Part II: The Psychological Dynamics of Authoritarian Politics—A Conversation with Dr. Simon Rogoff

© R.T. Greenwald, 2025. The questions, commentary, and original frameworks presented here are the intellectual property of the author. Interviewee responses remain the intellectual property of the interviewee. Citation is required when referencing, quoting or adapting this material.

In Part I of my interview with clinical psychologist Simon Rogoff, Dr. Rogoff highlighted that narcissism is less a personality type than an array of relationship strategies that develop out of a need to mask vulnerability felt as early as infancy. Young children are unable to regulate their emotions on their own, so they rely on caregivers until they are old enough to maintain a baseline sense of safety for themselves. When this process fails, children learn strategies for self-protection in relationships that reflect trauma rather than an initial experience of safety and trust. Later in life, these strategies can manifest in trauma patients as pendulum swings between gross mistrust and blind faith that play themselves out in everyday relationships.

In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt describes similar pendulum swings in mass behavior that leadership feeds off and manipulates. Populations swing between “gullibility” and “cynicism” as they search for a sense of safety in the face of enormous socio-political disruptions. In this second part of the interview, Dr. Rogoff further connects the current knowledge of trauma and personality disorder to these mass phenomena and how we can link them to authoritarian behavior and public responses to it.

As you read this interview, try to connect his observations to the development of political polarization, radicalism, and how leaders can take advantage of these developments. Consider the following questions:

• Does the concept of narcissism help explain what seems inexplicable or even “crazy” in the current US political environment?
• Do the White House and Congress operate only from the top down or is there “gullibility and cynicism” within these high-level political relationships?
• How might the childhood environment influence voter behavior, including not voting at all?
• Why might chaos and violence signal safety rather than danger to some voters?
• The Horseshoe Effect refers to issues and concerns on the far left and far right that overlap, rather than positions on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Can narcissistic dynamics help explain what seems to be contradictory on the surface?

Dr. Rogoff leads a treatment service for the National Health Service in London specifically for people with personality disorder, and has over 20 years’ experience with this client group. He received a doctorate in clinical psychology and a master’s degree in forensic mental health. The views expressed in this interview are his own and don’t represent his employer.

R. T. Greenwald: Arendt says that totalitarian movements offer a substitute for reality. Do you think that connects in terms of the gullibility that she talks about?

Simon Rogoff: Yeah, thinking about narcissism, what’s offered in place of reality is the kind of “look at me” aspect of it. The other person in the relationship is asked to believe in a persona that’s not real. So essentially, narcissism is about “who I am” centrally, but then it can spread out into “what I want you to believe.” Reality becomes a bit fluid, more fluid when we learn about the persona. It comes across in politics. It comes across in celebrities who fall from grace. The reality we believed in is not quite right. There can be a contradiction that’s quite profound.

There’s an idea that what’s offered, according to Arendt, in place of reality is a kind of seduction. “I can offer you what you’re looking for, but you’ll sacrifice reality and truth in the process.” What I suspect is that the first people [attracted to authoritarianism] buy into an offer of consistency and structure, which Arendt talks about. My day job is treating people with personality disorder. In a treatment program, all the evidence suggests the need for structure, consistency, and transparency. For some, inconsistency and disorganization have been traumatic. This could stem from developmental or attachment trauma. Unless someone has healed from trauma, inconsistency and disorganization will feel too unsafe.

And Arendt says there is an assurance of devotion to those who are struck by catastrophe, so “uprooted masses can feel at home and are spared the never-ending shocks” of reality. Somebody can have shocks of reality which are just not manageable. We all have shocks of reality, but most of us are a bit resilient, but there’s a hint here of attracting people for whom that is not manageable. I was thinking about childhood adversity and this idea of prophecy. Why is this so valuable to the totalitarian leader, and it may be that adversity is by definition always ill-prepared for. When something comes along, if only we had been braced for it or prepared for it. There’s something about it for some people where they just want no more surprises because surprises, shocks, are just not manageable. They take them back to something horrible. It doesn’t have to be a train crash. They can experience something emotionally that they just can’t handle. It’s overwhelming, and there isn’t somebody there to make it manageable for them. So there’s a characteristic in those who kind of first follow: it’s a kind of, “no more surprises, please.”

Prison also mimics this a bit. Some people breathe a sigh of relief when they are put into prison because they have structure and consistency. When we think of punishing them, it doesn’t always work out that way because it can actually be a kind of haven for people who need structure and consistency. I think these totalitarian movements can offer a kind of psychological safety that might be for some people, “That’s what I need,” and they might be right that they need that. But the question is, what’s the cost? What are you going to be asked to sacrifice when you are offered this thing that you are looking for all your life?

