. Never regret what you did, instead analyze and optimize.7) Do not waste your precious youth years - you have infinite energy, libido, optimism, and social interaction. Learn, love, lift, laugh as much as you can then, because life will eventually make you more cynical and bitter, and you will lack that blissful ignorance when you grow older.8) There are no limits to when and where you can do something - You can sing on the street, ride in the rain, or workout at midnight even when you are 75 years old. The question you want to ask is "Do I want to do this", not "What would the world think of me when I do this"9) For Bughuul's sake, keep yourself fit! I had the advantage of engaging in extreme physical activity at a young age (carrying logs equal to my bodyweight for kilometers etc.). I lapsed for several years, but got back again. The benefits of a strong healthy body extend to the brain also. You get discipline, forbearance, an ability to withstand pain, tenacity, self esteem and confidence. There's a feeling of great power when you can open a jar of Kissan Jam without heating the seal.10) You don't "have to" do anything - Marrying, having kids, having a job, owning a house, having a retirement fund, this that and the other - All of these are carrots and sticks of humanity to keep life going on. What you need to do is be true to yourself, free of self doubt, free of any mental shackles that can pull you down.

Spread of Latinity during the Roman Empire’s extent over Balkans, Pannonia and Carpathians, between 2 Century BC early 7 Century AD.First of all, Romania wants nothing from Serbia but to respect its ethnic identity and internationally recognized Daco-Romanian language, same way Romania respects and provides full minority rights to Serbian minority in Romania and distinguishes Serbian language from other south Slavic languages. You can’t fool 27–30 million peeps that somehow they don’t know what language they speak.Vlachs or Serbia cannot create a separate ethnic identity, out of ethnic Romanians. Like any other state Romania has the right and obligation to preserve and support its ethnic identity and does same for the Serbian minority in Romania.The following should enable a glimpse of history, to those who didn’t have the opportunity to learn it as it was yet.Analyzing the Vlachs of Serbia and the region, is fair to say that Serbia annexed Timoc region in 1833, seizing an opportunity of Ottoman defeat by the Russians at Danube, being provided with Russian military help and since then an intense process of Serbianization was carried out on Vlachs. Prior to that date the region of Timoc never belonged to Serbia before.Going back in time, is worth mentioning that the first Serbian dynasty of Vlastimir (baptized Vlas), who united Serbian tribes and ruled in early 9 Century, might have been Vlasi, of Vlach origin. During 7–9 Centuries is hard to tell which regional tribes were Slavs or Vlachs, given that contemporary sources don’t provide such details, or how many of those Vlach tribes in the area were Slavicized before and after early 9 Century. Given that at those times only church could spread a language over masses of different ethnic groups and the Slavonic church was spread only after was implemented as state religion in Moravia and then, after Magyar conquest of Pannonia, transferred south and spread though Bulgars, who were in control of most of current Serbia that time, can safely estimate that in the Byzantine and Serbian controlled areas of north west Balkans, church was either not spread to Slavs yet, or part of early Christianized south Slavs had church in Greek. Serbs were officially Christianized in 870s, when Basil I requested the foundation of the Eparchy of Ras, which implies that the only Christians in the region in early 9 Century. predating the Christianization of the area in late 9 Century by the Byzantines and the Christianization of Slavs and Bulgars in late 9, early 10 Century, were the former Romans or Vlachs. Long after first Serbian state was formed, most probably Serbian language was of no use to Vlach populations of mostly shepherds, living in secluded mountainous areas, such as Dalmatia, Stari Vlach, Romania Mountains of Serbia, or in the Byzantine, Bulgarian and later Ottoman controlled areas of Balkan mountains, but probably was useful as lingua franca to those merchant Vlachs known as Carvunars, traveling long distances with goods all over Balkans. The need to know a Balkan’s language appeared after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, trace of new borders, movement restrictions within defined boundaries and abandon of ancestral occupations of shepherding and merchant travel. An important role to the adherence of most Orthodoxy of north west Balkans to the Serbian church, and the inclusion in time within the ethnic Serbian group, had the Patriarchate of Pec, founded in 1346 by Stefan Dushan.Well, certain is that, according to Royal Frankish Annals of 822, Vlastimir united Serbian tribes in their “homeland of Dalmatia”, inhabited since Byzantine Heraclid period (610 - 672), during the south and west Bulgar conquest expeditions of Presian. Vlastimir also received recognition and help from the Byzantine Emperor Theophilos, which also meant allegiance and help to Byzantines against Bulgars. There is also specified a Byzantine control over the west side of Serbia and the coastal Dalmatia, which places the Slavic Serbian homeland in east Dalmatia, in the area that became known as Rascia.Worth observing that early Slavic Serbs named themselves Ras, which in written Slavic is Rus or Ruth, same way as spelled Russia is Rassia, Ruthene - Rusyn, while the large mass of Servian, Serbian or Sclavum people of Central, South and East Europe was the Generic Latin name given to those populations of East Europe, for 3 Centuries under Avar rule.No written sources attest any Slav ethnicity or country, prior to the generic name given by the Latins, to the enslaved population under Avar rule, while the Southern part of the temporarily free Samo Empire was the land of ‘Walluch’, the Northern part being the ancestors of future known as West Slavs.Sclavum, Slavorum, Servorum, Serborum meant that the entire population under Avar rule was dedicated to provide the Avar Khaganate with labor, on the production of crops and the exploitation of mines. Females’ role was to procreate with the Avars, coming into communities twice a year, and to raise children up to the age of 12, when boys were taken to the army and girls became eligible to procreate, with and for the Avar.Serbian name could only have preexisted the Avar rule over the Eastern Europe, if they were the Iranian Serbi tribe that migrated early 6 Century, most probably along the Avars, from north east Caucasus, Kalmyk Oblast today, to Lower Silesia today, from where in early 7 Century, encouraged by the Byzantine withdrawal from Balkans in 620 AD or invited by the Heraclids to fence off the Avar expand, a part of the Serbi descended in north west Balkans, over the region known as Rascia since.Slavic language itself is a Balto - Iranian language, which added on expand and assimilation of local populations Latin and Celto - Germanic borrowings and that is only obvious, as we know that early Serbs were an Iranian population.About VlachsIn the last few centuries Vlachs of the Balkans were thought to believe that are some sort of roaming nomad shepherd freaks, without a corresponding ethnic identity, god knows how they acquired a useless language, a language that doesn’t deserve the effort to be learned or thought in schools.Vlachs are the remnants of the Eastern Roman population, in Balkans and around the boundaries of the Roman and Eastern Roman Empire, first time named Vlachs by Theophylact Simocatta in 7 Century, after the Greeks took control