The Shock Appeal of American Authoritarianism

The harsh truth is that some people are entertained by seeing you cry.

I’ll admit to losing some sleep over the insane news hits that pop into my group chats every 20 minutes. I honestly can’t keep track of the Trump II deluge anymore and that’s by design. The fact that some of the most insufferable, internet-poisoned brains in American history have dictated these changes isn’t helping me cope.

I told a friend about losing sleep and she said that’s just the way things are in 2025.

“What even is good sleep these days?” she wrote back.

Everyday, the people I love express dread about Trump II. They say what’s happening is an authoritarian coup that will lead to economic rot, unrest and violence. They say our already slanted, broken democracy may be dead—shredded by guys who get their breaking news from Ian Miles Cheong.

Maybe so. But I clearly live in a bubble because early polling shows that most Americans are sleeping just fine. A CBS poll released at the start of this week gives Trump rave reviews, even in the face of doubts about his ability to handle inflation. The FiveThiryEight average of Trump’s approval rating has also been consistently positive since he took office.

The polling industry is a shitshow and it has misled us before. But more often than not, the polls have undersold Trump’s appeal—not the other way around. It’s certainly possible that he’s even more well-liked than we know.

There’s other evidence of an ongoing MAGA surge. Fans greeted Trump with cheers at the Super Bowl. Some booed him, but it sounded nothing like it did when he attended Game Five of the World Series in 2019. Adding another layer to that moment, the same fans jeered Taylor Swift, a living symbol of cultural liberalism.

The Trump/Musk haters keep waiting for a wave of street protests to shake this mess up and it just hasn’t happened yet.

“Cry more, lib”

As I wrote a few weeks back about Pete Hegseth, Trump’s cronies have stewed in a broth first created by the white supremacist “alt-right” movement, and now they’re adapting those tactics to governance.

Alt-right activists bullied liberals to gain greater visibility online. They posted refrains like, “Cry more, lib,” as a response to people expressing outrage. Former congressman Madison Cawthorn posted that to Twitter in 2020 to celebrate his electoral victory—one of many symbols of the pipeline from 4chan culture to everyday Republican politics:

The Trump administration has reveled in making “the libs”—which here can mean anyone who sincerely cares about literally anything at all—cry. They pardoned violent criminals and gleefully waved off the grotesque corruption of buffoonish politicians. People in Trump’s circle have flirted with Nazi symbolism and amped up the racism, using “DEI” as an anti-Black slur.

Let’s also remember the young men of DOGE, who Elon Musk has charged with stripping the government down to its studs. The administration has apparently embedded 19-year-old Musk acolyte Edward “Big Balls” Coristine in the State Department after critics expressed anger about his presence in D.C. (In case you missed it, Coristine’s old website interplayed with some, uh, extremely dark content.)

When people “cry” about these and other stunts, they end up falling into Trump’s trap, turning him into Nelson Muntz—the Bart Simpson bully but with nukes and an off-putting relationship to Vladimir Putin.

We’re all suckers now, in the dope show

The bad news for people living outside of my cultural bubble is Americans seem to love being shocked by the craziness. They also love to see people break taboos. And the ugliest truth of all is that many Americans have a soft spot for bullies—particularly in the absence of any strong opposition.

I remember watching Brian Warner, stage name Marilyn Manson, pantomiming Hitler from the stage at Manhattan’s old Roseland Ballroom back in the pre-social media era. I can’t remember if he did the Elon Musk gesture. He had arm bands, a Nazi-like cap and a tall podium with a lightning bolt on it.

Fans of Marilyn Manson saw Warner as this shy eccentric who came to life under facepaint to make some vague point about American society. Marilyn Manson fans mocked anyone who expressed disgust with him.

Decades later, we’ve heard allegations that Warner tortured women and collected artifacts from Nazi Germany when the paint was off his face. Jewish actress Evan Rachel Wood claimed that Warner beat her with a “Nazi whip” and did other abusive things I won’t list. (Warner has denied the allegations against him and claimed that his partners engaged in these acts consensually.)

“I don’t think the world would put him on a pedestal if they thought his act was real,” Wood told ABC News in October 2024.

The authoritarian act is really “real”

Opponents of MAGA need to convince Americans that the shock isn’t just part of a show. It’s going to be hard work. Elon Musk did what looked like a roman salute in their face and they’re laughing about it. Trump unleashed Proud Boys from jail like Walter Peck shutting off the storage facility in Ghostbusters and they think he’s bold and exciting.

If a casual consumer of news hasn’t yet felt the consequences of Trump II, like, say, a USAID worker abandoned in the Congo, everything happening can seem like a big joke. Trump can muse about a third term, and when people freak out about it, his threat becomes part of the online entertainment cycle. As I wrote after the inauguration, MAGA is filling the void left behind by a completely broken culture.

Maybe we will eventually break this high point of shockertertainment-politics by protesting in the streets. Maybe large scale protests can create a counter-shock, scaring sleepy Americans into acknowledging our anger. Warming weather and intensifying authoritarianism should help stir up some crowds in the coming months.

But we also need leadership—anyone with power—who can wake casual Trump supporters up to the “Nazi whip” lurking behind that Nazi gesture. I’m worried that nobody is claiming that role right now. I’d like someone to address specifically this phenomenon in simple terms: None of this is a game.

The only other option is to stop crying—simply let these authoritarians do their thing. For the people in my life at least, it’d be the equivalent of choosing death to fall asleep.

Notes:

• This blog is news analysis and therefore includes my personal opinions. My first book, Strange People on the Hill, will be published with Bold Type/Hachette in 2026.
  

• My seven-year-old son drew me a picture the other day called “Scream King” and I told him I would share it with the internet. Here it is:

• If you want a recommendation from the catalogue of underground industrial music Marilyn Manson aped to create his act, I still enjoy almost everything Wax Trax! Records produced. Revolting Cocks’ “No Devotion” (1986) revels in images of destruction and horror but in a much more subversive, sophisticated way.

• Please also check out Posting Through It, the podcast I co-host with Jared Holt. We try to have fun, despite everything. New episodes are usually released on Mondays: