As you know, authoritarians have spent the last decade or so surging in popularity, not just in the US but across the ideological west. But how do we identify authoritarians? There are academic definitions of authoritarianism that I find helpful and clarifying but I have also started paying attention to patterns of behavior among authoritarians, and these are the patterns I am observing.
To be clear, this is largely a reflection of American authoritarian thinkers that I have encountered in the wild, so if you’re trying to apply this to Communist China or Stalin’s USSR, it’s not going to hold up as well.
Finally, leftwing authoritarians are criticized here, but leftwing authoritarians do not hold any political power in the US currently. I’m not sure if they ever have, but they would love the opportunity. So this is not a “both sides” criticism, since leftwing authoritarianism in the US is entirely aspirational and exists interpersonally, and off the political grid, but not in any functional way.
Rightwing authoritarians don’t want to solve problems, they want to cause chaos.
Rightwing authoritarians don’t want to solve problems, they want to punish people. Leftwing authoritarians want to solve problems by punishing people.
Liberal authoritarians want to use political power to maintain the economic status quo.
Photo by Alotrobo
Rightwing authoritarians want to spend money punishing people but refuse to spend money helping people, even though helping people is demonstrably less expensive.
Authoritarians lack the emotional resilience necessary to exist in a world that doesn’t always agree with them and are deeply averse to discomfort.
Authoritarians’ lack of emotional resilience makes them want to hurt people whose lives don’t comport with their own personal beliefs.
Rightwing and leftwing authoritarians see other people’s lives as an act of aggression against them, so “retaliatory” violence is preemptively justified.
Rightwing and leftwing authoritarians want to use power against their political enemies. Liberal authoritarians want to use power to prove they are The Good Guys without having to do the uncomfortable work of making the system more equitable.
Rightwing authoritarians will use any tool they can get their hands on (because all that matters is punishment) leftwing authoritarians refuse to use tools they consider impure and freak out when others use those tools.
Rightwing authoritarians use the law and shame to punish those who disagree with them, leftwing authoritarians use exclusion and shame to punish those who are not as ideologically pure as they are.
Rightwing authoritarians reject the concept of power disparities while actively exacerbating them, leftwing authoritarians embrace the concept of power disparities and aspire to use violence to erase them. Liberal authoritarians embrace the concept of power disparities to avoid having to use political power to correct them.
If you believe punishment is an effective solution to people behaving in ways you disapprove of, despite decades of data showing it is demonstrably not an effective solution, you’re an authoritarian.
Rightwing authoritarians use political and cultural exclusion to keep people in line, leftwing authoritarians use interpersonal exclusion to keep their people in line.