Fascism in America: The Same Blueprint, Different Flag

MAGA shouts ‘Don’t tread on me’ as it crushes dissent beneath its boots, their freedom is submission in disguise.

Introduction

There’s a reason facts don’t work on them.

For years, critics of Trumpism have repeated the same strategies, present the data, dismantle the lies, appeal to empathy, only to watch their efforts bounce off like rubber bullets against reinforced steel. What if the reason isn’t ignorance or misinformation, but psychological design?

The data in this article reveals something deeply unsettling: many of Trump’s most loyal followers are not merely misinformed or angry. They are psychologically conditioned, high scorers in Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), to support systems that entrench inequality, punish the vulnerable, and elevate cruelty as a political virtue. These are not traits that easily change. In fact, as we’ll show, they rarely do.

This makes the threat enduring.

You can’t negotiate with someone who sees compromise as surrender. You can’t persuade a person out of beliefs that serve as emotional armor against uncertainty and fear. And you certainly can’t build a functioning democracy when 30–40% of the population interprets equality as an attack, and compassion as weakness.

This is the psychological blind spot at the heart of MAGA, and it explains why even policies that make life objectively worse for their own communities are still embraced if they reaffirm authoritarian values or hierarchical dominance.

This isn’t just about Trump. It’s about what happens when a political movement fuses with psychological traits that reward submission to authority, delight in social hierarchies, and reinterpret harm as justice. These are not simply voters. They are believers, conditioned not by facts, but by fear, identity, and grievance.

And they’re not going anywhere.

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1. Inequality

It’s no accident that MAGA supports policies that deepen inequality. The psychology behind it isn’t hidden, it’s documented.

Authoritarian followers often tell you the system is fair. That people get what they deserve. That if someone’s struggling, it’s because they didn’t work hard enough. But the data says otherwise, and so does decades of political psychology research.

Jost et al. (2003) explain that conservatism, especially its right-wing form, functions as a kind of motivated social cognition. That means it isn’t just about principles; it’s about fear, threat, and the deep desire for certainty and stability. One core dimension of conservatism is resistance to change. The other? Endorsement of inequality (Jost et al., 2003, p. 351). These two are psychologically intertwined. The more uncertainty a person feels, the more likely they are to support systems that preserve dominance, even if those systems hurt others. Even if they hurt themselves.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Among its many provisions, one of the most telling was the removal of federal protections for Medicaid recipients. In MAGA language, this was framed as an attempt to root out “freeloaders.” But what it really did was reinstate work requirements, stripping healthcare from people who couldn't meet bureaucratic hurdles, not because they weren’t working, but because the system was designed to punish those already struggling.

We’ve seen this before. In 2018, Arkansas introduced Medicaid work requirements under a federal waiver. The result? No job increase. Immediate coverage loss. (Galewitz, P., 2019) Over 18,000 low-income residents were kicked off Medicaid, yet there was no measurable uptick in employment among those affected. A follow-up report found many were working or should have qualified, but didn’t meet the reporting requirements or got caught in the red tape (Authoritarian Nightmare, ch. 6).

And when MAGA supporters say, “I shouldn’t have to pay for them,” what they ignore, willfully or otherwise, is that they already are. According to data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the majority of uncompensated care is funded through public dollars. In fact, between 75% and 80% of unpaid hospital bills are absorbed by taxpayer-funded programs like Medicaid, Medicare DSH payments, and local subsidies (KFF, 2017). The “freeloader” myth isn’t just cruel; it’s more expensive.

Even if that weren’t true, the moral calculus remains unchanged: people shouldn’t be denied healthcare, food, or clean water just because they’re poor.

But MAGA justifies it all using the myth of meritocracy. If someone fails, it’s because they didn’t try. If someone suffers, it’s because they deserve it. This is the pecking order fantasy, the belief that life sorts people by effort, not by systems rigged against the bottom. It’s the myth of the bootstraps. But if pulling yourself up was so simple, why is upward mobility in the U.S. among the lowest in the developed world?

The truth is simple: inequality is not a bug in the system MAGA defends, it’s the feature.

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2. RWA and MAGA

Right-Wing Authoritarianism isn’t a political opinion. It’s a psychological profile.

And the MAGA movement matches it perfectly.