of the Roman Empire, and wanting to get rid of Romans, dilute and blur them in space, changed their name. The Roman population of Balkans evolved in 800 years, out of Roman legions stationed and retired in their work place in 40 generations, Roman population which by early 7 Century counted 26 Million Roman citizens, mostly Vulgar Latin and later Proto - Romance speakers, mostly in Balkans and around. They represent the backbone, the majority of what future Balkan nations have become, after Greek, Slavic and Albanian languages were imposed in time on them.Prior to 7 Century AD Vlachs were the Romans, after the Greeks gained control of Constantinople and abandoned Balkans in 620 AD the Romans gradually withdrew in the mountainous areas and became known as Vlachs.After the Bulgar conquest of the area Vlachs resurfaced in the area related to an ambush and kill in the mountains of the brother of Tsar Simeon I, self declared Emperor of the Bulgars and Romans.Between 1025 - 1185 the area of Timoc fell under Byzantine Greek rule and after the Vlach Asen brothers revolt and the formation of their empire over most Balkans, Wallachia and Cumania, what is now half south of Moldova, was part of the Vlach and Bulgar Empire until 1396, after 1349 as autonomous Principality of Vidin; Between 1397 - 1422 was either Wallachian protectorate or part of Wallachia, as Mircea the Elder mentions the territory across the Danube within the extent of his country. He erected the church of Karavlashi (Black Vlachs or North Vlachs) after the 1397 defeat of Ottomans at Rovine and Negotin, before was conquered by the Ottoman in 1422.Vlachs above the Haemus / Balkan Mountains to Danube river and Vlachs above the Danube to Carpathian Mountains are same ethnic group that founded in 1185, on both sides of Danube, up to Moldova and Dniester River, the Vlach and Bulgar Empire and its ethnogenesis goes hand in hand since before and after the Roman conquest of the region, previously inhabited by the same ethnic group known as Geto - Dacians. The Vlach and Bulgar Empire lost control above Danube during Bulgar emperor Boril and in a short span of time lost most of the expansion realized during the Asens. Theodore Asen, defeated the Byzantines and crowned himself emperor as Peter Asen IV with Cuman and Vlach help from above the Danube.It was a conjunction of factors that entirely separated the Vlach group from Moesia from the Vlachs of north Danube. First of all the Mongol invasion broke the Cuman rule over the Vlach statal voivodeships, which enabled their union and the formation of Wallachia under Basarabs, by the second half of 13 Century, then the taking over by the Ottomans bellow Danube sealed a separate fate of the same ethnic group.About BulgarsSince arrival above Danube in early 7 Century the history of Bulgars intermingled with that of the Romanized population from both sides of Danube. While the remnants of the initially turano - iranian population were absorbed into the Slavic speaking tribes, specially after the final defeat by Basil II in 1118, the Romanized population continued to live mostly in the high grounds of Balkan and Carpathian mountains. After the disintegration of Avar Kaghanate in 804, khan Krum took control over most of Avar territories, except Moravia, which became independent and is assumed that Slavic prominence in the Bulgar Empire was achieved primarily on its western side, through Methodius’s followers expelled from Moravia in 885, warmly welcomed by tzar Boris and sent to establish a Slavonic church to the newly conquered Sclavini around Ohrid. Mission was a great success as soon as the Greek baptized Boris (a few years earlier) realized the advantage of imposing over the Bulgar Empire his own Slavonic church.We were informed that there were several waves of Slavs penetrating Balkans. as early as 6 Century onward, but all we are left with are Balto - Germanic, Iranian and most probably Thracian names. As we have no written records from them and archaeology attests that the first few waves of those Slavs melted assimilated into existing cultures of indigenous inhabitants, no one could safely predict what sort of ethnicity they were or what languages they spoke. Considering their names is safe to assume that they were groups of different ethnicity, set on the move south mostly to escape Slavery from the Avars, then to posses land in freedom, taking advantage of the vacuum of power created by the complete Byzantine withdrawal from the Balkans.Do not confuse the Latin speaking Roman Empire with the averted in 610 AD Byzantine Empire of the Greek. For 9 Centuries they had no land to defend in Balkans, other than parts of the South. Even before that time, bellow Balkan Mts was all Macedonian for 2 Centuries, Thracian in the East Balkans and Illyrian in the West. So before 1018 Greeks never had control above south Balkans in history and any sort of buffer populations, between them and the Avars were welcome, while the indigenous Roman population often revolted and no longer identified itself with the Empire ruled by the Greeks for the Greeks.By the end of XI Century Anna Komnene, wrote in her Alexiad about the northern borders of the Byzantine Empire, where mentions that on both sides of the Danube live many wealthy Dacian tribes and bellow Haemus Mountains live Thracians and Macedonians and they are known as Vlachs. Kekaumenos, Byzantine general of Armenian origin, who wrote Strategikon and married the daughter of the Vlach ruler of Thessaly Nikolitza Delphinas, wrote about the Vlach revolt of year 1078 and their origin in the Romanized Dacian and Bessi (Getae) tribes of the Danube. Bessi being also the founder Wallachian and Moldavian dynasty of Bessarabs.Vlachs post Ottoman eraBy the end of 19 Century Vlachs were still the largest ethnic group in Balkans by far and from a ‘declared’ 3,2 Million in 1890s drastically reduced to few tens of thousands today. Meantime Balkan countries like Serbia monumentally increased population from 680,000 in 1840 to 4,8 Million, after the Independence war - won by Russia and Romania for the newly formed Balkan countries. There were also the Balkan wars, finished by Romania closing on Sofia, then the bloody WW1, won by France and allies for Serbia, allies like Romania and its stubborn defense on the eastern front, against same joint armies led by Makensen, armies that earlier crushed and occupied Serbia, and by fixing the Axis bulk on the eastern front engaged at braking the Romanian front, made the liberation of Serbia from the south possible. The French, UK, Greek, Serbian armies mainly had to defeat the Bulgarians to advance north, while on the Romanian front most of the German army of the east, Austro - Hungarian and north Bulgarian armies, broke neck at Battles of Marasesti, Marasti, Oituz.So we talk about a time when Serbia suffered complete annihilation, a time when hundreds of thousands of lives were lost due to war, hunger and freezing cold, in the winters of 1916, 1917.When most countries demographics drastically reduced. the newly created and molded Balkan states increased population by few times! What could justify such an enormous increase of population, such natality increase in those Balkan countries? Could have been some sort of Viagra epidemy? A type of Viagra forte that modern world have not discovered yet or heard about?Besides written records and testimonies any average brain can figure what was the Balkan states creation formula about. If they fell within the boundaries of a country, all had to become the nation of that country, by language and names, or in various ways were helped disappear. For similar deeds Serbia was bombed by NATO in recent times and condemned in international courts, but at those times was seen as a matter of Ottoman and Russian concern, while those empires