The new right-wingers think people have forgotten what dictatorship means. Putin, Trump or Orban differ only in their dictatorial “phases”. Putin is an old hand who imposes his lies on his people with the aggressive undertone of punishment for disobedience. Orban follows the uprising from time to time to see whether the “critical mass” of followers has already been reached. The smaller the counter-protests, the closer he is to becoming a mini-Putin.
Trump is a grotesque mixture: a dictator of elbows who still has little idea of political dictatorship. For him, his claim is the result of business acumen, of the old glamor of his name. But that is what Trump knows: the power of simple but well-designed messages. The Milgram experiments from the 1960s in the USA investigated human behavior. Stanley Milgram wanted to find out how unconditional obedience could come about under the Nazi dictatorship.
In Milgram’s experiments, simple gestures sufficed, such as staring up at the sky, which was joined by more and more passers-by. Or the authoritarian instruction of a man in a white lab coat, during which many test subjects would have (theoretically) given another subject fatal electric shocks. The clear, simple message and the appearance of authoritarianism are Trump’s method. His authority is his status as a businessman and after his re-election he is battle proven president. Someone who “wins the hearts of the people”, as Goebbels said; someone who could be a martyr and for whom you give your life. Someone you would kill for at some point.
This devotion that he dreams of from his followers is still comparatively at the beginning of the dictatorship of the USA. Elon Musk puts his hand to his heart and gives the Hitler salute. A test of how many hearts he has already won. Even if there is resistance in the USA and the world: every day Musk and Trump are in office and in authority strengthens their delusions of grandeur. Such conceit is dangerous because, on the one hand, it is reinforced by the echo chambers of the followers themselves, but reality always catches up with them. Imagination fights back as soon as its own world view is called into question and becomes increasingly aggressive in its defense.
Technocracy as confirmation of simplicity
This also applies to the governed. Some people in the West seem to have arrived at a fairy-tale level of political thinking: The message fundamentally simple, its execution artistically of the highest order. For example, that of a Tesla car. Or against the sophisticated presentation of disinformation by dependent media. It begins with ambiguous headlines and exclamation points. You can’t argue with the design, the technology and the visionary nature of it.
Simplicity fights for territory. It is a neuroplastic affair; a mental substance of neural connections. It just works. Repeat a message often enough and it becomes trust. Neuroscientifically, this is reflected in ever stronger neural connections in the brain. They are there, and with them is a truth about the state of the world in our heads. This state becomes more fundamental the more one-sided the experience. Clearer, stronger patterns in the brain gradually exclude surrounding patterns of experience from the electrical impulse. The view narrows.
The authority of science is being supplanted by the authority of the “successful”. It is an ethos of progress that puts the visionary (Musk) and the well-connected (Trump) before science. It is the entrepreneurs who want to turn scientists into useful idiots. Because the boss is in control and, above all, has the vision. These “officials who take freedom too seriously” (Camus) are currently burying it.
Someone like Trump sees himself at a summit instead of serving the people. He is boss, is advised, but decides for himself what is right and wrong. He divides the world into good and bad and judges accordingly. Because a person would question himself if he doubted his convictions, the same is unthinkable for the smartest president. Less and less so, as long as he does not experience any contradiction. Somehow you get the feeling with Trump that he is not really a dictator at all, but wants to please an affected audience. The side effect: profit, at least for his inner circle. When he talks on Twitter about “buying” shares in order to suspend tariffs, he at least throws his fans a few bones.
The community
Being a dictator does not simply mean condemning your fellow human beings to be subjects out of a pathological urge. They are indifferent as long as they follow the values. Dictators fall into a pathological state of dogmatism and lack of empathy as soon as they no longer believe they can justify themselves because they have not had to justify themselves for a long time.
Nevertheless, the basic idea of community is always the most important instrument of the dictator. Community can be found in socialism and national socialism, in the NRA, in ISIS and in the smallest brotherhood. It is rooted in identity. Giving someone an identity that is superior to all others is something that a person gladly accepts. Because they feel valued. Anyone who is valued in this sense as an American or German cannot be without pride. If this world view is in the mind, any criticism of one’s own opinion becomes a questioning of one’s own intellectual integrity. The more deeply fundamentalist a person is, the more they defend themselves against this dissonance. All criticism encroaches deeper and deeper into their personality.
Liberation is always at the heart of the message
Enlightenment is a process. The reality around and within us is constantly changing. The more fundamentally an inner reality is shaped by conditioning and neuroplasticity, the more likely confrontations with it are. Initially, a dissonant reality confirms one’s own world view: defiance and rejection of its factuality, but at the same time deeper fundamentalism. Because “they are against us”, against me. One sees oneself as a victim who is able to fight because of one’s pride. Fighting becomes a means of liberation. This is how open people become closed people. For the “open society” (and its enemies) according to Karl Popper, this is the death blow. His theory was not without correction, because “if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant social order against the attacks of intolerance, then the tolerant will be destroyed and tolerance with them.”
Trump and his supporters are riding a wave of initial enthusiasm and conviction that any resistance from the system is a revelation of its flaw. Trump’s rigid worldview and deep convictions have unimportant content. Whether he believes what he says or whether he is cynical is unimportant. The very existence of this fundamentalist approach to reality makes his power dangerous for anyone who wants to remain independent.
Erdogan imprisons lawyers, journalists, and all dissenters, and after years does not notice any serious criticism. His own adaptation to the environment he has “cleansed” strengthens his faith, as Erdogan becomes more and more convinced that the masses will eventually stand behind him. It will become a matter of course that he will be obeyed and served. Perhaps this point has just been passed. Pride and violence precede a fall.
What all current dictators have in common is that they see themselves as defenders of freedom against those who think differently. Critics are competitors who lay claim to the throne and want to kill you. It doesn’t matter how far or close to reality a dictator thinks – he defends himself and his world view to the death. This is what he expects of his followers: first to see themselves as unfree. Then to become actionist, of their own free will. Similarly, when the Coca-Cola Company claims that a sugar tax would deprive consumers of their freedom of choice.
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