Bob Altemeyer, who coined the term, defines Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) as a cluster of traits: submission to perceived authorities, aggression toward outgroups sanctioned by those authorities, and a desire to enforce traditional social norms (Dean & Altemeyer, 2020, ch. 5). It’s not just about being conservative. It’s about being psychologically wired to follow the leader, no matter what the leader says or does.

MAGA’s entire ethos thrives on this dynamic. Donald Trump doesn’t need to be coherent. He only needs to speak with certainty, frame dissenters as threats, and promise to restore order. That’s all it takes to trigger obedience in high-RWA individuals. Facts don’t matter. Contradictions don’t matter. What matters is loyalty to the hierarchy.

And when those in power attack the same people that the follower already fears, immigrants, journalists, Black Americans, LGBTQ+ communities, submission turns to celebration. The aggression becomes justified.

We saw the dangers of this mindset clearly in the 1994 Global Change Game experiment, where researchers divided university students into simulated global regions and gave them 40 years of decision-making power over the fate of the Earth. One night, the entire game was played by students who had scored low on the RWA scale. The results? Broad cooperation, demilitarization, and near-universal problem solving, despite the challenges of climate change and population growth. No wars were declared. Most regions helped the poor, and the planet survived.

The next night, they ran the game again, this time using only high RWAs. Within an hour, nuclear war broke out. Millions died. Even when given a second chance, high RWAs defaulted to competition, distrust, aggression, and isolation. Cooperation broke down. Empathy vanished. The planet collapsed again, this time through inaction and ethnocentrism. In the third run of the game, where all players were high-RWA but without the additional trait of dominance (SDO), nearly 2 billion people died, not from war, but from neglect and despair. These players weren’t even hostile. They were just obedient, unimaginative, and too afraid to reach beyond their borders.

That’s the haunting reality of RWA. It doesn’t always look evil. Sometimes it looks like resignation, like building a wall and hoping the problem goes away.

And MAGA scores very high on the RWA scale. In the national survey conducted by Dean and Altemeyer, Trump supporters consistently scored in the top percentiles for authoritarian submission and aggression (Dean & Altemeyer, 2020, ch. 10). When asked about punishing dissenters or removing rights from disliked groups, they were far more likely to say yes, even when it clearly contradicted their own professed values.

This isn’t a policy preference. It’s a personality pattern. And it’s one that has proven, again and again, to be disastrous when given power.

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3. SDO and MAGA

Not every MAGA supporter is obedient. Some are dominant.

If Right-Wing Authoritarianism explains the followers, Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) explains the ones who lead them, and the ones who want to. These are the people who believe in hierarchy, inequality, and the idea that some groups should be on top while others stay in their place.

They don’t just tolerate inequality. They want it.

Social Dominators believe the world is a ruthless competition. Fairness is weakness. Compassion is a liability. What matters is winning, and making sure the “right people” keep control. These aren’t conspiracy theorists lost in echo chambers. They’re predators using grievance politics as camouflage.

According to Dean and Altemeyer’s research, high-SDO individuals are manipulative, power-hungry, and cold-blooded. They score high on Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy (Dean & Altemeyer, 2020, ch. 5). They will lie, cheat, and exploit others to gain status and control, and they’ll do it with a smile.

Sound familiar?

In MAGA circles, these are the loudest voices in the room, the ones pushing the cruelty. They call for mass deportations, dehumanize immigrants, mock the disabled, and cheer for authoritarian crackdowns. When Trump called immigrants “animals,” they laughed. When he threatened to jail political enemies, they applauded.

To them, it wasn’t shocking. It was strategy.

Dean and Altemeyer’s national survey showed that many Trump supporters scored exceptionally high in SDO, especially those who relished dominance over others. They believed that “some groups are simply inferior to others,” that “it’s OK if some groups have more of everything than others,” and that “equality should not be a priority” (Dean & Altemeyer, 2020, ch. 10).

And this wasn’t just abstract prejudice. In simulation studies, high-SDO participants pushed for corporate profits even when it meant environmental disaster, demanded obedience from others, and often manipulated or intimidated their peers (Dean & Altemeyer, 2020, ch. 10). They were more likely to engage in bullying, coercion, and deception, all while cloaking themselves in slogans like “law and order” and “America First.”

But at its core, SDO is about one thing: entitlement to power. Not earned power. Not moral power. Just brute domination.

And when these individuals align with authoritarian followers, you get something much worse than polarization.

You get a political movement that wants submission and control. A base that wants to follow orders, and a leadership that wants to exploit it. It’s not a traditional party, it’s a psychological machine fueled by fear, hierarchy, and the belief that democracy is only good when the “right people” win.