practiced same methods to expand. Only those large, compact, isolated communities could resist complete assimilation in time, but life also required those to be integrated anyway.Enough to see left overs of ethnic minorities, having typical names of ethnic majority of that countries, to understand what those people went through in the past, to become the ethnic entities they are today.Certain is that the assimilation of Vlachs started long before the 19 - 20 Century and those left were also hardly influenced by fear of repercussions, well documented as having been applied in the past.When during centuries one learns mother tongue with a limited vocabulary, around the house, without a clear understanding of how words have formed and their extensive meanings, without means to acquire grammatical rules and literary complexity, many words are lost, altered, transmitted slightly different in time and future generations perceive their native language as a mishmash of derivative words, filled with, arranged around a grammatical construct of a studied language.Vlach spoken in Timoc area of Serbia and in Voivodina is the same language spoken in the south west and west of Romania. Same language is still spoken today, in its archaic form, in the rural areas of south west Romania, perfectly understood in any corner of Romania.Until 19 Century Romanians were themselves known by others as Vlachs, but since the union of 1859 wanted to be known as they are and not what others named them, while the Latin based Romance language they speak is internationally categorized as Daco-Romanian.Going back to the Vlachs of Serbia, basically Romania only wants from those Vlachs of Serbia and Serbia itself to respect its ethnic identity and language, which means reciprocity and mutual respect.Part of the Vlachs that for whatever reasons declare themselves as speaking a different language, even though they are not Aromanians (Vlachs of south Balkans who migrated north in time, Romance language mostly understood by Romanians but more or less altered, due to over a millennia of interrupted contact) but indigenous to the area, speaking same language internationally known as Daco-Romanian, cannot fool Romanians that somehow they don't recognize their own language. It is insulting to try to deceive people with an elementary truth.Serbians of RomaniaSerbian minority in Romania receives full state support and minority rights, like all minorities in Romania.Serbian language is recognized as such and not as Montenegrin or Croat language, same way the Romanian language must be recognized by Serbia as it is and not as Vlach.Serbian minority receives full education in modern schools and modern Serbian language, up to Highschool, not in the old medieval Serbian language of St Sava and Baba Novak, as would be or is the case, if a distinct Vlach ethnic identity, speaking a rudimentary Romanian, supported and encouraged by Serbia, is created.Serbian minority in Romania enjoys full cultural freedom and church in Serbian language since centuries and at least in modern times are all budgeted, paid by the Romanian government.Romanians in SerbiaImagine that the first Romanian church in Timoc Serbia was opened in 2012!, after several requests from Romania, and the priest who dared to build and open the church on his private land, committed such a sacrilege that he was jailed. An Orthodox church in an Orthodox country, for trying to preach in the language of your ancestors, elementary freedoms enjoyed by any European community since many centuries ago.Romanian schools in Timoc have a hard time getting approvals and space. They function a year or so then are closed. Some get temporary space in degraded, cracked, old buildings, then teachers are discouraged to teach, principals lose their jobs and parents are discouraged to send children to attend Romanian schools. Last year 15 classes that functioned for a year or so were closed due to ‘lack of funds’. All they want is to properly learn their native language, that’s all.Serbians in RomaniaSerbians, like all minorities, have representatives in Romanian parliament based on size of their communities. Even so, some minorities have a lot more representatives than a Romanian diaspora, few times larger than all minorities together. Peeps that contribute billions to economy and vote. To understand what democracy means and by comparison the level of backwardness in terms of minority rights Serbia still lives in.All Serbian names are typically Serbian, same as they always were and surnames typically ending in -ic;. Famous example of ethnic Serb Romanian being Miodrag Belodedic, who won Champions League with both, Steaua Bucharest and Red Star Belgrade, Lavinia Milosevic, Gymnast, Olympic Champion and many more ethnic Serbs and other minorities, perfectly integrated in the Romanian society, respected and loved for their competence not their ethnic identity. Such as an ethnic German elected President - Klaus Iohannis, a half Hungarian Prime Minister - Ludovic Orban, etc, in stark contrast with the Vlach and Romanian names in Serbia, forcibly changed and Slavicized in time.There are extensive descriptions about what happened in Serbia and other Balkan countries, specially between the Balkan Independence war of 1878, Balkan wars of 1913 - 1914, and WW1.Past is past but Balkan countries need to understand that to protect, preserve ethnic minorities in a civilized Europe is paramount. Has nothing to do with any sort of interference in internal affairs or territorial claims, sovereignty and territorial integrity being guaranteed and protected by the same international and European bodies that created countries like Serbia. For our societies to have a bright future, rules and guidelines on minorities must be implemented and respected.Either a trauma of recent wars or a common practice rooted in the past, in today’s Europe Serbia needs to abandon such a rudimentary approach. Romania expects nothing more than what is doing already for the Serbian minority and to be the friend that pretends to be Serbia needs to agree first that Romanians know what language they speak, as an elementary form of respect.Ethnic Romanians of Serbia consider that they speak the same language spoken by the Vlachs of Serbia, the language they speak is the archaic form of Romanian, spoken in the south west and west of Romania and they truly sound like never had any contact with modern Romanian. Their vocabulary is limited, grammar is poor, the pronunciation is just like in the rural areas of south west Romania.Ethnic Romanians of Serbia don't want to learn the native language for advantages received from Romania, as some try to imply here. Romania doesn’t provide them with more than scholarship, which can be useful if they want to study in Romania, but that doesn’t help most of them, as they primarily want to study Serbian in Serbia, as a main language and also attend Romanian as secondary language, so they can earn their mother tongue properly but even better the Serbian language, in order to settle and integrate where they were born and live, in their home country.If they want to work in Romania after school the scholarship could suit them, but most want to settle where they live and belong and if they wanted advantages could better declare themselves Vlachs, as to being a different, unprotected, not belonging to any other country, has more advantages and is better stimulated in Serbia today, for reasons easy to understand. The classical Roman dicton, invented by the forefathers of those Vlachs, Divide et Impera.Serbia should remember that at north east always received a brotherly welcome, shelter and support, anytime hardship descended upon them and would be appropriate to do to Romanians what Romanians did to them in history.Maritza - the 12 years old Timocean girl was the first shot dead by the Ottomans, while carrying water in a wooden bucket to the Romanian soldiers engaged in battles to free Timoc region, during the Independence War of 1877 - 1878, after the Serbian army was overrun by the Ottomans and withdrew from the region.Along few battalions of Timocean volunteers, women and children also joined the revolt. Women helped with sanitary work, while 37 children lost their lives in the Independence War, while supplying food and water to Romanian soldiers.Among the Timocean leaders that joined the Romanian army against the Ottomans were the bishop Partenie, priest Pop Dumitru, teacher Ion Ciolac, Ion Troaca, Ilie Nicolae, Vancea Predoi. You may notice that by that time they still had Romanian names.

