Authoritarianism

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dubna 10, 2026

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dubna 10, 2026

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"We know a lot about authoritarian followers, but unfortunately most of what we know indicates it will be almost impossible to change their minds, especially in a few months. Here are some things established by experiments. See if you recognize any of these behaviors in Trump supporters. Compared with most people: They are highly ethnocentric, highly inclined to see the world as their in-group versus everyone else. Because they are so committed to their in-group, they are very zealous in its cause. They will trust their leaders no matter what they say, and distrust whomever the leader says to distrust. They are highly fearful of a dangerous world. Their parents taught them, more than parents usually do, that the world is dangerous. They may also be genetically predisposed to experience stronger fear than people skilled at “keeping their heads while others are losing theirs.” They are highly self-righteous. They believe they are the “good people” and this unlocks a lot of hostile impulses against those they consider bad. They are aggressive. Given the chance to attack someone with the approval of an authority, they will lower the boom. They are highly prejudiced against racial and ethnic minorities, non-heterosexuals, and women in general. They will support their authorities, and even help them, persecute almost any identifiable group in the country. Their beliefs are a mass of contradictions. They have highly compartmentalized minds, in which opposite beliefs live independent lives in separate boxes. As a result, their thinking is full of double-standards. They reason poorly. If they like the conclusion of an argument, they don’t pay much attention to whether the evidence is valid or the argument is consistent. They especially have trouble realizing a conclusion is invalid. They are highly dogmatic. Because they have mainly gotten their beliefs from the authorities in their lives, rather than think things out for themselves, they have no real defense when facts or events indicate they are wrong. So they just dig in their heels and refuse to change. They are very dependent on social reinforcement of their beliefs. They think they are right because almost everyone they know and listen to tells them they are. That happens because they screen out sources that will suggest that they are wrong. Because they severely limit their exposure to different people and ideas, they vastly overestimate the extent to which other people agree with them. And thinking they are “the moral majority” supports their attacks on the “evil minorities” they see in the country. They believe strongly in group cohesiveness, and being loyal. They are highly energized when surrounded by a crowd of fellow-believers because it makes them feel powerful and supports their belief that “all the good people” agree with them. They are easily duped by manipulators who pretend to espouse their causes when all the con-artists really want is personal gain. They are largely blind to themselves. They have little self-understanding and insight into why they think and do what they do. They are heavily into denial. I hasten to add that studies find examples of all these things in lots of others, not just authoritarian followers. But not as consistently, and not nearly as much."

- Authoritarianism

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"We understand quite well who Trump’s followers are. The October 2019 Monmouth Poll reported in Authoritarian Nightmare found they are the most prejudiced people in America. Their prejudices and many other shortcomings are rooted in authoritarianism, and studies show that authoritarian followers have many emotional and cognitive weaknesses which explain why they are longing for a strong leader who will take their side against the “others” they find threatening. They are highly fearful, ethnocentric, and have uncritically copied the ideas of the authorities in their lives. Their beliefs are highly compartmentalized, even contradictory; they use many double-standards in their judgments; they have lots of trouble distinguishing good from bad evidence; they are highly defensive and dogmatic; they have little self-insight, and a host of other imperfections. Demographically, the two pillars of Trump’s base are white Christian evangelicals and white male blue-collar workers. Both groups score highly on a measure of submission to authority named the RWA Scale. American authoritarian followers formed strong emotional bonds to Donald Trump in 2015 because he shouted their grievances and screamed out their fears, giving voice to things they were thinking but keeping bottled up within themselves. (They still think “He says it like it is,” when he was undoubtedly the biggest liar in the history of the presidency.) Trump supporters, being highly ethnocentric, have also formed strong bonds with each other and provide the widely noted “echo chamber” for each other that reinforces their own opinions. They believe strongly in group solidarity, and their desire to be a good member of the In-Group helps explain their enduring loyalty to him no matter what he does. In many respects, Trump’s followers have built a fence around themselves and formed a cult."

