Trumpism is Waging a Psychological War on All of Us: To Defeat it Will Require All our Efforts

Bruce can light the way but we all have to pull our weight

Everyone should read this important blog. It sets out the reasons why Trumpism and the authoritarian movement he now leads around the world are not going to go quietly or quickly into the dustbin of history. It will stick around because it’s expertly designed to respond to the post-global moment. Fueled by the resentment of white males who fear they have lost status and power in the new world order that emerged from the ashes of the financial crisis. The blog is informed by some recent political science research that describes a worldwide turning away from rational discourse, inflamed by fear of falling through the thin social safety nets that capitalism constructed in the post-war era

The movement draws its power from a specific form of resentment, one that political scientist Casey Ryan Kelly (2020) traces through Trump's rhetorical patterns. This isn't garden-variety political anger. It's what Nietzsche called ressentiment—a deeper psychological wound that transforms victimhood into a kind of moral weapon. When people fear they've lost status in a changing world, when the social safety nets feel threadbare, the mind doesn't reach for policy solutions. It reaches for enemies to blame.

Trump understood this instinctively. His genius lay not in offering coherent governance but in providing a theater of grievance where his followers could see their fears reflected and their enemies punished. From his first campaign speech branding Mexican immigrants as "rapists and criminals" to his constant invocation of "American carnage," Trump framed modern life as a battlefield where his supporters were simultaneously victims and righteous warriors.

The Paradox at the Heart of the Movement

What makes Trumpism particularly sticky for the MAGA followers is its ability to appeal to their need for simple solutions to complex problems (immigration, deindustrialization etc) and packaging those solutions that were never designed to work, in a way that can appeal to the MAGA sense of victimhood —(tariffs sold as “China is ripping us off” is the idiotic case for tarrifs). Research by Golec de Zavala and Keenan (2021) on "collective narcissism" helps explain this phenomenon. The movement presents itself as liberation while demanding the power to dominate others. Its followers see themselves as brave truth-tellers fighting corrupt institutions, yet what they fight for reveals a different agenda entirely—one of control, coercion, and what they frame as righteous cruelty.

Consider how the rhetoric operates: Banning discussions of LGBTQ identity becomes "protecting children." Erasing transgender recognition becomes "defending biological truth." Forcing women to carry nonviable pregnancies becomes a "pro-life victory." Each prohibition gets reframed as freedom, each act of exclusion as protection.

This is reactive authoritarianism—a moral framework built on punishing difference to preserve what feels like a fragile identity. The logic is circular and self-reinforcing: we are under attack, therefore our attacks are defensive; we are losing our country, therefore taking it back justifies any means.

The Theater of Victimhood

Trump's rallies function as cathartic spaces where this inverted morality gets performed. The crowds don't just cheer policy proposals—they cheer moments of theatrical cruelty. As the blog writers note, when Trump mocked a disabled reporter, when he suggested shooting migrants at the border, when he promised mass deportations and political retribution, these weren't policy statements. They were rituals of symbolic dominance, moments where perceived victimhood gets avenged through the humiliation of others.

This psychological warfare in political disguise explains why fact-checking and rational argument often fail to penetrate MAGA consciousness. The movement operates on emotional logic, not logical reasoning. As the blog authors point out people may live most of their lives without expressing authoritarian attitudes, but under perceived threat, especially threats to their group status, those attitudes surge to the surface. The fear doesn't even need to be real. It just needs to feel real.

Beyond Electoral Politics: The Cracks in the Wall

Understanding Trumpism's psychological foundation suggests that resistance must operate on several levels simultaneously. Just as Trump attacks multiple targets daily—immigrants, universities, media, international allies—creating a sense of perpetual siege, effective resistance requires finding multiple pressure points where the authoritarian narrative can be interrupted.

Sometimes these interruptions come from unexpected sources. When Bruce Springsteen spoke at his Manchester concert about Trump's "abuses" and the complicity of elected officials who "have failed to protect the American people," he wasn't just offering celebrity opinion. He was redefining what it means to be "deeply American." In Springsteen's framing, patriotism means protecting honored institutions and supporting the people who've built the country, not tearing them down. The America he's "sung about for 50 years" includes unsung heroes who resisted fascism, saved lives during crises, and rebuilt communities after economic devastation.