This answer may contain sensitive images. Click on an image to unblur it.Becoming a right winger is likely a mix of genetics and upbringing. Conservative vs liberal orientations have a genetic component. People are are low on the openness scale are more likely to be conservative. But becoming a right winger many times is caused by being raised by authoritarian parenting styles. Genetics may make you a conservative. But upbringing and life experience will make you a hard core right winger.Genetics of Political OrientationScientists and laypeople alike have historically attributed political beliefs to upbringing and surroundings, yet recent research shows that our political inclinations have a large genetic component.The largest recent study of political beliefs, published in 2014 in Behavior Genetics, looked at a sample of more than 12,000 twin pairs from five countries, including the U.S. Some were identical and some fraternal; all were raised together. The study reveals that the development of political attitudes depends, on average, about 60 percent on the environment in which we grow up and live and 40 percent on our genes.“We inherit some part of how we process information, how we see the world and how we perceive threats—and these are expressed in a modern society as political attitudes,” explains Peter Hatemi, who is a genetic epidemiologist at the University of Sydney and lead author of the study.The genes involved in such complex traits are difficult to pinpoint because they tend to be involved in a huge number of bodily and cognitive processes that each play a minuscule role in shaping our political attitudes. Yet a study published in 2015 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B managed to do just that, showing that genes encoding certain receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine are associated with where we fall on the liberal-conservative axis. Among women who were highly liberal, 62 percent were carriers of certain receptor genotypes that have previously been associated with such traits as extroversion and novelty seeking. Meanwhile, among highly conservative women, the proportion was only 37.5 percent.“Perhaps high-novelty seekers are more willing to entertain the idea of change, including in the political sphere,” says the study's lead author, Richard Ebstein, a molecular geneticist at the National University of Singapore. He admits, however, that the dopamine genes are undoubtedly just a small part of the story of how we inherit political attitudes, with hundreds of other genes equally involved.These genetic findings are in line with the many psychological studies that have suggested that political attitudes are related to personality traits. Openness to experience, for example, predicts a liberal ideology; conscientiousness often goes with a conservative stance. Yet the evidence suggests that political attitudes are not entirely explained by personality; the two are more likely independently rooted in what Hatemi calls a “common psychological architecture.” Hatemi and his colleague Brad Verhulst, a political scientist at Pennsylvania State University, published a study in 2015 in PLOS ONE showing that changes in personality over a 10-year period do not predict changes in political attitudes.Ultimately these early genetic results lend weight to the hypothesis that political beliefs may depend heavily on very basic processes in the brain—our ancient instincts to avoid danger and filth, which we experience as fear and disgust. Psychologists at the University of Warwick in England recently proposed a theory along these lines in a January paper published in Topics in Cognitive Science.Using a computer simulation, they showed that when our ancestors met groups of strangers, they had to make choices among potential opportunities, such as new mates and trade, and risks, such as exposure to new pathogens. In areas with high levels of infections, their model showed that the driving force of evolution was fear of outsiders, conformity and ethnocentrism—things that in modern times we would call social conservatism.https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-genes-of-left-and-right/Parenting Style and Right Wing PoliticsPolitical mindsets are the product of an individual’s upbringing, life experiences, and environment. But are there specific experiences that lead a person to choose one political ideology over another?New research from psychological scientist R. Chris Fraley of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and colleagues suggest that parenting practices and childhood temperament may play an influential role. Their study is published online in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.Existing research suggests that individuals whose parents espoused authoritarian attitudes toward parenting (e.g., valuing obedience to authority) are more likely to endorse conservative values as adults. And theory from political psychology on motivated social cognition suggests that children who have fearful temperaments may be more likely to hold conservative ideologies as adults. Unfortunately, almost all of the existing research looking at these two factors suffers from significant methodological shortcomings. Specifically, the majority of this research has been retrospective—relying on adult’s recollections of their early temperaments and their early caregiving experiences.To better understand the developmental antecedents of political ideology, Fraley and his colleagues examined data from 708 children who originally participated in the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development’s (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD).When the children in the study were one month old, their parents answered questions from the Parental Modernity Inventory. Fraley and colleagues used their responses to determine the degree to which the parents demonstrated authoritarian (e.g., “Children should always obey their parents”) and egalitarian parenting attitudes (e.g., “Children should be allowed to disagree with their parents”).The dataset also included mothers’ assessments of their children’s temperaments when they were 4.5 years old, using questions from the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire. From these assessments, the researchers identified five temperament factors: restlessness-activity, shyness, attentional focusing, passivity, and fear.Consistent with theory from political psychology, Fraley and colleagues found that children with authoritarian parents were more likely to have conservative attitudes at age 18, even after accounting for their gender, ethnic background, cognitive functioning, and socioeconomic status. Children who had parents with egalitarian parenting attitudes, on the other hand, were more likely to hold liberal attitudes as young adults.In terms of temperament, children with higher levels of fearfulness at 54 months were more likely to be conservative at age 18, while children with higher levels of activity or restlessness and higher levels of attentional