Extracted from Sensitive Skin Magazine. This piece was published May 12, 2019. Link to full text follows.
Wilhelm Reich’s The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933/1943) poses a question familiar to many Americans bewildered by the presidency of Donald Trump and the igneous qualities of his base. That the question was answered so long ago, and affirmed by other less controversial figures than Reich, including Erich Fromm and Erich Neumann, indicates a persistent naiveté, or an unwillingness to face unpleasant facts. The question heard on cable news and read in our daily newspapers is formulated like this: How can Trump continue to fool so many Americans? The subsequent question is something like: Is there nothing he can do to alienate his base? Questions such as these are asked in bad faith, and against the evidence of psychology and history. The Mass Psychology of Fascism argues—I believe correctly—against the polite explanation that the supporters of authoritarians are fooled, befogged, deluded, victims of psychosis and propaganda, pawns of a demagogue from whose hypnotic powers they will awaken, or can be awakened with some rational silver bullet of policy. No. The authoritarian is successful, in Reich’s analysis, “only if his personal point of view, his ideology, or his program bears a resemblance to the average structure of a broad category of individuals […] Only when the structure of the führer’s personality is in harmony with the structures of broad groups can the ‘führer’ make history” (35). Simply put, authoritarianism begins at home: fascism or any totalizing ideology is not a form of top-down psychosis; the underlying character of the constituents only gives rise to the individual who must be both messiah and scapegoat for the resentments of the group, in their fulfillment and when things fall apart. (Continue reading…)