By no means thoughts concerns about how the United States seems on the brink of another civil war. Due to President Donald Trump and his consigliere, Elon Musk, it’s now sinking large and deep into what historic patterns present is an unpleasant “uncivil” conflict.
Historians and neuro-scientists present there are well-established psychological patterns that designate how personal fear fosters anger that results in a necessity for motion to eradicate the worry.
This dynamic has been evident in a lot of my 40 years of expertise and analysis on public protests, together with my doctorate on public order policing and subsequent ongoing analysis.
Google Developments gives a scientifically legitimate ranking of worldwide search engine subjects rated on a weighted scale of 100. Within the U.S. on March 10, 2025, for instance, the search matter “I’m so indignant on a regular basis” hit the highest of the 100 index, the highest in more than 20 years.
The widespread public response to staffing cuts underneath Musk’s course is receiving excessive home and worldwide blowback from not only natural political critics, but Trump’s own Republicans. The response follows that tried-and-true trajectory of public dissent and protest escalating from fear to anger to action.
That is evident within the reactions at the moment starting from street-level public protests, a litany of court challenges and on-line outrage to U.S. authorities departments refusing to answer the most recent missive from Musk’s team demanding employees prove their worth or quit.
Mad as hell?
Within the highly effective 1976 film Community, actor Peter Finch — enjoying a volcanic TV newscaster — goes berserk, rises from his desk and yells, “I’m a human being, goddamn it! My life has worth … I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” In response, 1000’s go to their home windows and scream his rallying cry.
In maybe an identical vein, leaders on the Pentagon, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Division, the Division of Homeland Safety and the Division of Power recently instructed federal workers not to reply to a weekend email from the Workplace of Personnel Administration with the topic line: “What did you do final week?”
The fear-anger-action dynamic is now unfolding in America.
Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah told CBS news:
“If I might say one factor to Elon Musk, it’s ‘Please put a dose of compassion on this. These are actual individuals. These are actual lives …. It’s a false narrative to say we now have to chop, and it’s a must to be merciless to do it, as properly. We are able to do each.”
The response from Musk and Trump to the outrage follows a confirmed sample of motion and anti-action my colleagues and I’ve termed the “4-D protection” of deny, divert, delay and destroy. We found this sample by way of a few years of analysis on public activism for each trade and authorities businesses, and it was the main target of my PhD dissertation.
We analyzed the content material of 1000’s of conventional information tales, public opinion surveys and the socio-demographics of fearful teams that have been indignant they have been being impacted by actions that have been unfair, illegal, harmful and arbitrary.
We discovered that the defensive 4-D response works like this:
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First deny there’s an issue.
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When confirmed true, then divert the trigger to another person.
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When confirmed you’re the trigger, conform to cures however delay the method so long as attainable by way of guarantees and infinite consultations.
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When that is unacceptable, then destroy these protesting by besmirching their credibility and reputations with faulty and complicated counter-facts and entangled lawsuits.
AP Picture/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Trump prefers the ‘destroy’ half
Trump is fast to leap to the “destroy” a part of 4-D protection by way of threats which have included bullying and crushing tariffs.
One other instance of this Trump tendency was a latest heated Fact Social put up wherein he vowed to “imprison or deport college students who take part in sure protests” towards his attacks on education.
Musk responded on his social media web site, X, that reactions by frightened and indignant workers to arbitrary firings was “EXTREMELY troubling that some elements of presidency suppose that is TOO MUCH!! What is wrong with them?”
Learn extra:
Musk’s ruthless approach to efficiency is not translating well to the U.S. government
Musk seems to be embracing the 1911 “scientific management” fashion of Frederick Taylor, an American inventor and engineer who is named the daddy of scientific administration. He argued that the “biggest evil” within the office was lazy workers who have been merely “replaceable cogs on a wheel.”
When Musk asks “what’s flawed with them?” in reference to the worry, anger and calls for for protecting motion from a whole bunch of 1000’s of federal workers, he ought to maybe watch Community.
It appears they’re “mad as hell and never going to take it anymore.”
