Abstract
<p>January 6th narratives often center around authoritarianism, but little empirical data has directly evaluated the overlap between authoritarianism in the American populace and January 6th. In the present study, we evaluate authoritarianism in conservative and liberal participants (total n = 2264) across five time frames from November 2020 until after the events of January 6, 2021. Three primary findings emerged. (1) Authoritarian asymmetry: Conservatives wanted more authoritarianism than liberals across all time frames. (2) Authoritarian contextualism: Both conservatives and liberals wanted more authoritarianism from the government when their party was in power. (3) Targeted authoritarian adjustment: Conservatives’ authoritarianism towards Trump and Biden changed after January 6. However, contrary to expectations, conservatives desired less authoritarianism from Trump and more authoritarianism from Biden after January 6. Taken together, these findings help us better understand the contextual and ideological factors related to authoritarian attitudes surrounding unprecedented authoritarian behavior in the United States.</p>