Former President Donald Trump's movement should be considered a contagious disease with a primary symptom of violence, an epidemiologist argued Tuesday.
Dr. Gary Slutkin, who says his work abroad gave him 15 years' experience dealing with dictatorships, compared Trump's MAGA movement to a pathological phenomenon in conversation with Salon's Chauncey DeVega.
"In these countries, you can’t speak or act freely and don’t want to live there," Slutkin said. "Life is fear. People fear the government, their neighbors and even their family and friends. Businesses and the press can be taken away. People become suddenly imprisoned or disappear."
Slutkin argued the same kind of "epidemic" fear and hate that keeps people in line under such regimes has built the MAGA movement.
"I understand MAGA as an epidemic disease, infecting many through what I call 'brain flaws,'" he said. "There are brain pathways for copying and following others — in the cortex, dopamine system, and pain centers, to motivate conformity and violence ... Violence is a disease, and specifically, a contagious disease. The disease spreads through these brain processes."
In essence, Slutkin believes Trump's movement "is a dangerous and lethal syndrome of what I describe as 'Authoritarian Violence Disorder.'"
Under this interpretation, Trump is a "massive superspreader" using "streams of lies" to reprogram people's brains into a pathological state, causing them to "abandon their own decision-making and obey," the epidemiologist argued.
An Election Day victory for Vice President Kamala Harris could help contain the disease and allow the nation to heal, Slutkin argued — but the disease could worsen should Trump win.
"There will be more state violence, violence from private militia groups and other violence including mass deportations and promised detention or concentration camps," he argued.
"Our economy as well as our health and personal well-being could deteriorate beyond what many Americans are willing to imagine if Trump is allowed to have power."