What It Feels Like to Live in a Fascist Regime

Self-Destruction is How We Recognize Pathology

Throughout our lives, many of us have had things we considered enraging or troubling, that we opposed in principle, about our government doing things wrongly at home or abroad. We knew that there were systems that needed to be improved, and injustices that needed to be righted. Dissenting, negotiating, and improving are all parts of progress.

But regress, or the current level of self-destruction, we did not expect. Until recently, even with the doubts and concerns that we may have had, we believed in our system of “democracy”, that our resilient constitution and legal system guaranteed certain rights and freedoms. Even with all of our doubts and concerns, we overall took for granted the institutions of our government and society.

Now, the very fabric of our society is unraveling before our eyes (this is just a short list):

· For the first time foreign representatives, visitors, and even U.S. citizens are scrubbing their cell phones or using “burner phones”

· Disappearances are happening as with the Gestapo, Schutzstaffel (“SS”), and Brown Shirts of Nazi lore, or what we thought to take place only in countries like China, Russia, or Iran

· A ruthless, tyrannical “Führer” is tolerated, while criticism of him is not

· The First Amendment is seriously eroded, as MAGA followers are determined to make it difficult, menacing, and dangerous for people to speak up

· The Fourth Amendment is seriously eroded, as protection against unreasonable search and seizure is occurring everywhere

· The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments are seriously deteriorated, as “due process” rights disappear

· The Fourteenth Amendment is seriously corroded, as “equal protection” becomes meaningless

· Birthright citizenship is abrogated by presidential decree

· American gulags, both at home and abroad, are appearing more openly than ever

· “Homegrowns are next,” as the president promises to send American citizens to El Salvador

· Torture chambers, especially “black sites” abroad, are extensions of our prisons the are in many ways torture sites but are denied to be so.

· Former top government officials and citizens are now proclaimed and denounced as “traitors”

· Major media license revocations are being actively advocated

· Universities are succumbing to governmental threats

· Law firms are succumbing to governmental threats

· “The Land of the Free” now feels like the Land of the Shackled

· “The Home of the Brave” now feels like the Home of the Afraid

· More than half of Americans live in poverty without affordable healthcare, even less accessible education, indebted for a lifetime to banks via credit cards and exorbitant interest rates, fearful of their futures as well as of their government

· Shortsighted people in charge believe they will gain by shortchanging others, not knowing that sadly, tragically, and catastrophically they are only bringing about everyone’s destruction

I have long cautioned that fascism is not a political ideology but “mental pathology in politics.” The failure to see the consequences of one’s actions follows a pattern of psychological dysfunction, not politics or any other rational thinking. As the catastrophic Covid-19 response demonstrated, a pathogen can emerge at any time, but the resulting spread and damage are shaped by human choices. This holds all the more for a mental health pandemic.

What we are experiencing is what a world spiraling into madness feels like, in the absence of mental health help. Reality is inverted—where up is down, and right is wrong—and the very foundation of society is crumbling, while people struggle to understand how to stop or cope with what is happening. Mental pathology does not occur in isolation but thrives in a society already sick from corruption, exploitation, economic disparities, racism, and sexism. It is also the most potent weapon wielded by foreign and domestic enemies alike.

As with any contagion, a conducive environment was necessary, which the American Psychiatric Association (APA) provided. While few remember it today, thousands of mental health professionals came forward following our 2017 conference at Yale School of Medicine. We were invited to brief dozens of members of Congress, and our book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, became an unprecedented New York Times bestseller of its kind. Our warnings dominated the national conversation, and our articles and interviews surged to the top of outlets such as the Guardian, the New York Times, Politico, and the Hill, among others—right up to the moment of the APA’s interference.

Lawmakers were looking to us for guidance, as public education on a medical matter was crucial. The fact that the APA effectively “disappeared” us at the peak of our influence suggests that our message was succeeding.

Now, we find ourselves in a surreal landscape, with the most incompetent administration in U.S. history. Donald Trump’s “tariffs” have incurred 6 trillion in losses in two days; the attorney general flouts the Constitution; the secretary of defense fires all senior generals; the secretary of education undermines public schools; the transportation secretary sabotages mass transit; the secretary of state targets immigrants despite being one himself; and the head of the department of government efficiency is slashing the very programs that once saved his own business, amassing him hundreds of billions of dollars. Meanwhile, “the Grand Old Party” has handed the White House to a convicted felon and a fraud—so that he can destroy the country and the world order, and maybe even provoke global war.

Self-destruction is the hallmark of pathology. Separating self from other and finding glee in destroying the other (self) is the hallmark of evil. We now have both.

There are roughly three, non-mutually exclusive ways of responding:

1. Recognizing that “it is happening” only after it happens (and expending enormous resources to put out fires)

2. Recognizing the potential of “it happening” and preventing it (through known methods in science and scholarship)

3. Steering clear of “it happening” (by supporting societal mental health and promptly removing corruption, propaganda, and other environmental “toxins”)

The first approach is costly and entails a lot of suffering. The third has almost no cost and prevents suffering before it occurs. Our capacity to take all these approaches, so as to have the health to thrive, depends on our clarity of mind to do what is necessary—including accessing relevant expertise. The Covid-19 pandemic laid devastatingly bare the fact that even abundant expertise means nothing if we do not avail ourselves of it. Absence of knowledge was not what made us the epicenter of a modern plague—but the inability to choose wisely. Similarly with our spiritual future—our choices will determine our path.

Announcement:

Dr. Bandy X. Lee is holding weekly live sessions on:

“Special Topics in One World or None”

The next session will be this Friday, April 18, 2025, at 12 noon EDT/9 a.m. PDT on Zoom. A paid subscription is required to receive a link the morning before. Thank you!

Dr. Lee is a forensic and social psychiatrist who became known to the public through her 2017 Yale conference and book that emphasized the importance of fit leadership. In 2019, she organized a major National Press Club Conference on the theme of, “The Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” In 2024, she followed up with another major Conference, “The More Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” She published another book on fit leadership (now privately expanded), in addition to a volume on how unfitness in a leader spreads and two critical statements on fit leadership. Dr. Lee warned that journalists and intellectuals are the first to be suppressed in times of unfit leadership, and it is happening here; she continues, however, to be interviewed or covered abroad, such as in France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, and Canada (with notable articles in Turkish and Polish). She authored the internationally-acclaimed textbook, Violence; over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters; and 17 scholarly books and journal special issues, in addition to over 300 opinion editorials. Dr. Lee is also a master of divinity, currently developing a new curriculum for public education on “One World or None.”