focusing were more likely to espouse liberal values at that age.The researchers argue that their work has wide-ranging implications for understanding the variation in political orientation. According to Fraley, “One of the significant challenges in psychological science is understanding the multiple pathways underlying personality development. Our research suggests that variation in how people feel about diverse topics, ranging from abortion, military spending, and the death penalty, can be traced to both temperamental differences that are observable as early as 54 months of age, as well as variation in the attitudes people’s parents have about child rearing and discipline.” They believe that an important direction for future research will be to delve deeper into exploring the underlying mechanisms – including shared genetic variation and parent-child conflict – that might link parenting attitudes and temperament to later political ideology.Parenting and Temperament in Childhood Predict Later Political IdeologyDevelopmental Antecedents of Political IdeologyHow to Raise a Little Liberal (or Conservative)To determine your own ideological orientation you can take a test:The Political CompassIn 1966, Diana Baumrind penned the original paper on parenting styles. In her research, she discovered three distinct styles she called Permissive, Authoritarian, and Authoritative based on a matrix of control and warmth. Since then, others have contributed to the topic, but her research remains the cornerstone work on parenting styles.Three Parenting StylesThe following descriptions come from Baumrind’s papers (1966, Effects of Authoritative Parental Control on Child Behavior, Child Development, 37(4), 887-907, and in 1967, Child care practices anteceding three patterns of preschool behavior, Genetic Psychology Monographs, 75(1), 43-88). After each category are my thoughts and experiences with each.Permissiveattempts to behave in a non-punitive, acceptant and affirmative manner towards the child’s impulses, desires and actions. She (the parent) consults with him (the child) about policy decisions and gives explanations for family rules. She makes few demands for household responsibility and orderly behavior. She presents herself to the child as a resource for him to use as he wishes, not as an ideal for him to emulate, nor as an active agent responsible for shaping or altering his ongoing or future behavior. She allows the child to regulate his own activities as much as possible, avoids the exercise of control, and does not encourage him to obey externally defined standards. She attempts to use reason and manipulation, but not overt power to accomplish her ends (p. 889).In my experience, permissives seem more interested in being their child’s friend than their parent, or wanting the approval of their child (to be liked) as a priority.Authoritarianattempts to shape, control and evaluate the behavior and attitudes of the child in accordance with a set standard of conduct, usually an absolute standard, theologically motivated and formulated by a higher authority. She values obedience as a virtue and favors punitive, forceful measures to curb self-will at points where the child’s actions or beliefs conflict with what she thinks is right conduct. She believes in keeping the child in his place, in restricting his autonomy, and in assigning household responsibilities in order to inculcate respect for work. She regards the preservation of order and traditional structure as a highly valued end in itself. She does not encourage verbal give and take, believing that the child should accept her word for what is right (p. 890).My experience of authoritarians is that they seem more interested in being “right” than effective, and that their opinion on everything leaves no room for others.Authoritativeattempts to direct the activities of the child but in a rational issue oriented manner. She [the parent] encourages a verbal give and take, shares with the child the reasoning behind her policy, and solicits his objections when he refuses to conform. Both autonomous self-will and disciplined conformity are valued. Therefore she exerts firm control at points of parent-child divergence, but does not hem the child in with restrictions. She enforces her own perspective as an adult, but recognizes the child’s individual interests and special ways. The authoritative parent affirms the child’s present qualities, but also sets standards for future conduct. She uses reason, power, and shaping by regime and reinforcement to achieve her objectives, and does not base her decisions on group consensus or the individual child’s desires (p. 891).In my experience, authoritatives seem more interested in what the child thinks and feels, and then needs to learn through teaching new skills, providing new information, or adapting what is already present. In her 1967 paper, Baumrind adds to the above description that parents “do not see themselves as infallible or as divinely inspired.” I contend that this must be taken in context. As a Christian (and assuming that Baumrind was not), I do take instruction in parenting from my beliefs. However, it is not done in the manner that Baumrind suggests as authoritarian, but as authoritative. Keep in mind that parenting in general was more strict at the time this research was being conducted, and that cultural changes have reshaped the current implementation of these prototypes to a large degree.A Fourth Parenting StyleUnknown to myself at the time I was utilizing this the most, Baumrind had added a fourth parenting style. In 1971, Baumrind published a paper adding a fourth parenting style she called Uninvolved/Neglectful.Neglectful parents are not warm and do not place any demands on their child. They minimize their interaction time, and, in some cases, are uninvolved to the point of being neglectful. Uninvolved parents are indifferent to their child’s needs, whereabouts, or experiences at school or with peers. Uninvolved parents invoke such phrases as, “I don’t care where you go,” or “why should I care what you do?” Uninvolved parents rarely consider their child’s input in decisions and they generally do not want to be bothered by their child. These parents may be overwhelmed by their circumstances or they may be self-centered. Parents might also engage in this style if they are tired, frustrated, or have simply “given up” in trying to maintain parental authority. (summarized by Kimberly Kopko)How teenagers described these parenting stylesWhile working in a residential facility, I taught on these parenting styles and asked the 50+ teenagers to give each style a nickname. The nicknames they came up with were door mat, Hitler, and coach respectively. As we talked, they were full of questions and comments, such as, “Is that why…” and “That so makes sense.” They recognized these parenting styles immediately and could also insightfully dig into the possible motivations behind them.How parents have reacted to these parenting stylesEducating parents about these parenting styles of the years has provided a mixed bag of responses. Sometimes they already knew they weren’t parenting effectively and were open and honest about how they had parented and why. Sometimes they were shocked to find out not only that there were categories that parents generally fall into, but also at what their child had to say about how they had parented. You see, I use this not only to teach both the parents and the child (usually a teenager), but as a feedback mechanism for the parents to hear the perspective of their child. Regardless of how they initially reacted, they always wanted more information… from their child.Parenting Styles: What do door mats, coaches and Hitler have to do with it? - Uncommon SenseThe Parenting Styles by Nazis Have Damaged GenerationsRenate