Authoritarian chapters in world history are repeating, and the red flags have been waving for a while now. However, it seems that many continue to dismiss them.
Authoritarian red flags are abundant
Authoritarians tend to look as though they “suddenly” rose to power. That’s not the case, they simply followed the path of least resistance to people’s biases. This actually can take a long time in some instances, but it is based on normalizing the insanity of their rhetoric. Soon enough, those who were not paying attention will realize they were asleep at the wheel.
I can ask right now many westerners, and that includes many Americans a simple question. Who is the current, and duly elected president of the United States of America? And a very high percentage of the population I’ve cited will give you the wrong answer. By the way, it is President Joe R. Biden – and he has been the US President since he won the election in 2020.
Authoritarian and adversarial regimes will want you to think that is not the case. Or that he was not duly elected. In fact, it is part of their official narrative. As a rule of thumb, if you think that something might be against the USA, then listen to the state-sponsored propaganda from an adversarial regime. If it matches the words coming out of the mouth of your favorite talking head, that should perk your ears up.
Authoritarians, “authoritarians-wanna” be, and their useful foolish acolytes are fairly easy to spot – surprise! They will have any if not all of these attributes I’m about to mention, either as a person or as a collective. Of course, an authoritarian is only as powerful as their followers, so if their acolytes subscribe to that behavior, then it becomes a multiplier – although it is a lot more fragile than they realize.
This is a non-all-inclusive list, but should get you started:
- They are petulant, which will display their obvious narcissism.
- They are wimps. They will have a thin skin for criticism and will retaliate ten if not million-fold for any little bit of criticism.
- They will gaslight their own supporters, they will ask you not to believe your lying eyes or ears – and let alone do your own research.
- They will “unify” their acolytes, but they will be very divisive with everybody else. Even former acolytes who fell out of favor will be severely punished – even if through words or any other form of humiliation.
- They are NEVER wrong – in their minds and will do any types of mental gymnastics to justify their rationale. Which usually lacks substance or merits.
- They will have no shortage of legal trials or other history of somebody who has been F-in-the-A by them, literally and figuratively. They will always claim innocence.
- They will ask for immunity to do whatever they want, because they intend to do what they want without any limits or accountability.
- They will insult their opposition, give them sophomoric nicknames, and generally surround themselves with people who are just as shallow as they are.
- They will surround themselves by “yes men and women” – because they cannot take criticism, and this by the way is unsustainable, because then all these spineless people become a rubber stamp to their narcissism.
- They will objectify men and women, and especially attractive people will be paraded more as trophies and a commodity, rather than a person.
- They will dehumanize others outside their circle, and even their own insiders will be punished if for some reason they are outside the circle of obedience.
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Are you placing yourself on the wrong side of history?
I can go on with my list, but hopefully that will help the mind-wheels to start turning. In my book Authoritarianism & Propaganda the Puppet Master Tools I expand on this topic. If you have fallen victim to this trend, don’t beat yourself up – for too long. But do something about it. This is what you can do:
Stop giving an authoritarian your undivided attention and loyalty, because you don’t mean jack-s-t to them already, and the very second you become inconvenient to them you’ll be fittingly disposed. In fact, you’ve probably have seen many on their orbit who had a high position being disposed of, very unceremoniously, and often in a cruel manner to be “made an example” for others.
When somebody asks for unlimited loyalty, that is a red flag – because that means they will ask you do some stuff you will probably regret later. If you don’t take heed and still keep doing whatever that you are doing to support the authoritarian despite the fact your life just got f-ked – well, they love that, because that means you’re exactly the kind of dumb muscle they need to keep their narcissistic existence from collapsing.
The catch is that authoritarianism is not sustainable. Not one authoritarian in history has thrived forever, their circle of trust became a circle of obedience, and little by little it shrank to the point they were all against each other. Yes, the same team who was first “against the rest of the world” – becomes a dog-eat-dog bunch. How to defeat and prevent this from taking over your life is by paying attention to the red flags I mentioned. HLC