Member-only story
Finger on the Button of Shame
Republicans use sexuality to control.
NOTE: Within this text, wherever gender is not key to the explanation, I am using the Elverson ey/em construction of the Spivak Pronouns.
In prior essays I have noted, that the MAGA mania is an authoritarian movement. It is the latest in a long line of such movements and such movements form subsets of the larger all-inclusive set of world authoritarians. Each subset may boast a different leader but the basic individual mindset remains the same: I’m a twelve year old child in a dysfunctional family who loves Daddy even though he hurts me. While the female authoritarian leader is rare, women too are capable of the same lust for power as men — they too can be Daddy.
Common to all authoritarians is the belief that without a strong leader society will fail. This general belief is what psychologists call projection in that the individual authoritarian follower certainly feels frightened and unmoored without a father-figure and so, ey believes, everyone else must feel the same (the projection). Hence society is in peril without a strict parent-like leader. Current authoritarian groups include Israeli conservatives whose leader is Benjamin Netenyahu; Q-Anon — leader Q (or suitable stand-in); Florida Republican legislators — leader Ron DeSantis. Past authoritarian subsets include the…