That’s what MAGA is becoming. And the more you study SDO, the more you realize, it was always headed there.

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4. Double Highs

If Right-Wing Authoritarians follow blindly, and Social Dominators lead without conscience, what happens when a person scores high in both?

You get what researchers call a “Double High.”

And according to decades of political psychology, Double Highs are the most dangerous people in a democracy.

Bob Altemeyer spent years tracking this group. In his simulations, they weren’t just aggressive or obedient, they were ruthless, manipulative, and authoritarian to the core. They wanted power, took it, and punished anyone who questioned them. In one study, when Double Highs were added to a high-RWA group during a global environmental simulation, the game shifted instantly from stagnation to militarism, bullying, and conquest. One participant bought nuclear weapons, invaded India, and declared, “War is good.” Others followed, not because they believed in the war, but because they didn’t want to challenge authority (Dean & Altemeyer, 2020, ch. 10).

This is the lethal psychology that forms the core of MAGA leadership.

In Authoritarian Nightmare, Dean and Altemeyer reveal that while most Trump supporters scored high on RWA, a significant segment also ranked in the top quartile for SDO, making them prime candidates for Double High status (Dean & Altemeyer, 2020, ch. 10). These are the ones who cheer when Trump mocks the disabled, strips healthcare from the poor, or weaponizes ICE to tear families apart. They don’t flinch when innocent people suffer. They enjoy it, so long as it serves their hierarchy.

Even more disturbing, Double Highs tend to be charismatic. They know how to manipulate group loyalty, especially among authoritarian followers. In the simulations, they often seized power without being elected, staged internal coups, or took control through emotional blackmail and dominance displays (Dean & Altemeyer, 2020, ch. 10). And once in power, they didn’t aim to protect the group, they used it to serve their own ambition.

In the real world, this mirrors Trump’s rise perfectly. He didn’t win over MAGA by being a thoughtful conservative. He commanded loyalty by dominating others, exploiting racial resentment, and promising to “crush” the opposition. He mocked political norms, belittled his rivals, and projected power through cruelty, and the base didn’t resist. They rallied.

That’s the Double High dynamic. It isn’t just authoritarianism, it’s authoritarianism with intent. The desire not just to rule, but to reshape the entire system into a hierarchy of obedience and control.

And with MAGA, we’re not just seeing a few Double Highs at the top. We’re watching a movement designed to produce and reward them.

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5. Motivated Reasoning and Collective Narcissism

To understand why MAGA supporters persist in defending harmful or false beliefs, we must examine the psychological machinery behind their thinking. At the center of it is motivated reasoning, a process in which people selectively accept or reject information based on what aligns with their identity or desires, not truth. As Ziva Kunda (1990) argued, people don’t necessarily reason toward accuracy, but rather toward conclusions they want to be true. Their reasoning is goal-directed, consciously or unconsciously twisted to protect their worldview (Kunda, 1990).

This isn't simply about being misinformed; it’s about rejecting corrections even when the truth is presented. Nyhan and Reifler (2010) found that corrections can actually backfire, strengthening false beliefs among the most ideologically committed. When exposed to accurate information that contradicts their views, many double down instead of reconsidering. The more authoritarian the personality, the more likely this effect kicks in, because accepting the correction would mean challenging their loyalty to their leaders or group.

Layered on top of this is collective narcissism, an inflated belief in the greatness of one’s group coupled with hypersensitivity to criticism. People high in collective narcissism see any critique of the nation, their political movement, or their perceived identity as a personal attack. This creates a defensive loop: the group must be good, the leader must be right, and anyone who says otherwise is the enemy. De Zavala et al. (2009) show that people high in collective narcissism are more likely to perceive outgroups as threats, support authoritarian policies, and exhibit hostility toward dissent, even if those policies violate democratic norms.

In MAGA spaces, this plays out in full force. Trump isn’t simply a politician to them, he is the embodiment of their identity. As a result, when he lies or breaks norms, his supporters don’t weigh the facts. They search for justifications. They contort reality to keep him pure in their minds. They don’t need to be explicitly told what to believe; their psychology already guides them to protect the group at all costs. It is not an error. It is a feature.

This explains why MAGA supporters often frame any criticism as “fake news,” label opponents as enemies of the state, and accuse others of the very things their side is doing. It’s not just propaganda, it’s an emotional coping strategy driven by a need to preserve identity and belonging. They aren’t interested in truth. They’re interested in defending the tribe.