Flens, a German woman in her 60s who suffers from depression, tells her psychotherapist that she wants to love her children but just can’t. She and the therapist soon realize that both Flens’s problems may be rooted in her frustration at being unable to allow others to get close to her. After lengthy conversations, they realize something else: a contributing factor may well be the child-rearing teachings of Johanna Haarer, a physician whose books were written during the Nazi era and aimed at raising children to serve the Führer. Flens (a pseudonym) was born after World War II, but Haarer’s books were still popular during her postwar childhood, where many households had a copy of The German Mother and Her First Child—a book that continued to be published for decades (ultimately cleansed of the most objectionable Nazi language). When asked, Flens recalled seeing one of Haarer’s books on her parents’ bookshelf.Flens’s story, told to me by her therapist, illustrates an issue troubling a number of mental health experts in Germany: Haarer’s ideas may still be harming the emotional health of its citizens. One aspect was particularly pernicious: she urged mothers to ignore their babies’ emotional needs. Infants are hardwired to build an attachment with a primary care giver. The Nazis wanted children who were tough, unemotional and unempathetic and who had weak attachments to others, and they understood that withholding affection would support that goal. If an entire generation is brought up to avoid creating bonds with others, the experts ask, how can members of that generation avoid replicating that tendency in their own children and grandchildren?“This has long been a question among analysts and attachment researchers but ignored by the general public,” says Klaus Grossmann, a leading researcher in mother-child attachment, now retired from the University of Regensburg. The evidence that Haarer’s teachings are still affecting people today is not definitive. Nevertheless, it is supported by studies of mother-child interactions in Germany, by other research into attachment and by therapists’ anecdotal reports.Haarer’s TeachingsHaarer was a pulmonologist, who, despite having no pediatric training, was touted as a child-rearing expert by the Nazis (the National Socialists). The recommendations from her book, originally published in 1934, were incorporated into a Reich mothers training program designed to inculcate in all German women the proper rules of infant care. As of April 1943, at least three million German women had gone through this program. In addition, the book was accorded nearly biblical status in nursery schools and child-care centers.Although children need sensitive physical and emotional contact to build attachments and thrive, Haarer recommended that such care be kept to a minimum, even when carrying a child. This stance is clearly illustrated in the pictures in her books: mothers hold their children so as to have as little contact as possible.Haarer viewed children, especially babies, as nuisances whose wills needed to be broken. “The child is to be fed, bathed, and dried off; apart from that left completely alone,” she counseled. She recommended that children be isolated for 24 hours after the birth; instead of using “insipid-distorted ‘children’s language,’” the mother should speak to her child only in “sensible German”; and if the child cries, let him cry.Sleep time was no exception. In The German Mother and Her First Child, Haarer wrote, “It is best if the child is in his own room, where he can be left alone.” If the child starts to cry, it is best to ignore him: “Whatever you do, do not pick the child up from his bed, carry him around, cradle him, stroke him, hold him on your lap, or even nurse him.” Otherwise, “the child will quickly understand that all he needs to do is cry in order to attract a sympathetic soul and become the object of caring. Within a short time, he will demand this service as a right, leave you no peace until he is carried again, cradled, or stroked—and with that a tiny but implacable house tyrant is formed!”Before publishing The German Mother and Her First Child, which ended up selling 1.2 million copies, Haarer had written articles about infant care. Later titles included Mother, Tell Me about Adolf Hitler!, a fairy-tale-style book that propagated anti-Semitism and anti-Communism in language a child could understand, and another child-rearing manual, Our Little Children. Haarer was imprisoned for a time after Germany’s defeat in 1945 and lost her license to practice medicine. According to two of her daughters, she nonetheless remained an enthusiastic Nazi. She died in 1988.Modern ConsequencesThere are many reasons to think that Haarer’s influence persisted long after the war and continues to affect the emotional health of Germans today even though parents no longer rely on her books. Researchers, physicians and psychologists speculate that attachment and emotional deficits may contribute to an array of phenomena of modern life, including the low birth rate, the many people who live alone or are separated, and the widespread phenomena of burnout, depression and emotional illnesses in general. Of course, the causes of these personal and societal issues are many and varied. But the stories of people such as Renate Flens lend credence to the idea that Haarer’s lessons could play a role.As Flens’s therapist notes, after a time patients may disclose their disgust at their own body and admit to following strict eating rules or to being unable to enter into close relationships—which are all consistent with the outcome of Haarer’s child-rearing regimen. Psychotherapist Hartmut Radebold, formerly of the University of Kassel, tells of a patient who came to him with serious relational and identity problems. One day this man found a thick book at home in which his mother had noted all kinds of information about his first year of life: weight, height, frequency of bowel movements—but not a single word about feelings.In the laboratory, Grossman, who retired in 2003, continually observed scenes such as this: A baby cries. The mother rushes over toward him but stops in her tracks before reaching him. Although she is only a few feet from her child, she makes no effort to pick him up or console him. “When we asked the mothers why they did this, they invariably stated that they didn’t want to spoil their babies.”That sentiment, along with sayings like “An Indian feels no pain”—an idiom essentially meaning “Be as stoic as a Native American”—continued to be widespread in postwar Germany and is still heard today.Research Reveals HarmHaarer’s recommendations were viewed as modern in the Nazi era and promulgated as if scientifically sound. Studies have since demonstrated that Haarer’s advice is indeed traumatizing.Ilka Quindeau of the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences and her colleagues have studied the generation of children born during the war. They initially intended to examine the long-term effects of bombing raids and flight under perilous circumstances. But after the initial interviews, the researchers decided to adjust the study design: so many of their conversations revolved around experiences in the family that the team added a lengthy interview that focused exclusively on those interactions. Ultimately, the investigators concluded that many interviewees exhibited a pattern of unusually strong loyalty toward their parents and that their failure to include mention of conflicts in their descriptions was evidence of “a relational disorder.”Quindeau has pointed out that Germany is the only country in Europe where what happened to the children of war has been so broadly discussed, despite destruction and bombings having occurred in other countries as well. She has also noted that