Panic Benefits Trump

Authoritarians win when their opponents lose their cool.

Feb 03, 2025

The day after the inauguration, my sister received a text message that read, “January 20, 2025 is the day democracy died in America. They are in control now. There’s nothing we can do.”

When she shared it with me, I winced. This doesn’t bode well for the resistance’s mental state, I thought.

“Calmness is the cradle of power.”—Josiah Gilbert Holland

For a long time, I’ve written about managing your emotions when discussing politics. However, it’s only recently that I’ve addressed the harmful effect of our emotional turmoil on the resistance as a whole.

Strong feelings like grief, fear, and outrage are normal responses to Trump and rising authoritarianism, especially if you are a target of his xenophobia. Still, it’s impossible to sustain an effective political movement in a perpetual state of panic. As

Jon Favreau

pointed out last year:

We can’t all go through life in this country panicked about the end of democracy all the time—I think because it’s not good for us, and I also think because it sort of wears people down and you lose people’s attention if all you do every day is turn up the outrage machine to 11.

I agree.

One helpful way to understand the relationship between emotion and politics is to consider how doctors, nurses, and therapists cope with emergencies. These professionals tend to be deeply empathetic individuals who enter their fields to help others. However, they don’t allow themselves to become overwhelmed by their emotions when their patients are suffering.

A grief-stricken doctor can't perform surgery, a terrified nurse can't administer medication, and an outraged therapist can't provide moral support. Moreover, these healthcare providers know if they panic, their patients will too. Instead, providers learn to compartmentalize their feelings, holding them in abeyance until there is a better time and place for processing.

The same principle applies to politics. Although we care immensely about the trajectory of our nation and worry about the impact of Trump’s policies, we can't afford to be overtaken by our emotions. Instead, we must stay calm to have the mental clarity and emotional fortitude necessary to perform our duties as citizens.

By State Archives of North Carolina, Public Domain

The nonviolent activists of the Civil Rights Movement understood the power of calmness and leveraged it regularly. Participants in the Greensboro Sit-ins, for example, were trained to maintain their composure at lunch counters even when faced with taunts, physical assaults, and humiliation. Their discipline allowed them to fulfill their mission, while their calm demeanor stood in stark contrast to the brutality of the segregationists, exposing the injustice of the system. As a result, the activists earned widespread public support, paving the way for social change.

Emotional Dysregulation Benefits Trump

While managing our political emotions in any era is essential, it is especially so now. Trump, like aspiring authoritarians everywhere, counts on exploiting our panic to consolidate and expand his power. We tend to think of demagogues as playing exclusively on the emotions of their followers, but they are equally dependent on the emotional dysregulation of their critics. As

Tristan Snell

observed during Trump’s first week in office:

We are currently in the “shock and awe” part of the plan mapped out in Project 2025. This barrage of executive orders and other actions are meant to confuse and to disorient us, to make us feel small and helpless, to cow us into submission.
Don’t let them do that to you.

He’s right. But making us feel impotent is only one way our emotional dysregulation benefits Trump.

Here are five additional ways we play into Trump’s hands when we lose our cool:

#1 Burnout

Chronic anxiety, outrage, fear, and grief sap our energy and hope, leading to burnout and, eventually, disengagement. In 2025, dangerous levels of fatigue are already visible. After Trump was elected in 2016, progressives mobilized in droves, forming new organizations and adding to the ranks of old ones. Now, however, far fewer people are looking to get involved. Instead, people seem to be turning inward, engaging in self-care while focusing on areas of greater control. This withdrawal comes at a high cost. Each person who steps back from political participation creates a vacuum that the new administration will quickly fill to consolidate its power.

#2 Reactivity

Fear and outrage make us reactive instead of strategic. While strong emotions can mobilize action, panic clouds judgment, leading to impulsive decisions prioritizing immediate relief over long-term goals. Worse, political reactivity can escalate into property damage and violence. Not only would this alienate current and potential allies, but it would give Trump exactly what he needs to justify a crackdown under the banner of "law and order." Trump has repeatedly indicated he will use the military against lawful protests in 2025—we can’t afford to hand him an excuse to do so by losing our cool.

#3 Division

Emotional dysregulation doesn’t just weaken external resistance; it also fosters division within our movement. As stakes rise under the pressure of authoritarian tactics, activists tend to become more distressed and increasingly extreme in their beliefs. Rather than seeking ways to build a broad democratic coalition, they may move to purge dissent in their own ranks with ideological purity tests. Public disputes among activists and performative displays of moral superiority can become more common, fracturing fragile coalitions. These internal rifts will be a gift to Trump, who capitalizes on mistrust and infighting to prevent us from building the united front necessary to challenge his authority.

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#4 Ethical Drift

One of the most dangerous consequences of emotional dysregulation is the tendency for opposition groups to mimic tactics used by their authoritarian adversaries. Already, for example, some people are calling on Democrats to “remove their gloves” to fight back more effectively against the Trump administration. However, political intolerance, dirty tricks, retaliatory smear campaigns, and censorship are counterproductive. We can’t save democracy by sacrificing democratic principles. Moreover, such behavior plays into the authoritarian narrative that "both sides are equally corrupt," alienates moderates or potential allies, and sabotages our ability to build a broad coalition.

#5 Message Fatigue

Constant panic doesn’t just wear us out—it wears out the American public. When every new political development is depicted as a crisis, voters become desensitized and tune out. Even worse, our constant fearmongering undermines our message, making it harder to mobilize people during critical moments. To counter Trump effectively, we must be measured in our communication with the public, and that’s easier when we remain calm.

Calmness Makes Us Stronger

Calmness is a political superpower that helps us to think clearly and act strategically. By maintaining our composure in the face of Trump’s endless provocations, we avoid many common pitfalls, such as burnout, division, and overreaction. Ultimately, staying calm enables us to communicate effectively with the public while reminding Americans of what responsible leadership looks like.

In the coming weeks, I’ll discuss why it’s so hard to avoid panic and outrage even when we want to and what we can do about it. Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your thoughts.