Tit for Tat, Authoritarianism, and the Moveable Middle

The Research

The MAGA movement has shown remarkable resilience, defined by intense loyalty to Trump and strong internal cohesion. Social scientists noticed early in Trump’s rise that he attracted people with a distinct psychological profile: authoritarians. This fit almost perfectly with the work of the late Bob Altemeyer who spent forty years studying authoritarian followers. He found that they score high in submission to authority, aggression toward out-groups, and a powerful desire for social conformity. Combined, these traits create a bloc that can quickly abandon democratic norms in defense of their leader or their worldview. One proposed response has been the Tit-for-Tat (TFT) strategy—meeting escalation with equal escalation in hopes of reestablishing the norms and boundaries that hold democracy together. Altemeyer’s research offers critical insight into how authoritarians think, which can help evaluate whether TFT can succeed and what strategies might actually constrain authoritarian movements.

To determine who the authoritarians were, Altemeyer developed the Right Wing Authoritarian Scale (RWA) to measure three core traits: submission to established authority, aggression toward groups the authority targets, and a strong desire for social conformity and traditional norms (check out your score). Here “right wing” is intended to mean people that support established or “proper” authorities. Think religious leaders, or time-honored customary leaders. However, nowadays, most of the people who score high in RWA will be conservative or in the Republican Party. 

Since High RWA folks value authorities so much, they don’t question those they perceive to be a legitimate authority, generally trust whatever this authority says and will aggressively defend them. In many ways, the High RWA individual will outsource their thinking to the established leaders in their life, making them very vulnerable to manipulation. Inconsistencies are common within their world views, but they have cognitive patterns that help them work around any issues, like assuming a conclusion is true and then backfilling with poor reasoning or only relying on in-group sources to reinforce contradicted beliefs. They have compartmentalized thinking, which makes it easier to hold hypocritical viewpoints and maintain double standards. They avoid introspection and strongly believe they are the most righteous and good, which contributes to their dogmatic attitude and resistance to change (Altemeyer, 75). Raised to see the world as dangerous, they are especially vulnerable to manipulative authoritarian leaders.

MAGA fits this profile closely. They demonstrate intense in-group loyalty, and hostility toward out-groups. Trump’s followers excuse every contradiction—from his unethical history to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election—because loyalty outranks morality or consistency. They are motivated by fear-based messaging around immigrants, trans women, and “liberals,” see dominance as leadership, and reject compromise as weakness. In this framework, facts and norms matter less than identity and obedience. Inconvenient truths about Trump are ignored and crimes committed on his behalf are excused or pardoned.

High RWAs pre-date MAGA and are a consistent part of the population. They usually make up about 25%. Research shows they are highly resistant to changing their allegiance and a very resilient group that is easy to take advantage of by unscrupulous actors. Getting them to move off a leader usually follows one of three events: an hypocrisy that cannot be explained away, a stronger in-group challenger, or a reality contradiction that cannot be ignored. Altemeyer was sounding the alarm in his early works many decades before Trump, when he observed how they began clustering in the Republican Party in the 1980’s. Prior to this, they were scattered between both parties but were funneled through various pipelines, like religious fundamentalism and conservative talk radio (Altemeyer, 210). 

While Low RWA’s make up about 15% of the population, Altemeyer also spoke of a movable middle who had RWA scores that would rise and fall depending on what was going on. If these people felt threatened, their RWA scores would increase, making them open to an authoritarian-style leader. Where the threat comes from doesn’t really matter and generally, an authoritarian leader will treat any problem, real or perceived, as an opportunity to get more power. In fact, the only time violence lowered the movable middle’s RWA score was when the government attacked non-violent protestors (Altemeyer, 58). So when violence actually breaks out, this moveable middle doesn’t distinguish the cause, just the escalation, which increases their threat level and RWA score, and gives an authoritarian leader chaos to capitalize on. The interpretation of these findings is, generally, that responding violently back is not beneficial since that will be perceived as a threat to the moveable middle and push them toward the authoritarian.

So what about Tit for Tat.

Tit for Tat

The actual steps for Tit for Tat (TFT) are to be nice first, respond only to defection, be proportional, and forgiving. If TFT works as expected, the other party responds by going back to cooperation so both can resume working together. Tit for Tat is not a winning strategy. It’s a cooperation strategy. 

Since it’s a cooperation strategy, it needs a certain environment to be successful in. It requires repeated interactions between the left and the right where both, either, or neither party may benefit. (Axelrod, 110) This means on-going negotiations and future consequences that make long-term relationships consequential. Both sides must clearly observe each other's moves which means knowing what the last move was and who defected. (Axelrod,118) However, to do this, both sides have to agree on a shared reality on what constitutes a defection, and the problems start here. The right and the left don’t agree on a shared reality right now. For proportionality to work, both sides must be capable of restraint, so avoiding over-reaction, de-escalating the situation, and returning to cooperation when possible (Axelrod, 113). Between Trump’s lies and MAGA’s refusal to hold him to account, all trust has dissipated. Trump’s attempts to change congressional districts may not work, but given the threat, blue states do not feel like they can de-escalate their re-districting, even though they initially lobbied with the intention to do so. Lastly, both sides must value future cooperation (Axelrod, 123).  Trump presents the Democrats as an “enemy from within”. He has never tried to foster a long term relationship. The dynamics of his followers are such that any out-group attempt at correction will be perceived as an attack and be met with aggression. They consistently overreact and escalate. Just look at their reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk when Trump and other MAGA leaders were calling for a civil war against the left because of one lone shooter. Even if the killer is a leftist radicalized by stuff he saw on social media, the left does not carry any more blame for inflaming rhetoric than the right. Since they aren’t reciprocating proportionally and will definitely escalate attempts to defect in kind as outlined in TFT. The movable middle will likely see this as a threat to their safety and have their own RWA scores increased and go closer to Trump. Trump is using any opportunity to escalate.

