Everyone knows who Donald Trump is. He is a classic authoritarian leader. Therefore, if you are for Donald Trump, you are an authoritarian follower by definition and in reality. Millions upon millions of our fellow Americans are authoritarian followers. We’ve just seen that.
There has been a good deal written about the qualities and characteristics of the authoritarian follower in the political arena. But none of that research has focused on what that person does behind closed doors. Over the years, I’ve done that primary research by inviting folks to take my Authoritarian Wound Questionnaire. What I’ve learned is exactly what you would have predicted: at home, these political sheep are family bullies. What else would you have expected?
It may be essentially unfair to label everyone who is for Donald Trump an authoritarian follower or to act as if they are all “the same person.” There are many strange bedfellows in the Trump Army: left-leaning Jews who see him as friendlier to Israel than Biden; businessmen who see right through him but who know that he is making them rich; Cuban-Americans who love his anti-Castro rhetoric; and so on. All Trump followers are not following him because they are bullies too.
But millions upon millions of them are bullies and they do the lion’s share of their bullying at home. Every day I get emails that begin “I hate my father” or “I hate my mother” and that go on to describe the everyday atrocities that family tyrants perpetrate on their own. These pint-sized authoritarians wear their family members down, play dirty, are relentless in their efforts to bully, demean, ridicule, and harm, intrude wherever they can, and, if they feel inclined to justify their actions, may pull out the religion card.
A percentage of these many bullies are bullies in public. Many aren’t. Many appear completely friendly, completely ordinary, completely conventional.
But inside they are as hard as nails and when put to the test—as for instance Stanley Milgram’s famous “learning experiment” test—they will punish strangers with massive doses of electroshock (which, of course, aren’t really delivered) because, in their nature, punishing trumps compassion by a longshot. In that famous experiment, more than ninety percent of subjects applied what they believed were massive doses of electroshock while displaying not the least bit of discomfort. Punishing came easily to them.
That woman serving your coffee may smile. But scratch the surface and she is full of grievances and hatred. She will smile at you but, behind closed doors and sometimes in public, she will snap viciously at her daughter. She will cheerfully thank you for your tip but inside she is relentlessly bitter and ready to bite someone’s head off. Every day I get emails from the children of these petty tyrants, begging to know if there is anything they can do to make things better. But what can be done, given an authoritarian’s inner landscape?
The fourteen-year-old daughter of a bullying father or bullying mother can’t do very much to help herself or save herself. But we can watch out for her a little by being very clear that we understand what is going on behind closed doors all over America and all over the world. We must say very clearly, “You can’t fool me by looking okay in public. If you are part of Trump’s Army, you can’t fool me for a moment.”
If you are the victim of one of these pint-sized tyrants, maybe you can at least tell your story—anonymously, if you wish. I, for one, am happy to publish your story in this Thursday blog. Telling your story isn’t anything like an answer, but the more stories that get told and that that get heard, the harder it is for authoritarians to proceed. That’s why their first efforts are always to silence speech. They know that speech threatens their miserable plans. Let us keep speaking in whatever ways we can.
If you’ve had the experience of being harmed by a family authoritarian—a parent, sibling, grandparent, aunt or uncle, partner, adult child, etc.—or by someone else close to you—a cleric, teacher, boss, co-worker, etc.—I invite you take the Authoritarian Wound Questionnaire, available here. I also invite you to tell your story, as it is long past time that we got this epidemic of wounding exposed—and ended. Come back each Thursday to read more about authoritarians in the family and please think about taking the Authoritarian Wound Questionnaire and about telling your story.
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Eric Maisel is the author of 50+ books. You can learn more about him at www.ericmaisel.com, subscribe to all of his blog posts at https://authory.com/ericmaisel, and write him at [email protected]