The Psychology of Authoritarian Drift and Emotion in US Immigration Discourse

This polemic argues that contemporary USA immigration discourse operates through emotional governance, rather than policy reasoning. Drawing upon psychological research in dehumanisation, moral disengagement, and affective diffusion, it shows how fear, disgust, and urgency are mobilised to deem coercive practices publicly tolerable. Historical comparison with early Nazi governance is used, not to claim equivalence of outcome, but to expose shared psychological trajectories: threat construction, symbolic authority, and bureaucratic normalisation of harm. The concept of authoritarian drift captures how democratic systems recalibrate moral boundaries through language and spectacle rather than overt force. The danger identified here is not repetition, but continuity in the emotion machinery of exclusion.