Destiny’s so called use of Tit for Tat

Over the last year, Destiny has used inflammatory tweets in response to several situations that drew a lot of attention and a spot on Piers Morgan to explain himself. This is a high risk/high reward situation because he gets access to a large right leaning audience. The Trump supporters are largely closed to any criticism from people not part of their tribe, but the moveable middle are different. They are more responsive to the hypocrisy and illogical thinking of MAGA, if you can get their attention, but they can be driven by tone and emotions. So care needs to be taken to avoid turning them off. How did his appearances affect the moveable middle needed to win elections? He walks a fine line for sure, but let's distinguish why one may have been effective and the other likely wasn’t.

On the whole, care does need to be taken with the moveable middle, per the research. They will not take a nuanced look at the political environment unless a particular problem requires them to. They largely operate off tone and heuristics so going after sympathetic figures will generally be taken poorly. Research shows that pointing out hypocrisy is an effective way to peel some of the moveable middle away. The best results will likely follow if the criticism is aimed at the appropriate target and is coupled with some entertainment value. 

My take.

It’s understandable to be concerned about how the moveable middle would perceive Destiny’s tweet but there are many roads to Rome. No sense is trying to force a square peg in a round hole. This justifiable anger needs direction, not domestication, and there are plenty of targets.  Some people respond to empathy and calm persuasion, but those people don’t watch Piers Morgan. 

What does matter is understanding the terrain: the high-RWA’s won’t be moved, but the middle is watching, and every moment that exposes MAGA’s absurdity, cruelty, or double standards chips away at their legitimacy. 

We don’t need people to just play nice. We are in a vibe war and the Dems aren’t in a cool party right now. We need to change that and there are many ways, but facts and logic won’t help us with the people we need to move. Altemeyer’s research says don’t escalate, but it doesn’t say to play dead either. We can discredit MAGA while being non-violent. Protests are a must. Non-violent protest in absurd inflatable unicorn costumes while Fox News is calling us violent, even better. Gavin Newsom mirroring Trump’s absurd twitter style, chef’s kiss. Pointing out MAGA hypocrisy through edgy jokes on twitter, a platform they purchased to “save free speech” and “make comedy legal again”, is a perfectly good way to go. And if you get a chance to follow it up with a Piers Morgan episode where Piers and his panel try to grandstand on the “crazy liberal” only to have the tables turned, that's high risk, very high reward. But man, if you stick that landing...

The type TFT we need are the kinds that show how hypocritical or unhinged MAGA is.

We still need to pursue any legal path and institutions to fight back. The referendum in California to redistrict to counter the red state re-districting is great. Lawsuits to slow down any Trump actions must be pursued. We need to work to strengthen our local government presence. Also, any time possible, put the Trump admin chaos on social media for the internet to see. If masked ICE thugs are gonna beat and pepper spray unarmed civilians and non-violent protesters, let the world see.

Lastly, a major contention of Altemeyer’s, and many others, is that when Trump is gone, the followers will not be. Trump is very much a symptom and while he may have been a bumbling fool, he has definitely charted the path for the next guy that may not be and the Republican party has the high RWA’s sitting there, waiting to be energized. There needs to be a legitimate, legal, meaningful consequence for the people that supported the MAGA movement when the chance becomes available to impose it. 

Destiny is very right about this. I don’t know if another round of Nuremberg trials is the answer, but it has to be something or we are leaving the door open for whoever Trump number 2 is. Folks are calling Destiny’s pitch about using the 14th amendment crazy, but that’s what happened after the civil war. If you were an elected official and took part in the confederacy, you were banned from office. You didn’t get a trial first. You had to petition Congress for permission to get back the right to hold office. We are only 8 months into this presidency and his pace has been breathtaking. If people think we know everything that has happened, they are being naive. They should have been removing people’s right to hold office in 2020. 

In the end, there isn’t going to be a single strategy that saves us. It’s going to take institutions doing their jobs, local organizing, legal pressure, cultural pressure, and yes, people like Destiny who are willing to get their hands dirty and puncture the absurdity of MAGA in ways “nice liberalism” never will. The point isn’t to convert the unconvertible; it’s to hold the line, shift the middle, expose the hypocrisy, rally the base, and create real consequences so the next authoritarian can’t pick up where Trump leaves off. If we want to avoid Trump 2.0, we can’t afford to sand down any tool that works. We need all of it, the courts, the protests, the jokes, the noise, because democracy doesn’t defend itself.

References

Altemeyer, R. (2025, November 19). Right-wing authoritarianism - Wikipedia. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved December 3, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism

Axelrod, R. M. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. Basic Books.

BOB, A. (2004). Highly Dominating, Highly Authoritarian Personalities. The Journal of Social Psychology, 144(4), 421-447. https://theauthoritarians.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Highly-Dominating-Highly-Authoritarian-Personalities.pdf

Bob, A. (2006). Associate Professor. The Authoritarians. Retrieved 12 3, 2025, from https://theauthoritarians.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/TheAuthoritarians.pdf

MACWILLIAMS, M., White, J. B., Sutton, S., Sitrin, C., Mahoney, B., & Gerstein, J. (2016, January 17). The One Weird Trait That Predicts Whether You're a Trump Supporter. Politico. Retrieved December 3, 2025, from https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533/