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"Let’s say you were an authoritarian who sought to weaken American democracy. How would you go about doing that? You’d probably start by trying to control what people say and think. If citizens dissented from the mandated orthodoxy, or dared to consider unauthorized ideas, you’d hurt them. You’d shame them on social media. You’d shout them down in public. You’d get them fired from their jobs. You’d make sure everyone was afraid to disagree with you. After that, you’d work to disarm the population: you’d take their guns away. That way, they would be entirely dependent on you for safety, not to mention unable to resist your plans for them. Then, just to make sure you’d quelled all opposition, you’d systematically target any institution that might oppose or put brakes on your power. You’d be especially concerned about churches, the family, and independent businesses. You’d be sure to undermine and crush those, using laws and relentless propaganda. If, despite all this, election results still didn’t go your way, you’d use an unelected bureaucracy to neuter any leader you hadn’t handpicked yourself. But you’d be shaken by an election like that. You’d resolve never to allow one again. To make sure of that, you’d work tirelessly to replace the old and ungrateful population with a new and more obedient one. That’s what you’d do. Sound familiar? For all of his many faults, Donald Trump isn’t doing any of that. Our ruling class is. It’s probably a fruitless exercise on their part. The status quo is over. A revolution is on the way."

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"On the other hand ⁠— or maybe at the same time ⁠— we can also expect that, among the powerful and among the rest of us, there will be calls to reject the “return to normal,” but in order to embrace something even worse. It is likely that the chaos and deaths of the pandemic will be blamed on too much democracy, liberalism and empathy. Now that states are flexing their muscles and taking full command of society, there will be many who do not want the sleeve to be rolled back down. We may yet see, in this crisis, the use of repressive force on civilians ⁠— as it is already being used on migrants and incarcerated people ⁠— and I fear that it will be seen by many as justified, a to feed the Gods of fear. In the wake of the pandemic we can be sure that fascists and will seek to mobilize tropes of ⁠— racial, national, economic ⁠— purity, purification, parasitism, and pollution to impose their long-festering dreams on reality. The vengeful romance of the border, now more politicized than ever, will haunt all of us in the years to come. The “new” authoritarians, whether they emphasize the totalitarian state or the totalitarian market ⁠— or both ⁠— will insist that we all recognize we now live ⁠— have always lived ⁠— in a ruthless, competitive world and must take measures to wall ourselves in and cast out the undesirable."

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"To be sure, an 83 percent approval rating almost certainly overstates Putin’s support. Individuals may understandably hide their true preferences from pollsters, as a culture of paranoia spreads across the country. In tandem with reports of erstwhile Putin opponents embracing the war, however, we can fairly assume that a large number of Russians, and perhaps a clear majority, are indifferent to the atrocities committed in their name. What, if anything, should we make of this? Of course, the question of evil—and why ordinary people incline toward it—is an old one, destined to repeat itself with stubborn insistence. As my podcast co-host, Damir Marusic, an Atlantic Council senior fellow, recently wrote, “Putin is a wholly authentic Russian phenomenon, and the imperialist policy he’s pursuing in Ukraine is too.” This is right, but only up to a point. We simply don’t know what individual Russians would choose, want—or become—if they had been socialized in a free, open democracy, rather than a dictatorship where fear is the air one breathes. Like everyone else, they are products of their environment. Authoritarianism corrupts society. Because punishment and reward are made into arbitrary instruments of the state, citizens have little incentive to pool resources, cooperate, or trust others. Survival is paramount, and survival requires putting one’s own interests above everything else, including traditional morality. In such a context, as the historian Timothy Snyder puts it, “life is nasty, brutish, and short; the pleasure of life is that it can be made nastier, more brutish, and shorter for others.” This is the zero-sum mindset that transforms cruelty into virtue."

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"In short, authoritarianism twists the soul and distorts natural moral intuitions. In so doing, it renders its citizens—or, more precisely, its subjects—less morally culpable. To be fully morally culpable is to be free to choose between right and wrong. But that choice becomes much more difficult under conditions of dictatorship. Not everyone can be courageous and sacrifice life and livelihood to do the right thing. The invasion of Ukraine was very much Putin’s creation, his idiosyncratic bid to reimagine Russia. It is unlikely that something similar would have happened in his absence. While Russians have now hardened against their Ukrainian neighbors, early reactions to the war tended more toward surprise and even shock. Putin, after all, had repeatedly denied that he was planning to invade. This is why many of the Russian troops deployed to Ukraine did not seem to initially grasp that they were entering a war zone. If a referendum on an invasion of Ukraine had been held months ago, there is little reason to think that Russians would have been particularly enthusiastic. Putin’s war enjoys considerable popular support now, but that’s because it is too late to imagine an alternative. The war is a fait accompli. If Russians wish to continue living in their country and not get on the wrong side of things, acclimating themselves to this new reality is the best option, if not necessarily a moral or brave one."

