A review by travis_read
Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers by Bob Altemeyer, John W. Dean

informative medium-paced

5.0

At first I was a little skeptical about adding this book to my queue. With the Trump years having happened so recently part of my brain was screaming, “Too soon! Too soon! Don’t put yourself through this!” But I’m glad I took the time to read it. I feel the book took used data and studies to back up why Trump’s cult-like supporters believed he could do no wrong, and stuck by him no matter the wrongs he did.

Spoiler

The book was published in 2020, with the outcome of the November 2020 unknown, so the Trump presidency is spoken about in present-tense. It’s particularly wild, though not completely surprising, how many events this book predicted including Trump denying election results as well as the January 6th insurrection. It really goes to show that Trump and his supporters are textbook when it comes to these psychological studies.

I’d definitely recommend this book to any politicos as well as those with a psychology background. Now we just have to do everything in our power to ensure this history doesn’t repeat itself in 2024.