The cult of Statism: The most dangerous religion

Statism is describing the psychological state of "Authoritarian Followers".

"Part of the problem seems to be that a large proportion of any population is what psychologist Bob Altemeyer calls "Authoritarian Followers." Let me quote from the Cambridge Dictionary of Psychology: "Authoritarian personality", and "Authoritarian followers". According to the dictionary:

"Authoritarian followers have the psychological characteristic known as right-wing authoritarianism. This personality trait consists of authoritarian submission, a high degree of submission to the established authorities in one's society; authoritarian aggression, aggression directed against various persons in the name of those authorities; and conventionalism, a strong adherence to the social conventions endorsed by those authorities.

Right-wing authoritarianism ("right" comes from "lawful") is measured on so called RWA scale." The Dictionary tells us that:

.... persons who get high RWA scale scores quite readily submit to the established authorities in their lives and trust them far more than most people do.

They supported Richard Nixon to the bitter end during the Watergate crisis. High RWAs also believed George W. Bush when he said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and they supported the war in that country long after others had signed off. High RWAs also are relatively willing to let authorities run roughshod over civil liberties and constitutional guarantees of personal freedom. They seem to think that authorities are above the law.

Bob Altemeyer, one of the champions in the psychology of authoritarians, notices that authoritarians are characterized by a certain specific cognitive behavior:

Compared with others, authoritarians have not spent much time examining evidence, thinking critically, reaching independent conclusions and seeing whether their conclusions mesh with the other things they believe. (...) They carry a list of 'false teachings' and rejected ideologies in their heads. But they usually learned which ideas are bad in the same way they learned which are good - from the authorities in their lives. Highs are not prepared to think critically."

Global Pathocracy, Authoritarian Followers and the Hope of the World