psychoanalyst Anna Freud found that children with a healthy attachment to their parents were less traumatized by the war than those with a less solid attachment. Putting everything together, Quindeau concludes that the interviews she conducted about bombings and exile had actually uncovered something more than the effects of war: they revealed deep grieving about experiences in the family that were so traumatic they could not be expressed directly.Direct evidence for Quindeau’s interpretation is hard to come by, however: randomized, controlled experimental studies that examine Haarer’s educational recommendations cannot be conducted for ethical reasons; the probability of doing harm is just too great. Nevertheless, even research that does not explicitly deal with child-rearing in the Third Reich can provide important information, Grossmann says. “All the data we have tell us that if we deny a child sensitive caring during the first one or two years of life, as Johanna Haarer suggests,” you end up with children who have limited emotional and reflective abilities.Some of the evidence, Grossmann says, comes from a longitudinal study in which 136 Romanian orphans between the ages of six and 31 months were divided into two groups: half remained in the orphanage; the rest were taken in by foster parents. A control group consisted of children from the region who had always lived with their natural parents. Both the children who remained in the orphanage and those who were fostered developed attachment problems. For example, in a 2014 experiment with 89 of the orphans, a stranger came to the door and, without giving a reason, told a child to follow him. Only 3.5 percent of the children in the control group obeyed, whereas 24.1 percent of the children in foster care followed the stranger, and 44.9 percent of the children living in the orphanage did.“Children like this—who are easily seduced, don’t think and don’t feel—are fodder for a nation bent on war,” says Karl Heinz Brisch, a psychiatrist at the Dr. von Hauner Children’s Hospital at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. “In Johanna Haarer’s view, it is important to deny caring when a child asks for it. But each refusal means rejection,” Grossmann explains. The only means of communication open to a newborn are facial expression and gestures, he adds. If no response is forthcoming, children learn that nothing they try to communicate means anything. Moreover, infants experience existential fear when they are alone and hungry and receive no comfort from their attachment figure. In the worst case, such experiences lead to a form of insecure attachment that makes it difficult to enter into relationships with other people in later life.Why Mothers Took the AdviceWhy did so many mothers follow Haarer’s counterintuitive advice? Radebold, whose research has focused on the generation of children born during the war, notes that Haarer’s views on child-rearing did not appeal to everyone during the 1930s and 1940s but attracted two groups in particular: parents who identified strongly with the Nazi regime and young women who had themselves come from emotionally damaged families (largely as a result of World War I), who had no idea what a good relationship feels like. If, in addition, their husbands were fighting at the front—leaving them to fend for themselves and to feel overburdened and insecure—it may well be imagined that the toughness promoted in Haarer’s books could have been appealing.Of course, strict child-rearing practices had been commonplace in Prussia well before the Nazis came on the scene. In Grossmann’s opinion, only a culture that already had a tendency for hardness would have been ready to institute such practices on a grand scale. Studies on attachment conducted in the 1970s are consistent with this view. He notes, for example, that in Bielefeld, which is in northern Germany, half of all children were shown to exhibit an insecure attachment; in Regensburg, which is in southern Germany and never came under Prussian influence, less than a third fit that category.To evaluate how secure the attachment is between a child and a parent, Grossmann and other attachment researchers often use the Strange Situation test, which was developed by psychologist Mary Ainsworth while at Johns Hopkins University in the 1960s. In one version, a parent and toddler enter a room, and the child is placed near some toys. After about 30 seconds the parent sits down in a chair and begins to read a newspaper or magazine. After at most two minutes, the parent is signaled to encourage the child to play. A few minutes later a strange woman enters the room. Initially silent, she begins to talk to the parent and then tries to engage with the child. Shortly thereafter the parent gets up and leaves the room. After a brief period, the parent returns, and the strange person leaves. A few moments later the parent again exits the room, leaving the child behind. After a few minutes the strange woman reenters the room and begins to engage with the child, and then the parent returns as well.Attachment researchers closely observe the child’s behavior during the entire episode. If the child is upset for a while and cries during the separation but soon calms down, he or she is viewed as securely attached. Children who cannot calm themselves—or who never react to the disappearance of their attachment figure—are assessed as insecurely attached. Grossmann has conducted this test in a number of different cultures. He found that in Germany, in contrast to other Western countries, many parents view it as positive when their children do not respond to their disappearance. The parents perceive this reaction as “independence.”Like Parent, Like ChildGrossmann’s findings also indicate that when children grow up and begin to have children themselves, they pass their attachment behavior down to the next generation. As part of one of his studies, he and his colleagues used interviews to examine the quality of the attachment that parents had in their own childhood, conducting the study about five years after giving the Strange Situation test to the subjects’ children. In assessing the parents’ responses, the researchers looked not only at what the adults were saying but also at the emotions they exhibited during the interview. For example, they observed whether the parents switched the subject frequently, gave only monosyllabic answers or indulged in overgeneralized praise of their own parents without describing actual situations. The results showed that the attachment quality of the children often mirrored that of their parents. A 2016 meta-analysis published by Marije Verhage of VU University Amsterdam and her colleagues, which analyzed data from 4,819 individuals, confirmed that the quality of attachment is transmitted from generation to generation.How exactly the negative childhood experiences of parents are transmitted to their own children is still a matter of conjecture. But biological processes appear to be involved. In 2007, for example, Dahlia Ben-Dat Fisher, then at Concordia University in Montreal, and her colleagues found that the children of mothers who had themselves been neglected in childhood regularly exhibited lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the morning. The researchers interpret this pattern as a sign of abnormal stress processing.In 2016 a team led by Tobias Hecker, then at the University of Zurich, compared a group of children in Tanzania who reported having undergone a great deal of physical and mental abuse with children who reported little abuse. Those in the first group had more medical problems as well as an abnormal pattern of methylation (binding by the chemical group CH3) of the gene that codes for the protein proopiomelanocortin. This protein is a precursor for an