ABSTRACT
People vote for many overt, cognitive reasons, so consequently this chapter does not purport to explain all voting behavior. However, it does contend that general voting patterns may be explained through orientation and worldview, even though any particular person may vote for innumerable and often incongruous issues and reasons. At the individual level, a particular voter may hold an idiosyncratic blend of beliefs and positions on issues, a blend of rational and emotional perspectives. The chapter does not attempt to clarify the specific interaction of specific issues and weigh the relative strength of particular issues singly or in combination in order to predict the likelihood of voting one way or the other. Many forces were at work in the presidential election of 2008; this chapter addresses one particular aspect of campaign appeal on the right. This chapter argues specifically that authoritarianism and carnivalization in combination constituted one central part of the McCain-Palin campaign in particular, and the new right-wing populism in general. The chapter is not about the range of conservative views, but only one specific social-psychological relationship between authoritarian leaders and those with whom authoritarian appeals resonate, and a concurrent carnivalized indulgence in pseudoreality.
