Not everyone who supports authoritarian leaders is “evil” or ignorant.
Many are unhealed. Many are scared. Many learned early in life that safety comes from surrendering their power, not holding it.
Authoritarianism doesn’t rise only because of politics. It rises because trauma – personal and collective – goes unaddressed.
Here are ten reasons people who haven’t healed often feel pulled toward strongmen and rigid ideologies.
- Certainty feels safer than complexity
- If your life has been unpredictable, absolute answers feel like relief – even when they harm others.
- Strong Leaders feel like protection
- A dysregulated nervous system looks for someone louder, bigger, and more forceful to hide behind.
- Power becomes a substitute for self-worth
- When you don’t feel powerful within, aligning with external dominance can feel like validation
- Questioning feels dangerous
- If challenging authority got you punished growing up, obedience can feel like survival – not submission.
- Scapegoating feels easier than self – reflection.
- It’s easier to blame “others” – immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, the vulnerable – than face your own wounds.
- Belonging replaces introspection.
- Trauma can leave people hungry for belonging. Sometimes belonging to a rigid group feels safer than standing alone to think for yourself.
- Empathy feels threatening.
- If you had to shut down emotions to survive, compassion can feel overwhelming – even weak. Authoritarian movements redefine cruelty as strength.
- Control feels like stability.
- When your inner world feels unpredictable, controlling the outer world becomes the coping mechanism.
- Nostalgia becomes a trauma response.
- Some people romanticize the past not because it was better – but because they felt less powerless then. Authoritarians sell “the good old days to avoid growth.
- Freedom can feel terrifying.
- True freedom requires responsibility, self-awareness, and boundaries – which trauma can interrupt. For the unhealed, someone else making the rules feels safer.
Note:
Trauma doesn’t automatically point someone toward authoritarianism. It heightens the need for safety, certainty, and belonging.
I felt many of these impulses growing up, too. I challenged authority and paid for it. I craved rules when the world felt chaotic. I was a human, trying to survive what I didn’t yet know how to process.
Some of us eventually turn inward and do the healing work. Others turn outward and cling to power or certainty to cope.
The difference isn’t moral superiority – it’s whether we’re willing to face pain rather than outsource it.
What helped you move from fear-based thinking to grounded thinking?
Further Reading: Understanding Trauma and Authoritarianism
- The Authoritarian Personality by Et Al Adorno, T.W. – Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism – Google Search
- The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt – The Origins of Totalitarianism a book by Hannah Arendt, Anne Applebaum, and Anne Applebaum – Bookshop.org US