array of hormones, among them the stress hormone adrenocorticotropin, produced in the pituitary gland. Altered DNA-methylation patterns can affect the amount of protein made from a gene, and this pattern can be passed on from generation to generation. Researchers have observed this phenomenon in animal experiments; in humans, the picture is as yet less clear.Parents can grapple with their own attachment experiences and try to raise their own children differently. “But,” Grossman says, “in stressful moments, we often fall back on learned, unconscious patterns.” This tendency may be one reason that Haarer’s youngest daughter, Gertrud, decided never to have children herself. In 2012 she publicly confronted her mother’s legacy, writing a book about Johanna Haarer’s life and ideas. Speaking about her own childhood in an interview on Bavarian television, Gertrud Haarer declared, “Apparently it so traumatized me that I thought I could never raise children.”Harsh Nazi Parenting Guidelines May Still Affect German Children of TodayRight Wing Authoritarians Usually Have Similar “Values”http://www.mindauthor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Authoritarian.pngInside the Mind of a Hard Core Trump SupporterGiven the meteoric rise of Donald Trump, and the ill-defined phenomenon known as Trumpism, it's vital that we understand the psychology that attracted Americans to the real estate mogul in the first place. Research suggests such voters are driven by a combination of racial resentment and authoritarianism.Sociologist David Norman Smith cited both in a just-published paper, in which he argues hardcore Trump supporters "target minorities and women" and "favor domineering and intolerant leaders who are uninhibited about their biases."And yet, there's something puzzling about that equation. If authoritarians, by definition, revere authority, why would they support an anti-establishment candidate like Trump? And why are they OK with his administration slandering bedrock American institutions as the Federal Bureau of Investigation?A second recently published study provides an answer: There are different strains of authoritarian thinking. And support for Trump is associated with what is arguably the most toxic type: authoritarian aggression.The study suggests the bulk of his supporters, at least in the Republican primaries, were not old-fashioned conservatives who preach obedience and respect for authority. Rather, they were people who take a belligerent, combative approach toward people they find threatening.The notion that there are different types of authoritarians was proposed in the 1980s by University of Manitoba psychologist Robert Altemeyer, and refined in 2010 by a research team led by John Duckitt of the University of Auckland. In the journal Political Psychology, that team defined right-wing authoritarianism as "a set of three related ideological attitude dimensions."They are:"Conventionalism," a.k.a. "traditionalism," which is defined as "favoring traditional, old-fashioned social norms, values, and morality."Authoritarian submission," defined as "favoring uncritical, respectful, obedient, submissive support for existing authorities and institutions.""Authoritarian aggression," defined as "favoring the use of strict, tough, harsh, punitive, coercive social control."Duckitt and his colleagues created a survey designed to measure each of these three facets. It was measured by participants' responses to statements such as "The old-fashioned ways, and old-fashioned values, still show the best way to live" (traditionalism); "Our country would be great if we show respect for authority and obey our leaders" (submission); and "The way things are going in this country, it's going to take a lot of 'strong medicine' to straighten out the troublemakers, criminals, and perverts" (aggression).A research team led by psychologist Steven Ludeke of the University of Southern Denmark used those scales to try to tease out why some studies link Trump support to authoritarianism, while others do not.It discovered the problem with the latter is they tend to either heavily or exclusively focus on the "submission" dimension, which has traditionally been studied in the context of child-rearing (as in, "Do you expect your children to unquestioningly obey their elders?").As it turns out, that's the facet of authoritarianism that has the least to do with support for Trump.Ludeke's study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, featured 1,444 participants recruited online in April of 2016. They responded to 18 authoritarianism-focused statements—six for each facet—and indicated who, among the presidential candidates remaining in the race at that point, they supported."Consistent with Trump's representation of the world as a dangerous place requiring harsh treatment of deviant minorities," they write, "Trump supporters were high on authoritarian aggression."Strong support for conventionalism/traditionalism was also linked to support for Trump, but high scores on the submission category—that is, respect for authority, and obedience to superiors—was not.THE EMOTIONAL ROOTS OF POLITICAL POLARIZATION: New research argues feelings of disillusionment prompt people to take more extreme positions.Smith's analysis of data from the American National Election Study reaches a similar conclusion. He reports "enthusiastic Trump voters are also enthusiastic about domineering leaders, and that they are not especially enthusiastic about respectful children."Authoritarianism in the Trump era "is not the wish to follow any and every authority but, rather, the wish to support a strong and determined authority who will 'crush evil and take us back to our true path,'" Smith and his co-author, Eric Hanley, conclude.Participants in Ludeke's study also completed surveys measuring Social Dominance Orientation—the belief that one group has the right to dominate others. Replicating previous research, they found this philosophy, which often accompanies authoritarianism, correlated with support for Trump.So the very things a majority of Americans find disconcerting, if not disqualifying, about Trump—his need to dominate, his thinly veiled white supremacism, and his blunt, bullying language—is precisely what appeals to his hardcore fans. They are very likely stand to by their man, whatever scandals might emerge.That said, these results suggest Democrats have a decent chance of peeling away a different slice of the Republican-leaning electorate—if they can defend liberal policies while embodying a more traditional respect for authority. Those "submission"-oriented voters don't have a natural affinity for Trump. They may prefer candidates who embody a traditional sense of dignity—people they can feel comfortable looking up to.That possibility aside, the picture painted in both of these studies is pretty bleak from a progressive perspective. Smith's paper, the lead article in the March 2018 issue of Critical Sociology, concludes this way:Most Trump voters cast their ballots for him with their eyes open, not despite his prejudices but because of them. Their partisanship, whether positive (toward Trump and the Republicans) or negative (against Clinton and the Democrats), is intense. This partisanship is anchored in anger and resentment among mild as well as strong Trump voters.Anger, not fear, was the emotional key to the Tea Party, and that seems to be true for Trumpism as well. If so, the challenge for progressives is greater than many people have imagined. Hostility to minorities and women cannot be wished away; nor can the wish for domineering leaders.https://psmag.com/news/inside-the-minds-of-hardcore-trump-supportershttps://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-effect-new-study-connects-white-american-intolerance-support-authoritarianism-ncna877886