Reflections On the Roots of Authoritarianism

The roots of authoritarianism are many layered and I am fully aware that my knowledge has its limits. Opening to the clear understanding of how we got to where we are today in America, both within ourselves individually and collectively, is certainly a humbling and often lifelong process. And in my personal journey of truth-seeking, healing, and transforming the deep impacts of ancestral and cultural trauma, I have been gradually shedding my ignorance and delusions over many years now.

Many are writing about authoritarianism and how it affects our perceptions, emotions, beliefs, and behaviors. It is deeply important, in my perspective, that we understand these many different layers of what we are faced with today and its roots — very much including an in-depth awareness of authoritarianism.

There are two related and very powerful pieces that I am moved to reference here:

• One includes the words of social psychologist Erika Jordan in this piece that I posted — "When Power Defines Truth, Evidence Doesn't Matter": https://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2026/01/when-power-defines-truth-evidence.html
• The second excellent piece is by Tony Pentimalli — "Leased Power: Why MAGA Never Believed Anything": https://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2026/01/excellent-leased-power-why-maga-never.html

What I am moved to repost and add once again comes out of my both my 30 years of professional experiences working with children and families, and also out of my many personal years of healing, unburdening, and transforming intergenerational and cultural trauma...

I loved my maternal grandfather. He was gentle and loving with my brother and myself. And he used to joke with my twin and me with these words, "I used to tell your mother, 'Tell her once or give her a lickin'." Papa thought that was funny, smiling as my brother sat in his lap sharing his beer. He also was of German heritage and lost his mother at age 11. When I asked my mother in the years before her death, and following the profound miracle of her partial awakening (https://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2023/06/remembering-my-mother-on-her-birthday.html), if she ever got that "lickin',", she responded, "No. I was always good." And what a huge price she paid, the ripples of which continued to span generations...

What I recognize today is how my ancestors on both sides of my family were deeply impacted by unhealed trauma — trauma often embedded in authoritarian beliefs, ruptured parent-child bonds, image management and entitlement, a deeply impaired capacity for empathy, and a disconnect from the wisdom of their hearts. My mom buried her true self to survive and became imprisoned in her malignant narcissistic illness, my dad died suddenly at age 60 and never came out of the closet as a gay man, and my twin brother committed suicide when he was 26. I turned to my own addictions to survive and disassociate from the legacy burdens I carried. Alcoholism ran through my family. And of course it did. We all carried so much pain, so much trauma. 

It is my belief that, on a continuum, we are all impacted by the imperialist, white-supremacist, misogynistic, capitalist patriarchy that we are born into in this country and beyond. The brutality and trauma rooted in authoritarianism did not arise out of no where. And part of our healing, transformation, and empowerment must include a deep dive into the many layers of how we got here. At least this has certainly been my experience.

In reading the words of Erika Jordan, part of what came up for me is related to my eight years of working with the Healthy Start program. I visited with families and their children in their homes offering parenting support, information, resources. The deep relationships that I built with families sometimes spanned five years, from birth to age 5. I also learned so much that was helpful and empowering for me as the mother of my own three sons.

One aspect of what I offered to parents was an awareness of the three different forms of parenting:

• "Marshmallow": A form of neglect.  Anything goes. Lack of consistency. No clear boundaries, structure, and age appropriate expectations. Lack of a safe container for growth and guidance and unconditional love. Tenderness, vulnerability, and a range of emotions are not consistently mirrored, not modeled, not accepted. Ruptured parent-child bonds because the child cannot trust the parent to support them emotionally and with their developmental and attachment needs. The child is not seen for who they are. The child internalizes a sense of a flawed and fragmented self rather than a whole self. Fear, shame, anger, and delusions are internalized.
• "Authoritarian": Parenting through fear. Spanking and physical punishments. Rigid rules without explanation. Threats - do what I say or else. Parental demands and expectations cannot be questioned. Overt or covert abuse and violence is normalized. Dominance. Might makes right. Tenderness, vulnerability, and a range of emotions are shamed. Ruptured parent-child bonds because the child cannot trust the parent to support them emotionally and with their developmental and attachment needs. The child is not seen for who they are. The child internalizes a sense of a flawed and fragmented self rather than a whole self. Fear, shame, anger, and delusions are internalized.
• "Authoritative": Parenting through love. Discipline = learning opportunities. Expectations are developmentally appropriate. Parents are compassionate and able to mirror their children. A range of emotions are supported, held, and given support, understanding, and guidance. Structure, boundaries, loving and compassionate support are consistent most of the time and can be trusted. A safe container for growing into who the child really is. Strong bonds exist between the child and the parents. The child is seen and loved unconditionally. These are the children who grow up to be the most resilient, empathically aware, open-hearted, kind and strong, able to discern lies and recognize and live by truth. They are grounded in being worthy, grounded in love.

So many of us, certainly myself included, did not grow up with authoritative parenting. Consequently, many of us absorb ways of being in the world that are rooted in authoritarianism, in patriarchy, in misogyny, in racism, in dehumanizing others because we were not wholly embraced, seen, and loved as tiny vulnerable children for who we were. Often we can be weighted down by the obstacles that impair our capacity for connection and courage, resilience and healing, truth and wisdom, compassion and love. We can have so many blind spots, wounds, delusions, and pain without even beginning to truly understand the roots of our suffering. At least, again, this has certainly been true for me.

Authoritarianism is certainly among that which plagues our nation. Authoritarian beliefs and practices are woven through our culture and have long been normalized in America and beyond. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Boys will be boys. Boys don't cry. Rugged individualism. Might makes right. Difference is disparaged and demonized. We're a white Christian nation. Blame the impoverished for their poverty — or immigrants. Brutality and violence, dehumanization and domination, us versus an Other, misogyny and racism, capitalism and endless wars, is all just the way it is. And on and on.

From this perspective and awareness, the profound tragedies of what happened to Renee Good — and all of the militarism of our streets, fascism in our politics and policies, and brutality sweeping our country — is certainly not an anomaly. 

It is also true that every single instance of violence and trauma is a potential wake up call that holds the potential to more deeply shake us out of our lack of clear seeing and into the greater truths, wisdom, compassion, and fierce love that is the core of who we are — before the trauma, before the neglect, before the fear and shame, before we were abandoned and thus learned how to abandon ourselves. 

And to the degree that we have disconnected from ourselves is the degree that we will remain disconnected from our human and nonhuman relations here on Earth. And that is where the dangerous projections, delusions, violence, and turning away comes from. First we turned away from ourselves. 

There is no blame or shame in this whatsoever. This is what has happened to the vast majority of us. 

AND it is never too late to seek and connect with the support that we need to see what we see, feel what we feel, need what we need, and awaken from whatever degree of slumber that we have unknowingly been in. We humans are capable of so much good. I am blessed with knowing countless courageous human beings who have long been engaged in the deep work of awakening. There are so many of us! Deepest bow. May our numbers grow and grow!🙏

It is my belief that now is the time when there is an urgent need for us to recognize the many layered impacts of authoritarianism within ourselves as individuals and collectively. A deepening understanding, healing, unburdening, and transformation of trauma frees us from returning hatred, delusion, and dehumanization with more of the same. From this grounding we can stand in the Fierce Love that is so urgently needed in our country and across our beautiful hurting Earth Mother.

Bless us all, no exceptions... 

— Molly