Authoritarian, Narcissistic, & Demagogic Leaders

"The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." ~ H. L. Mencken

"Reason and truth have rarely prevailed against demagoguery when the audience is too ignorant to tell the difference." ~ Charley Reese

"Exploiting people's emotions of fear, envy and anxiety is not hope, it's not change, it's partisanship. We don't need partisanship. We don't need demagoguery, we need solutions." ~ Paul Ryan

"American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery." ~ Henry A. Wallace

"America has been a land of dreams. A land where the aspirations of people from countries cluttered with rich, cumbersome, aristocratic, ideological pasts can reach for what once seemed unattainable. Here they have tried to make dreams come true. Yet now... we are threatened by a new and particularly American menace. It is not the menace of class war, of ideology, of poverty, of disease, of illiteracy, or demagoguery, or of tyranny, though these now plague most of the world. It is the menace of unreality." ~ Daniel J. Boorstin

When you are going through a time of mutual puzzlement, economic uncertainty or even possible collapse, cultural dislocation, or accelerations in the rate of change, you are likely to feel open to those who claim to offer clear vision in the midst of puzzlement.

Authoritarian, narcissistic, and demagogic leaders prosper at such times since they bring with them confidence, manliness, and unshakeable conviction.

They appeal by stating that your style of life, heritage, and culture are being threatened. This fires up your desire for symbolic rebirth, a return to a dreamt about past when life was less complex, cleaner, and safer. These leaders pose as father figures, strong enough to keep you safe, stern enough to discipline enemies, and brave enough to enforce a new order.

You begin to submit to their rule because they promise security in exchange for obedience. Their charm and charisma is a sense of confidence in a time when all else appears to be subject to flux.

But it is not just their character that engages you, it's the manner in which they leverage the tools of new media for their propaganda purposes to bypass old-fashioned checks and balances.

With ownership or influence of social networking websites, they need no longer rely on gatekeeper journalists or deliberation among the people. They speak directly to you, unmediated, filling up your stream with affective data that favours outrage, fear, and grievance over judgment.

Multifaceted realities become simplistic, naive good-guy/bad-guy stories, you're with or against, a patriot or a traitor.

Polarized social media posts, traditional cable news media nonsensical arguments, YouTube podcast, and blog/vlog posts get through more under duress, when you'll be looking for certainty and belonging, whether or not they're founded on exclusion and finger-pointing. In this climate, emotional appeal wins over reason, and you may not even know how well you've been drawn into this narcissistic, demagogue, authoritarian sphere until dissenting is seen as betrayal and a gesture of opposition is chaos.

When you are going through a time of mutual puzzlement, economic uncertainty or even possible collapse, cultural dislocation, or accelerations in the rate of change, you are likely to feel open to those who claim to offer clear vision in the midst of puzzlement.