Political manipulation of autistic people

Post Reply New Topic

In a recent interview with de-radicalization expert Christian Picciolini of Life After Hate, Picciolini spoke about how a great many people involved in hate groups have some kind of mental/psychological disorder, whether it be Bipolar Disorder or Asperger's Syndrome.

I believe him. After a negative, and honestly disorienting experience with a member of the "alt right" (a nice name for white supremacists), I wasted a lot of time researching hate groups, and I can see how their bizarre ideologies could be effective for recruiting particularly uneducated and isolated autistic people.

I'm on the spectrum (diagnosed PDD-NOS), and I'm also half Jewish on my father's side. To be honest, I never thought much about that part of my heritage until I felt targeted by people who hate me for it.

These hateful ideologies depend on people failing to empathize with those of other groups. They have a feeble internal logic that can't stand up to scrutiny or reality, which is why they need to come up with conspiracies and fear-based explanations for rejecting out-groups. In this way, their systems of thought resemble those of cults. This mental weakness becomes obvious after discovering a tremendous amount of crossover between people who believe in racist theories and anti-semitic conspiracies, and people who believe in the flat earth conspiracy, UFOs, fundamentalist Christianity (as well as, ironically, racist perversions of anti-Christian forms of paganism and occultism), illuminati conspiracies, and so on. Discovering that crossover was actually comforting, because it shows how far out these people are.

As autistic people, we can become obsessive with understanding theories, systems, and even fictional worlds. Some autistic people also have difficulty understanding or empathizing with people they've never seen or met. I worry that this may leave them prone to manipulation by hate groups that would take advantage of them.

Not critically important for this topic, but here's the interview I referred to. The comment is at the 9:17 mark:

I think autistic people are far more likely to be targets of these groups than recruits. Eugenics has always been part of far right ideology are autistics would be on the eugenics hit list.

I agree that they're likely to be victimized, but I think they're particularly vulnerable to recruitment since nowadays those groups are (thankfully) marginal.

Hate groups particularly appeal to marginalized people, who feel powerless. Nobody joins a hate group if their life is going well. Being part of such a group makes them feel powerful in a group identity, especially by victimizing other people. Members of hate groups feel so bad about themselves, that they want to beat up on people even more vulnerable than they are.

So, in that way, ironically I think autistic people are at risk both of being recruited, and of being victimized. Of course, you're right that Nazi eugenics programs probably would've targeted them. That's the ironic thing - a lot of the people in hate groups probably would've been killed under a fascist regime, whether because of a eugenics program, "degeneracy," ethnicity, or any number of other shortcomings. Eastern Europe is experiencing a big problem with fascists right now, which is ironic since the Nazis considered Slavs and Poles inferior.

If I were to speculate a connection between a certain neurological group and that groups, I would presume doxists/ neurotypicals. Seems rather plausible that a mental compulsion toward conformity and anxiety towards difference could lead too a hatred of those of different groups.

May I add a few bits of info here.

With regards to Autism and alt right. Sure. I guess some of the more gullible may be manipulated by people who follow race hate such as the white supremacists. Although such people may have to be manipulated in order to convince them to convert or to act.

In my experience, people with autism are more likely to be used and exploited by those in the alt right. That's where the people in the alt right have the intelligence to do so (as again in my experience of people who subscribe to such ideology, high IQ is not always the case).

Where the person with Autism has traits that make them hold a rigid keen sense of justice, honesty and hold a moral code. Then I doubt that such people would likely subscribe to alt right views. As prejudice isn't just nor is the ideology or methodology that alt right people tend to favour. i.e. manipulate, steal, lie, slander, bully, do anything to achieve your objectives.

I also note that in the second world war, it was Hans Asperger who discovered Asperger Syndrome (other wise known as high or very high functioning Autism). Dr. Hans Asperger, Austrian paediatrician, eugenicist, medical theorist, and medical professor who discovered Asperger Syndrome and protected some of the children who suffered from the condition from the Nazi's. Although, still working for the Nazi's on other experiments and ghastly endeavours.

He labelled the term "autistic psychopaths" (pleased they have changed that term... lol). Hans Asperger also was involved in the process of choosing which children were allowed to live, which were sterilised and which eligible for the notorious child “euthanasia” scheme (to be prematurely murdered).

So, yes. Many of us people who have autism would have likely been killed by the Nazi's and ended up having our brains put in jars for further study. So the alt right likely don't have a particularly high perception of people with Autism.
So I recommend people to stay away from such people.

As for cults and main stream religion, sure. I imagine that people with autism may get trapped by them. Some may even find happy lives, if they are to agree with what the cult or religion believes in.
As justice, honesty, and moral code are often big parts of religion and cult faiths.

Personally, I recommend Tibetan Buddhism especially for those who are rigidly honest, have a keen sense of justice and a moral code. Buddhist meditation may give you some release from anxiety, and if you are able to find a genuine Buddhist community or monastery, then you may even suit the life of a monk and make a lot of progress from a Buddhist perspective.

(as if you are good at following moral rules, without wavering, and are around people who do not bully you and give you compassion, then could be a way of life you will like).

Hope that helps.

That's as ironic as it is a sore spot to me. Some years back, I thought up reasons why Neo-nazis might kill me, then I realized that they wouldn't need many (never mind my pale skin!).
Not to Godwin, but it really wasn't a coincidence that Nazi Germany's eugenics program was influenced by those of the U.S.- which wasn't an aberration (See here.) (E.g., see the upper left area of this poster. The text at the top means "We don't stand alone".) So, of course I wouldn't put it past today's fascists to try to get their own version of T4 going.