of coercive, controlling and life-threatening behaviour affecting people in all walks of life ( Stark and Hester, 2019 ). Political abuse is a form of abuse perpetrated by a government or a group in power. Totalitarian leaders seek to control the behaviour and minds of their people. To strengthen their grip on power and enforce submission and obedience, they unleash political violence and use repression, fearmongering and intimidation. In addition to hard tactics, totalitarians also use indoctrination and brainwashing to crush all autonomous institutions in their
curve but at a higher price (see figure 2). The second type of autocratic regime consists in totalitarian regimes featured by a larger elite than the foregoing regimes. Like tyrannies, totalitarian regimes fall under the same rubric of predatory states [WlNTROBE, 1995]. However, to- talitarian leaders back up their power on a mass party - a party that does not exist in tyranny. Thus, the totalitarian regimes elite is made up of pure and im- pure opportunistic type citizens. Hence, a totalitarian leader must get resources for expressive motives (to serve his own
secure future, promising protection against all danger, but demanding to be followed without questioning. Trump’s mantra to ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) offers the clearest contemporary instance of such substance-less promise. The characteristics Arendt ascribes to those falling for the totalitarian leader or ‘system’ are instructive: the ‘masses’ are a quintessentially totalitarian phenomenon, being vast in number but isolated in nature. Totalitarian society creates an immense collection of atomised individuals or people who have been so beaten down that they