Greenwald: The idea that prison can be in a way comforting or comfortable had me thinking that a totalitarian state eventually uses terror. Do you think that for many people who are initially supportive of these kinds of situations that this kind of violence is just simply familiar from childhood? Not in the exact same way, but that it is familiar enough.

Rogoff: Yeah, and it makes sense if you are a little outside of it. Most people who are physically abused don’t become violent people themselves. But the person who has been physically abused is not neutral about the perpetrator-victim relationship. Either they’re condemning the perpetrator or they’re on the powerful side. Power is a very important thing to people who experience power in an unsafe way from the start.

If I’m identifying with the attacker, the regime, over-aggressive law enforcement or something, if I’m identifying with these forces, then I’m going to feel okay, because I’ll know which side I’m on. I might have a rationale in my mind about whether the person deserved it or is guilty, and it would be quite important to have this rationale about why this particular group or person is being attacked or condemned—but I’ll be on the right side, the safe side. On the other hand, if I haven’t experienced much violence, I might have the option to just observe and make a judgment. I’m not so acutely aware of how important it is to be on the right side. My relationship to that spectacle is not cold, but I’ve not myself been there.

But if I was a victim of violence when I was small, my experience of watching that is going to be different. I might need to do something about that, and I might need to know whether I will be on the side of the attacker or the attacked. If I’ve been treated this way as a vulnerable child, it’s going to be urgent that I resolve this in my mind and take a position. And even in the role of the attacked, I might have a well-rehearsed way of dealing with that in my psychological repertoire—even if that’s a total disconnection from feeling.

Greenwald: I found that actually very helpful to understand that someone can see this dynamic and know how to place themselves within it. Initially, it might not be a negative thing.

Rogoff: I suppose there is a trajectory. Sometimes violence can be a way of getting to a safer place. Some people, for example, punish themselves [in anticipation of mistreatment] because then you can get to the next stage and it’s gone. You’re not waiting for it to happen. It’s happened, and now you’re not waiting for it to happen. Now you are no longer fearful. You’re in control of it because you did it to yourself.

Violence is not permanent. There is a moment, then there is an afterwards, and depending on people’s experience of it, there may be a kind of a procedure to get as fast as possible to the other side. So this not a fully-formed thought in my mind, but there may be a function in getting rid of that vulnerable feeling of anticipation.

Greenwald: I have one last question for you, which is about Trump’s recent summit with Putin. Putin basically ran circles around Trump. Some journalists were commenting on the relationship, and there were comparisons to Star Wars. Was this a Jedi mind trick on the part of Putin or was this even a trick at all? I was wondering if you have any thoughts about this in the context of narcissism and Arendt?

Rogoff: First of all, this situation can be confusing. If you’ve got two figures who got to where they are because they are both powerful, narcissistic men, then you would not expect two dominant men to have a relationship where one becomes submissive, idealizing or credulous.

Recently, I came across a description of a similar relationship. It might be surprising who the real players were:

A person is describing famous political figure A. One side of leader A’s personality is described as almost naive. This leader felt he made a friend of political leader B, but leader B was actually laughing at him behind his back.

That might sound like the same scenario [as Trump and Putin], but it’s [Winston] Churchill’s private secretary talking about Churchill relating to Stalin in a similar way. It seems surprising that a leading political figure can fall into this somewhat idealizing, credulous stance, but there is a purpose to narcissistic strategies: there is a wish to seduce, to mask, to love bomb, to make the other trust them. What’s surprising in narcissism is that there is somebody willing to play the other role. Underneath the image of power and the impressiveness of narcissism, there is this wish for care and an ideal other—if someone were to find ideal care, it would open up the ability to grow and feel safe. It’s a hidden wish perhaps, but may get activated in the right circumstances. And maybe in this kind of relationship—Stalin/Churchill, Putin/Trump—there just has to be a resolution where one falls into the hyper-trusting role.

There is in narcissism an idealizing of someone else as well as an idealizing of self. We have a capacity and habit of putting reality to one side, and so we are vulnerable in that way. Perhaps it is easy to seduce a narcissist—counter to the stereotype of narcissists as difficult to manipulate—although they seem at first to be the manipulators. The big question is who becomes the Putin and who becomes the Trump? It’s a big question, and it happens elsewhere. We have these kinds of car-crash marriages in the media between film stars. Of course, the one who ends up being accused of being the perpetrator is called a narcissist, but they are both performers and are looking for world fame and idealization, power, and money. It’s not quite right that one of them is called the narcissist because the court says that person is the perpetrator. What might be the truth is that the perpetrator was just the badly behaved narcissist.

Greenwald: Thank you, Dr. Rogoff, for the interview.