Redirected Aggression and the Fascist Feedback Loop
We Must Recognize the Pattern Before It Tightens
Konrad Lorenz, in his studies of aggression among animals, observed a consistent and disturbing pattern: when an individual could not retaliate against the true source of frustration, it would redirect aggression toward a more vulnerable target. Ethologists called this redirected aggression, but psychologists have long recognized a parallel phenomenon under the name displaced aggression; when frustration triggered by an inaccessible source is later taken out on someone else (Bushman, Bonacci, Pedersen, Vasquez, & Miller, 2005). In collective human behavior, this dynamic becomes scapegoating, often racialized, gendered, or politicized for strategic gain.
In modern authoritarian politics, this same logic plays out as statecraft. When elites implement policies that produce suffering; such as cutting food assistance, housing support, or healthcare; they redirect the public’s pain toward a safer target: immigrants, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ communities, or women. The masses, unable to strike back at those truly responsible, are encouraged to strike downward; this redirection not only preserves elite power, it distorts public morality by justifying cruelty under the illusion of self-defense.
This becomes a classical authoritarian feedback loop; common to fascism, Nazism, and other forms of dictatorial rule:
Economic harm is inflicted from the top; often intentionally.
Public pain and fear are generated.
Scapegoats are offered; both vulnerable populations (e.g., immigrants) and truth-telling elites (e.g., scientists, educators, historians).
Rage is redirected; downward against the marginalized and laterally against those who expose the system’s failings.
Authoritarian measures are justified to “restore order” or “protect the nation.”
Repeat, escalating as conditions worsen.
A classical authoritarian feedback loop illustrated with a Whirlpool
This is not theoretical; it is happening now. In a moment reported by Greg Sargent (The New Republic, 2025), Vice President JD Vance told MAGA voters not to worry too much about losing Medicaid benefits; just focus on how many migrants would be jailed. The subtext was unmistakable: do not protest what is being taken from you; celebrate who is being punished in your name.
This is scapegoating as policy. It is not designed to solve real problems but to absorb rage and convert it into consent for greater cruelty. And as always, the people most harmed by economic cuts are then turned into tools of distraction, with authoritarian leadership offering up visible victims to mask invisible theft.
This pattern has deep roots. Feminist historians have long identified the European witch trials as a chilling case of redirected aggression (Federici, 2004). In times of economic anxiety and social disruption, tens of thousands of women; particularly the poor, widowed, and midwives; were burned or hanged not for what they did, but for who they were: vulnerable, different, and expendable. In today’s politics, migrants serve the same symbolic function.
But the scapegoating doesn’t stop there. Truth-telling elites; scientists who speak on climate change or COVID, educators who teach critical history, and journalists who investigate corruption; are also targeted. As Arendt (1951) warned, totalitarian regimes cannot tolerate truth. Redirected aggression thus serves both to punch down and to discredit those who pull back the curtain. But the cruelty inflicted on scapegoats has another consequence; it produces a collective, often unspoken, guilt that binds the public to the regime. In authoritarian systems, shared complicity becomes a source of control. As Holocaust survivor Primo Levi observed, the system did not require everyone to commit atrocities; only to tolerate them. After the war, the Nuremberg Trials made clear that entire societies can be judged for what they allow. As the judgment in the Ministries Case (United States v. von Weizsäcker, 1949) stated: "Crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced."
This pattern is not merely modern. The manipulation of redirected or displaced aggression has deep historical roots. Machiavelli, writing in The Prince and Discourses on Livy, openly advised rulers to provoke or exaggerate threats to unite the people and to channel popular rage toward convenient enemies. When people suffer under misrule, he argued, wise princes give them someone else to blame.
"It is necessary that a republic... maintain at all times an enemy at its gates, so that the people, ever fearing attack, will remain united" (Machiavelli, 1531/1996, Book II, p. 249).
To avoid being hated while using cruelty, Machiavelli advised rulers to concentrate harm on scapegoats and dole out rewards gradually, keeping the prince above suspicion (The Prince, 1532/1998).
But scapegoating isn’t only directed downward. It is often the truth-telling elite; those who speak clearly in times of distortion; who are targeted next. The philosopher Socrates was executed not for violence or corruption, but for asking uncomfortable questions. His trial and death were driven by political factions in Athens that feared how his teaching unsettled the social order and exposed hypocrisy. Even democratic societies, when under pressure, seek scapegoats; and Socrates' fate remains a warning to all republics that truth-tellers are often among the first to fall (Plato, 399 BCE/2002).
And for Christian readers, one of the most profound examples of scapegoating comes from the Gospels themselves. Jesus of Nazareth, though innocent, was executed to appease the political fears of Roman and Jewish authorities. As René Girard (1986) argues in The Scapegoat, Christ becomes the ultimate revelation of the scapegoat mechanism; one that exposes, rather than conceals, the innocence of the victim. In his death, we see not just the cruelty of empire, but the timeless temptation to unite a fractured society through the sacrifice of a blameless figure.
As Stanley (2018) writes, authoritarian politics; including fascism and its historical variants; depend on a division of society into “us versus them,” and the redirection of legitimate grievances toward invented threats. Every time public anger is focused on someone powerless, rather than the people crafting the policies, fascism gains ground.
We must recognize this pattern before it tightens. Otherwise, we risk not just cruelty, but the erasure of democratic accountability itself. Every cut to healthcare becomes a spark. Every scapegoat becomes a match; and every moment we fail to name the true source of harm brings us closer to lighting the fire. It is not too late to interrupt the cycle. But doing so will require the courage to reject distraction, defend the truth-tellers, and stand with those being pushed toward the margins.
References
Arendt, H. (1951). The origins of totalitarianism. Harcourt, Brace & Co.
Bushman, B. J., Bonacci, A. M., Pedersen, W. C., Vasquez, E. A., & Miller, N. (2005). Chewing on it can chew you up: Effects of rumination on triggered displaced aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(6), 969–983. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.88.6.969
Federici, S. (2004). Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (1st ed.). Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia. ISBN 1570270597.
Girard, R. (1986). The scapegoat (Y. Freccero, Trans.). Johns Hopkins University Press.
Levi, P. (1988). The drowned and the saved (R. Rosenthal, Trans.). Summit Books. (Original work published 1986)
Sargent, G. (2025, July 2). Angry J.D. Vance accidentally reveals how Trump is screwing MAGA voters. The New Republic. https://newrepublic.com/article/197505/angry-jd-vance-accidentally-reveals-trump-screwing-maga-voters
Lorenz, K. (1966). On aggression (M. Latzke, Trans.). Harcourt, Brace & World.
Machiavelli, N. (1996). Discourses on Livy (H. C. Mansfield & N. Tarcov, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1531)
Machiavelli, N. (1998). The prince (H. C. Mansfield, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1532)
Plato. (2002). Apology (C. D. C. Reeve, Trans.). Hackett Publishing. (Original work published ca. 399 BCE)
Stanley, J. (2018). How fascism works: The politics of us and them. Random House.
United States v. von Weizsäcker (The Ministries Case), Case No. 11, Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10, Vol. 14 (1949).