In combination, motivated reasoning and collective narcissism form a near-impenetrable shell. Facts bounce off. Corrections fail. The more inequality grows, the more MAGA turns to authoritarianism to explain away the pain, and blame someone else for it.

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6. MAGA’s Grievances Are Real, But Filtered Through Authoritarian Psychology

It’s tempting to dismiss MAGA supporters as irrational or hateful. But doing so misses a deeper, more unsettling truth: many of their grievances are legitimate. Economic insecurity. Cultural dislocation. Feelings of abandonment. But what makes the MAGA movement dangerous is how these grievances are interpreted, filtered through psychological lenses warped by Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), and collective narcissism.

The authoritarian personality does not process pain the way the democratic mind does. When people scoring high in RWA face hardship, they don't look inward, nor do they tend to analyze systems. Instead, they seek certainty, submission, and scapegoats. Rather than examining economic policies or social dynamics, they default to blaming outsiders: immigrants, minorities, “leftists,” or elites who supposedly betrayed them. This impulse is not accidental, it is the psychological function of RWA: to reduce uncertainty by identifying enemies and adhering to strong, punitive leaders (Altemeyer, 2020).

For those high in SDO, the reaction to suffering is even more chilling. They don’t want equality; they want hierarchy. When their group is not on top, or when other groups start climbing, they feel threatened. Grievances are not just personal, they are zero-sum. Their psychology doesn’t seek fairness; it seeks dominance, even if it means destroying the ladder after they’ve climbed it. In this worldview, inequality is not a failure of the system, it’s a goal. A feature, not a bug.

These underlying traits create a feedback loop. Political leaders, like Trump, capitalize on economic or cultural grievances by giving them direction: “You’re not the problem. They are.” Instead of fostering democratic accountability, MAGA becomes a vehicle for displaced aggression. A movement for those who feel wronged, yet are psychologically conditioned to punish, not reform. To obey, not reflect. To dominate, not liberate.

Collective narcissism intensifies this pattern. It tells people their group, Americans, white Christians, conservatives, is special and morally superior, but unfairly persecuted. This fusion of superiority and victimhood turns grievance into paranoia. Any social gain by “others” becomes an attack on “us.” This explains why MAGA can simultaneously believe that America is the greatest nation on Earth and also that it has been stolen from them.

MAGA supporters may be reacting to real pain, but their psychological makeup drives them to interpret that pain in ways that sustain inequality, erode democracy, and legitimize cruelty. The problem is not that their suffering isn’t real. The problem is that their worldview ensures that someone else will suffer for it.

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Conclusion

The data should leave no illusions. The threat posed by MAGA’s psychology isn’t just political, it’s structural. The minds conditioned by Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) do not simply hold bad opinions. They are built, psychologically engineered, to reinforce systems of dominance, submission, grievance, and inequality.

You cannot reason with what was never reasoned into being. The research spanning decades, from Altemeyer to Jost, reveals a chilling truth: these individuals are not merely misguided, they are deeply conditioned. Fear, uncertainty avoidance, aggression, dogmatism, and a longing for simplistic structure form the psychological bedrock upon which their worldview rests. As Jost (2003) concluded, political conservatism is not just an ideology, it is a motivated response to existential insecurity. And when that insecurity is fed, the result is a fanatical resistance to change and a fervent endorsement of inequality.

The MAGA movement thrives because it supplies this audience with what they crave: certainty, submission, identity, and an enemy. And once they have that, they will defend it, even to the detriment of their health, their economy, their fellow citizens, and democracy itself. That is why no policy rebuttal, no moral appeal, and no set of facts will shake them. These are not flaws in their thinking; they are features of it.

The history of authoritarianism teaches us that these minds will not course-correct. They require a society designed to check them, constrain them, and strip their ideology of legitimacy. If we fail to do that, their psychological needs will continue to override our collective needs. They will vote against healthcare, education, the environment, and equality, not because they are evil, but because fear and order are more important to them than fairness or truth.

And once again, as before, they will drag civilization backwards. Not in a fiery revolution, but with the silent obedience of billions, marching to the steady beat of “order,” “tradition,” and “the way things ought to be.”

The warning is simple: if you do not stop authoritarianism when it is soft and delusional, you will face it later when it is brutal and unapologetic.

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