Fear and Fascism
I recently had coffee and spent some time with a Big Deal (TM) Psychologist—who I have looked up to for years and who’s lab I unsuccessfully applied to for my PhD. It was very wonderful, and I actually do think you should take the chance to meet your heroes if given the opportunity. She asked me a question that left me a little bit stumped:
“What do you/I/we tell people who are afraid of speaking out? How do we get through that fear?”
(Live footage of me trying to come up with some enlightening answer for her can be found here.)
I wanted to say: “why should anyone be afraid of these incompetent, couch fucking, soup chewing buffoons???” but, we can’t always say the first thing that comes to mind. So, I sat with it for a little while, and here is my answer. And, let the record show, there are some nuggets of truth in my gut reaction.
Puts on clinical psychology hat
1. You’re probably going to experience fear. Sorry!
It is alarming, scary, etc. what is happening in our nation. It is a pretty horrid thing to be a person in 2026 who has read any history book about the prior century. It’s scary to know how bad this can get.
In psychology, there is a lot of yelling about emotions—where they originate, their purpose, do all organisms experience emotions like humans? I (mostly) land in the camp that emotions are evolutionarily rooted mechanisms to drive organisms to take action/change their actions. I think most living organisms (with particular parts of the brain like the amygdala) experience rich emotional lives, and that “emotions” are actually physical experiences that we humans have named and opposite-reified. In other words, I think we use words to describe very concrete, physical experiences (e.g., hormone releases) as abstract experiences that are unique to humans. For example, I think that “thirst” is just as much of an “emotion” as “anger.”
I find this conceptualization of emotion helpful in a practical sense because it doesn’t have any moral weight, it accounts for individual differences, and it can help us separate our lizard brain emotional experiences from our much smarter monkey brain.
So, fascism. What does a lizard brain emotional reaction to a fascist takeover of your beloved country look like? Fight, Flight, or Freeze—which, by the way, is the same lizard brain emotional reaction to any fear you experience. BUT HERE IS THE KICKER: The only reaction that will work to stop the fascism is to FIGHT.
2. Take Opposite Action.
There is a great model of therapy called Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)—the most pure/intense form of this therapy is used with people who have significant trauma that has lead to impairing interpersonal challenges and difficulty with emotion regulation. But there are tools in the intervention that everyone can put to good use! I love DBT skills, I’ve used them with every single client I’ve ever had, and I use them personally, daily. Here is one that I think applies really well to our present moment.
The tricky thing about emotion is that if you keep doing what you’re doing and you do not change your behavior, the emotion state will continue. Because, remember, “emotions” are physical experiences meant to drive action and change. Opposite Action is a skill where one intentionally acknowledges the emotion (e.g., fear), intentionally acknowledges their gut-response (e.g., hide), and then intentionally takes the opposite action (e.g., fight). Here is a nice overview about Opposite Action.
This is the therapized version of Professor Timothy Snyder’s “Do not obey in advance” guidance from On Tyranny.
“Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”
If you experience fear and then comply with that fear, the Administration’s tactics will have worked like a charm.
3. Embrace Humor
Look, I wasn’t around in Germany in the 1930’s, so I’m not sure if the Nazi regime was as much of an incompetent clown show as our current regime. My intuition thinks it likely wasn’t, but who knows. Regardless, we have the gift of JD Vance and The Couch Fuckers and we should use it. OUR SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES HAD A BRAIN WORM, SNORTED COKE OFF A TOILET SEAT, AND ENDED HIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN BECAUSE OF A SCANDAL ABOUT DISPOSING OF A DEAD BEAR IN CENTRAL PARK AS A PRANK. Who among us has not secured a whale head to the top of our car? He is a man of the people!
This whole thing is so ridiculous. They are such ego maniacs. And they are truly the most ragtag crew of weirdos we could have possibly put into power. We should run with this. Mockery at every turn! Laugh at them—don’t hide!
4. Embrace Defiance!
I’m sorry, but we aren’t doing this. I’m not going quietly into the night while these soup chewing weirdos make a version of the US where my son can’t grow up and be whatever he wants. I do NOT consent to turning our nation into a Christian Nationalist hellscape with concentration camps and a masked paramilitary. HARD NO from me about banning words. And you know what, people who are in this camp are the MAJORITY! We are not the minority.
Sure, it’s scary to stand up to fascism, but that version of the future is way more scary. Yeah, there is risk. But there is also risk to a version of the future where we don’t have vaccines, birth control, freedom, science, or a right to vote. Pick your poison: Scary now or scary later.
I’ll be at the protests on March 7th doing “scary now.” I hope you’ll be there, too.
