High authoritarians will even attack mainstream right-wing parties the state targets

Evidence

When I discovered that High RWAs had their own “availability heuristic” when it came to helping the government persecute certain groups, I began searching for targets that Low RWAs would be willing to help “ride down.” So I dangled right-wing political parties before samples in new versions of the Posse measure. But High RWAs, not Lows, proved significantly more willing (that is, less unwilling) to help a government destroy the Social Credit Party, the Confederation of Regions Party, and even the mainstream Progressive Conservative Party in Canada. Low RWAs consistently refused to join a posse after anyone. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 416

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The finding that Highs will ride down even right-wing parties reveals target-selection is driven by the authority’s decree, not by ideological consistency — a genuinely disorienting result about how deference works.