By Tom Moon—
(Editor’s Note: Longtime readers of the San Francisco Bay Times may recall the popular column “The Examined Life,” which ran in the paper for many years before Moon decided to retire it in 2019. He has remained busy as a psychotherapist in San Francisco, and recently wrote this new piece for the Bay Times.)
Watching what has unfolded in Minnesota, and reading the comments about it on social media, has led me to think a lot about the more than 75 years of psychological research on the authoritarian personality, a concept usually simply defined as a disposition to treat the voices of “authorities” with unquestioning respect and obedience.
The authors of The Authoritarian Personality (1950), written in the shadow of Nazism, wrote that people who were susceptible to fascist ideology and anti-democratic politics tended to have such personality characteristics as a cynical and disdainful view of humanity; and a need to wield power and be perceived as tough. They hypothesized that these traits arise from extreme anxiety over people whom they perceive as a threat to the dominant value system, which is usually imagined as besieged and perpetually endangered. (Germans didn’t just hate “the Jew”; they feared “World Jewry” as an organized, diabolical conspiracy bent on their destruction.)
Authoritarian personalities are inclined to act oppressively against such imagined enemies; they’re also prone to anti-intellectualism and simplistic solutions to complex issues. They have a general opposition to the subjective and imaginative tendencies of the mind, which shows itself, for example, as suspicion of the arts. Usually, they also have an extreme need for adherence to rigid gender roles and hostility toward “sexual promiscuity,” especially in women.
The authors proposed that authoritarian personality characteristics are fostered by parents who have a psychological need for domination, and who harshly threaten and punish their children to compel obedience to conventional norms. These domineering parents are also preoccupied with social status, a concern they communicate by forcing their children to conform to rigid, external rules. The result of such domination is that the child suffers emotionally from the suppression of his or her feelings of aggression and resentment towards the domineering parents, whom the child also idealizes, but never criticizes. Rage is directed instead toward enemies who are almost always unseen and invisible—the stranger, the Other—Jews, Communists, atheists, sexual “deviants,” and so on. Any of this sound familiar?
To live in the authoritarian mental universe of MAGA is to inhabit a kind of comic book world in which you are aligned with all that is good and holy against all that is unholy and demonic. There are no shades of grey, no partial truths, no maybes, no subtleties. For the MAGA true believer, for instance, Trump can’t be just a good president; he must be the greatest president in American history. He must be universally beloved and respected all over the world; and any evidence to the contrary—his poll numbers, his reception in Davos, the boos in Milan—must all be “fake news.” To oppose him is prima facie evidence that you have Trump Derangement Syndrome, a mental disorder that you won’t find described in any psychiatric textbook. There is only One Truth, which you can absorb daily on Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, right-wing radio, etc. You must never watch “main stream media,” as its sole purpose is to lead you astray.
In the current situation, the defenders of what ICE is doing consistently see themselves as representing “law and order,” and to view anyone who stands against ICE in any way as lawless, troublemakers, agitators, traitors, etc. When ICE agents bully, arrest, or murder people, the first MAGA instinct is to blame the victims. If you stand in the way of those who are “only enforcing the law,” then you deserve whatever you get, no matter how vicious it is. People who are “lawless” are completely otherized. They deserve no respect, no empathy, and no compassion for their suffering. Any cruelty is justified “self-defense,” because ICE is only trying to stand up for what is true and good, against vast evil forces.
I have read the posts of people who argue that ICE should turn water cannons on Minneapolis protestors in freezing temperatures, and they express glee at the thought of the suffering this would cause. I wonder how many of these people have ever heard of Bull Connor, the “authority” who, in 1963, turned high-pressure water hoses and attack dogs on civil rights marchers in Birmingham, and arrested thousands, including teenagers and children—all in the name of law and order and Christian values. And Bull Connor was “right,” in that he was fully backed by the city and state laws at the time in Alabama.
But what he did marked a turning point in the civil rights movement. Television images of what he had unleashed on nonviolent anti-segregationists shocked the nation and forced white Americans to face what racism really means and to see with their own eyes the moral contrast between the just demands of Black America and the response of “law and order.” In the end, segregation was dismantled, and Bull Connor died in obscurity.
This gives me hope that the trance of MAGA will end, because something similar is happening today. All over the country there is a backlash against ICE, as more and more Americans openly confront and defy its authority. Of course, that defiance also triggers the Bull Connors of today, who fear that this “anarchy and chaos” is a tool of the “lunatic Left” or “Communists” or “Democrats” or “libs” (pick your favorite villain), in their evil campaigns to destroy the country. Things may get uglier before they get better. Yet, in countless ways, the wheels seem to be wobbling on the MAGA wagon. The excesses of the Trump regime are weakening his support, which, in any case, has always come from a minority.
Fascist regimes always carry the seeds of their own destruction because human beings cannot survive in a cartoon universe, only on planet Earth. But what can we do to hasten the day of this regime’s demise? First, it is important that we have a clear understanding of the nature of the lunacy we face, which is why I believe knowledge of how the authoritarian personality operates is so important. Clarity is an indispensable tool in an environment where we are under constant pressure to deny the reality of what is directly in front of our noses.
Second, we need to remain firm in our knowledge that factual reality exists, that it deserves our allegiance, and that it doesn’t change just because those currently in power find it inconvenient.
And third, in a time of darkness like the one we’re passing through, it is vital that, as Bad Bunny said so beautifully at the Grammys and the Super Bowl, we remember that love is stronger than hate. It is home; it’s where we belong. Whenever we love deeply, we know immediately that this is what life is for: to be resolute in celebrating our love for our people, our communities, and all those in our lives whom we hold dear; and to allow ourselves to be guided by what that love teaches us about who we are and what we must do. These are the indispensable foundation for any resistance we mount.
Finally, we must be willing to take risks, and, if necessary, to endure discomfort in the service of the truth. Too many Americans have had it far too easy for far too long. Too many of us have never been called to struggle or to fight for our values, a luxury not enjoyed in most of the rest of the world. If this malignancy is to be excised, we all have to be willing to resist, and, if necessary, to endure pain in the service of that resistance.
For now, the forces of “God and country” are arrayed against us. Let’s own what they accuse us of being. Tell them: we are the traitors, the troublemakers, the “libs” the “Demoncrats,” the Communists, the agitators, the “men who think they’re women,” the “illegal aliens,” the “rapists and murderers,” the “domestic terrorists.” Imagine who we are in any way you like; it will neither impress nor deter us. We will defeat you.
Tom Moon is a psychotherapist in San Francisco. He can be reached at tmoonmft@gmail.com, or through his website, http://www.tommoon.net/
Published on February 26, 2026
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