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"The Times story outlined his 2025 road map to implement this command-and-control model of executive authority and centralization of power if he’s returned to the Oval Office. In effect, the article described how his team would replace our constitutional republic with an authoritarian state. Such a state seeks to eliminate the independence of civil servants. Saying good things about bureaucracy may be unpopular, but federal employees' competence, expert judgment and commitment to governance by law is essential to democratic government. One definition of an authoritarian state is that it is characterized by the consolidation of power in a single leader, "a controlling regime that justifies itself as a 'necessary evil.'" That kind of control necessarily features "strict government-imposed constraints on social freedoms such as suppression of political opponents and anti-regime activity." Those characteristics describe the contours of the 2025 blueprint that the Trump campaign wanted the public to see via the Times' report. As the story notes, they are setting the stage, if Trump is elected, “to claim a mandate” for the goal of centralizing power in him. The Times quoted John McEntee, Trump’s 2020 White House director of personnel, defending the rejection of checks and balances on a president: “Our current executive branch was conceived of by liberals for the purpose of promulgating liberal policies. ... What’s necessary is a complete system overhaul.”"

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"Along with divided power, the central constraint that our founding documents create is the overarching legal institution known as the rule of law. That is why Trump’s plan for a radical reorganization of the executive branch starts with ending “the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.” Controlling the prosecutorial power allows a president to use it to favor friends, destroy enemies and intimidate ordinary citizens tempted to speak out. That would sound the death knell of American freedom. As John Locke, the 17th century political philosopher who inspired the authors of the Declaration of Independence, wrote, “Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.” Or as Blake Smith put it in an article in Foreign Policy last year, “The bureaucratic ethos is essential to the functioning of the state and the preservation of private life as a separate, unpolitical domain of tolerated freedom.” At the close of America’s first decade as a constitutional republic, George Washington voluntarily chose not to seek a third term as president to avoid setting the country on the road to the tyranny of lifetime rule by a president. He understood from the revolution against a king that retaining the personal power of one person is the central goal of authoritarianism. If voters elect Trump president in 2024, he will implement the plan his campaign has purposefully leaked. The outcome is easy to foretell. A bureaucracy purged of those loyal to the Constitution rather than to Trump will send free and fair elections to history’s landfill, along with the Bill of Rights and the freedoms they were designed to protect."

- Authoritarianism

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"Joe Biden is inching closer to victory, but Trumpism will not disappear with Trump. The results this year demonstrate the enduring appeal of racism and misogyny in the United States, and how America’s sclerotic and anti-majoritarian governing institutions continue to leave us vulnerable to authoritarianism. Though the last few days have been anxiety-provoking, some of the apparent closeness of the election is a mirage. As was widely anticipated, rural votes were tallied faster on election night than votes in the cities, and mail-in ballots took days to count, resulting in early apparent leads for Trump that dwindled and reversed as more votes were counted. The ridiculous and malignant anachronism of the Electoral College means that Biden’s millions-strong popular vote margin did not assure his victory. Republican efforts to suppress the vote, stop the vote count, and even invalidate ballots already counted, have made the results more tenuous than they would otherwise be. Nonetheless, and despite an uncontrolled pandemic that has already killed 234,000 Americans, more than 68 million Americans (and counting) voted to keep President Trump in office. Indeed, though Trump has fulfilled nearly every nightmare scenario his opponents warned of, and though he has all but abandoned the vague gestures he once made toward economic populism, Trump gained at least six million voters over his total in 2016. These results are a fundamentally unsurprising but nonetheless stark reminder of the enduring power of racism and misogyny in America. More broadly, Trump’s core appeal is the appeal of fascism: the pleasure of inflicting cruelty and humiliation on those one fears and disdains, the gratification of receiving the authoritarian’s flattery, and the exhilaration of a crowd freed from the normal strictures of law, reason and decency."

- Authoritarianism

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