readnlove

Beneath the flags and fury lies something painfully human: fear.

Here’s a truth we don’t say out loud often enough:

At the core of every fascist, beneath the symbols, speeches, and violence, lies something very human — fear.

Not strength. Not hatred. Not strategy.
Just fear.

It’s the fear of being nobody. The fear of irrelevance. The fear of invisibility.

And once you understand that, everything else begins to make sense — the obsession with control, the violent need for purity, the rejection of nuance. These aren’t signs of strength.
They’re symptoms of panic.

The Root Fear: Loss of Identity and Control

Fascism doesn’t begin in confidence.
It begins in collapse — national, cultural, economic, personal.

A lost job. A lost war. A lost narrative. A crumbling identity.

When the world becomes too uncertain to hold onto, the frightened mind grabs at what feels solid. And what feels solid is identity:

• Nation
• Race
• Tradition
• Religion

“If I don’t belong, I am nothing. If I don’t dominate, I am invisible.”

From that moment, control becomes a survival instinct. Fascism steps in not as a philosophy, but as emotional armor. It promises order, purity, and meaning — but only at the cost of freedom, empathy, and truth.

The Psychological Architecture of Fascism

Fear lays the foundation. The rest is just emotional construction.

1. Fear of Weakness

To feel is to fail.
Fascists learn to see vulnerability as betrayal. So they hide behind violence, toughness, militarism. They don’t just want power — they need it to feel like they exist.

2. Fear of the Other

Anyone different becomes a threat — not because they are dangerous, but because their existence cracks the illusion of sameness and control.
The “other” becomes a mirror. And that mirror must be shattered.

3. Fear of Complexity

The world is messy. So fascists flatten it into black and white.
There must be heroes and villains.
Wolves and sheep.
Pure and impure.
It’s not political ideology—it’s emotional simplification.

4. Fear of Isolation

Underneath the fire and fury is an aching loneliness.
Fascism offers rituals, uniforms, collective rage. It gives its followers a tribe — and a sense of purpose that masks their alienation.

5. Fear of Shame and Powerlessness

Many fascists carry deep personal humiliation — economic failures, social rejection, personal trauma.
Instead of healing, they project their pain outward.
They turn shame into rage. And rage into violence.

So Why Violence? Why Massacres?

This is where the fear becomes lethal.

Once a fascist has built their identity on dominance, anything that challenges that identity becomes an existential threat.

Minorities, critics, immigrants, queerness, dissent — all represent reminders of a world that cannot be controlled, a self that is not superior, and a truth that is not simple.

And here’s the terrifying logic:

“If I can’t dominate it, I must destroy it.”

Violence becomes self-preservation in their distorted reality.
Mass murder isn’t just cruelty — it’s a ritual cleansing of everything that threatens their fragile psychological world.

They aren’t killing just to kill.
They’re killing to preserve the illusion of power.
To silence the part of themselves that still feels small, ashamed, or afraid.

What’s Missing at the Core

Strip away the rituals, the hate, the spectacle — and here’s what’s missing:

• Authentic self-worth
• Emotional maturity
• The ability to tolerate difference or contradiction
• The courage to feel vulnerable without violence

Fascists aren’t strong.
They’re broken people in a state of emotional lockdown.
They wear ideology like a bulletproof vest to protect the scared child inside.

Fascism Is Psychological Before It Is Political

It’s tempting to view fascism as a political movement or strategy.
But really, it’s a defense mechanism — the mind’s panicked response to shame, loss, and meaninglessness.

It’s the ego’s last stand against chaos.
And when that ego feels threatened enough, it chooses blood over growth, destruction over dialogue, purity over coexistence.
That’s why violence is not an aberration in fascism.
It’s the final, desperate act of someone trying not to disappear.

So, What Makes Someone a Fascist?

Not just their beliefs.
Not just their slogans.
Not just their leaders.

But their fear.

Fear of weakness.
Fear of difference.
Fear of shame.
Fear of being irrelevant in a world they no longer understand.

That’s where it starts.
That’s why it festers.
And that’s why it kills.

If we want to end it, we have to stop addressing only what they say—
And start confronting what they’re running from. Fear.