This kind of narrative intervention matters because it contests the symbolic terrain where Trumpism operates. It suggests that loving your country means protecting it from those who would weaponize its divisions.

Everyday Resistance: Beyond the Symbolic

But resistance cannot rely on celebrities and symbolic gestures alone. The long battle against authoritarianism requires sustained work across multiple domains of daily life. Here are concrete ways people can interrupt Trumpist narratives and build democratic alternatives:

In Professional Spaces

Educational institutions can resist by maintaining rigorous standards of evidence and critical thinking, refusing to treat authoritarian talking points as deserving equal time with factual analysis. This doesn't mean abandoning intellectual humility—it means distinguishing between genuine scholarly debate and bad-faith manipulation of academic norms.

Healthcare workers can document and publicize the human costs of authoritarian policies, from maternal mortality rates in states with abortion bans to mental health impacts on immigrant communities. Professional associations can leverage their credibility to counter misinformation campaigns.

Journalists and media workers can refuse false equivalencies that treat authoritarian rhetoric as merely another political position. This means developing new frameworks for covering politicians who systematically lie, manipulate, and incite violence. The networks could organize town meetings that address real problems people face and hace the politicians repond not with talking points or insults but with reasoned arguments. The journalists should do more to force politicians to answer the question not pivot to their own preferred talking point.

Business leaders can recognize that a stable democracy provides the predictable legal frameworks that make long-term investment possible. Corporate voices carrying this message can reach audiences skeptical of traditional political appeals.

In Community Organizing

Local politics offers space for building practical alternatives to authoritarian governance. School boards, city councils, and county commissions make decisions that directly affect people's lives. Effective governance at these levels demonstrates that democratic institutions can solve real problems.

Mutual aid networks provide concrete alternatives to the scarcity mindset that fuels authoritarian appeal. When people experience genuine community support, the zero-sum thinking that pits groups against each other becomes less compelling.

Labor organizing addresses the economic anxieties that authoritarian movements exploit. Union drives, worker cooperatives, and campaigns for living wages create material improvements in people's lives while building democratic participation skills.

In Cultural Work

Religious communities can reclaim moral language from those who weaponize it. Many authoritarian appeals work by framing cruelty as righteousness—countering this requires articulating alternative visions of what moral behavior actually looks like.

Artists and cultural workers can tell stories that complicate authoritarian narratives about who belongs in America and what the country's values are. This means not just creating protest art, but developing richer, more complex representations of American life.

Sports communities and other cultural spaces can model the kind of diverse, rule-based competition that democracy requires, where different groups can compete fiercely while respecting shared standards and the legitimacy of outcomes.

In Digital Spaces

Social media requires particular strategic thinking. Rather than engaging in performative arguments that often reinforce polarization, effective digital resistance might involve amplifying local success stories, sharing concrete resources for community problem-solving, and modeling thoughtful disagreement.

Information literacy work helps people develop skills for evaluating sources and recognizing manipulation techniques. This education works best when it focuses on practical skills rather than lecturing about what people should believe.

The Long View

The battle against Trumpism cannot be won quickly because it addresses deep psychological needs and social anxieties that won't disappear with electoral cycles. Collective narcissism, status anxiety, and the appeal of authoritarian simplicity in complex times—these are recurring features of human psychology, not temporary political problems.

But James Baldwin's words, quoted by Springsteen, offer a framework for sustainable resistance: "In this world, there isn't as much humanity as one would like. But there's enough." The work isn't to convert everyone or win every argument. It's to nurture the humanity that already exists, to build institutions and relationships that make democratic life more appealing than authoritarian alternatives, and to interrupt the narratives that transform normal human anxiety into political cruelty.

This requires what we might call "anti-fragile" organizing—building movements and institutions that get stronger rather than weaker when challenged. It means creating alternatives attractive enough to compete with authoritarianism's emotional appeals, not just opposing what we're against.

The cracks in the authoritarian wall appear not just in moments of celebrity resistance, but in every workplace where people choose cooperation over domination, every classroom where critical thinking gets modeled rather than mandated, every neighborhood where mutual aid builds trust across difference. The wall breaks when enough people experience democracy as something worth defending because it makes their lives genuinely better.

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