There's an Evola angle to this too, I'd argue.
When you take a person who's been brought up to trust authority, and you show them that authority is not trustworthy, then what do they do? Often, they try to find a greater authority to appeal to. If the cops are criminals then rather than live in a world with no cops they try to find a supercop to arrest them, even if that supercop doesn't exist.
The QAnon movement is an example of this: faced with a government that didn't do what they wanted, QAnon believers invented a fictional shadow government that was going to swoop in and save them. It was nonsense but it fulfilled a very real emotional need for a greater authority to protect them.
More damagingly, other people appeal to superauthorities that do actually exist but that have no business acting as authorities to appeal to: the military, for example, or the bond market, or foreign governments or individual billionaires.
And that's how coups get legitimised.
Passenger
npub1s0…n7dfq
2025-12-21 08:30:06 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…dp2z
Author Public Key
npub1s0wrzxzf6ljuruxssskth3wnh09q9tlnfwc0x0agq0ywwn6rcnpsqn7dfqSeen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2025-12-21 08:30:06 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "a29305b089d6a5a0d673416ff60cefda248368d4d1666724296297f7fab2cc10",
"pubkey": "83dc311849d7e5c1f0d0842cbbc5d3bbca02aff34bb0f33fa803c8e74f43c4c3",
"created_at": 1766305806,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"9aa342693050fa18671769f2c479e4b895d9f46417d33b8a7cf1f75b9f5ae12b",
"",
"root",
"505c52e214eea5a1d344ea4cb8d2923de27bddda4de2277277914bb8a1919a5b"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://kolektiva.social/@passenger/115756617326581489",
"web"
],
[
"p",
"505c52e214eea5a1d344ea4cb8d2923de27bddda4de2277277914bb8a1919a5b"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://kolektiva.social/users/passenger/statuses/115756617326581489",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"l",
"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://kolektiva.social/users/passenger/statuses/115756617326581489",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
]
],
"content": "There's an Evola angle to this too, I'd argue.\n\nWhen you take a person who's been brought up to trust authority, and you show them that authority is not trustworthy, then what do they do? Often, they try to find a greater authority to appeal to. If the cops are criminals then rather than live in a world with no cops they try to find a supercop to arrest them, even if that supercop doesn't exist.\n\nThe QAnon movement is an example of this: faced with a government that didn't do what they wanted, QAnon believers invented a fictional shadow government that was going to swoop in and save them. It was nonsense but it fulfilled a very real emotional need for a greater authority to protect them.\n\nMore damagingly, other people appeal to superauthorities that do actually exist but that have no business acting as authorities to appeal to: the military, for example, or the bond market, or foreign governments or individual billionaires.\n\nAnd that's how coups get legitimised.",
"sig": "06fdea4fb83b87aeeb629047ecde245b576c22ace771c1a7aadcc8856d12491fbadb35add1787d1659ae14e18ba31f2e3b62dee0b38cd6dcd1b91e59a1cd1dc6"
}