Brent Molnar is a writer and satirist whom I follow. He writes regularly about the current situation and atmosphere in the US. Recently, in a text conversation with Brent, I mentioned my observations that sexuality plays a big part in the creation of autocratic bullies and that much of the world’s aggression stems from damaged, warped, confined, and suppressed sexuality. I am flattered that Brent has taken my thoughts and written an excellent piece on this very subject. Take a moment to read the first few paragraphs below, then click on the link to read Brent’s full piece on Substack. Why the World’s Biggest Bullies are the Smallest Men.
Colin Richards
The Politics of Impotence
Why the World’s Biggest Bullies are the Smallest Men
We often make the catastrophic mistake of analysing dictators and demagogues through the lens of political science. We talk about “geopolitical strategy,” “nationalist fervour,” and “economic populism.” We treat their actions as if they are the result of 4D chess moves played by master strategists. But if you really want to understand why the world is currently on fire, you shouldn’t be looking at a map of Europe or a spreadsheet of tariffs. You should be looking at a therapy chart.
A fascinating, and terrifying, pattern emerges when you peel back the military uniforms, the medals, and the spray tans of history’s most aggressive “strongmen.” The louder the bully, the deeper the void. History is littered with men who tried to conquer the world simply because they couldn’t conquer their own insecurities. What we perceive as “strength” is often just a frantic, high-stakes attempt to silence a voice inside their own heads that screams they are not enough.
The core engine of authoritarianism isn’t ideology; it is shame. Specifically, sexual and identity-based shame. When a man feels fundamentally inadequate, whether physically, emotionally, or sexually, he has two choices: he can go to therapy and do the work, or he can force the entire world to participate in a play where he is the star, the hero, and the ultimate alpha. The tragedy of the 20th and 21st centuries is that too many broken men chose the latter.
Take a hard look at Adolf Hitler, the archetype of the modern monster. Historians and medical experts have debated his pathology for decades, but modern evidence points to a profound physical inadequacy, potentially hypospadias, a congenital condition affecting the male genitalia. While we cannot diagnose the dead with certainty, the psychological profile fits the theory perfectly. Here was a man who felt physically “broken” and sexually inferior, who then constructed an entire ideology based on genetic “perfection.”
The “Master Race” wasn’t a political goal; it was a psychological overcompensation. He projected his self-loathing onto “others” (Jews, the disabled, the “weak”) and sought to exterminate them as a way of symbolically exterminating his own shame. The leather boots, the military parades, and the obsession with the “Aryan Superman” were all part of an elaborate costume designed to hide a man who felt small, frail, and defective. He burned the world down because he couldn’t bear to look in the mirror.
Fast forward to the present day, and look at Vladimir Putin. The obsession with the shirtless horseback riding, the judo flips, and the desperate curation of a hyper-masculine image isn’t statecraft; it is performance art. Healthy men do not need to stage photo ops wrestling tigers to prove they are men. This is the behavior of someone terrified of being perceived as soft, a fear that often masks a deeply suppressed identity.
Psychologists have long noted that aggressive, state-sponsored homophobia is rarely about “family values.” It is almost always about projection. By persecuting gay men, Putin is violently distancing himself from anything that might be coded as “unmanly” in his own psyche. The invasion of sovereign nations follows the same logic. It is a form of dominance designed to fill a void. He invades neighbors not just to expand Russia’s borders, but to expand his own fragile sense of manhood. He cannot build, so he must destroy; he cannot be loved, so he must be feared.
Then there is the tragic, sordid case of Prince Andrew. Here is a man who seemingly had everything, including wealth, status, and royalty, yet suffered from the “Spare” syndrome. He grew up in the shadow of the heir, entitled to the trappings of power but denied the actual purpose. He was biologically and royally irrelevant. For a narcissist, irrelevance is a fate worse than death.
His relationship with Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t just about perversion; it was about the dynamics of power. The abuse of young girls allowed him to act out a fantasy of total control. In those moments, he wasn’t the “spare”; he was the king. He used the bodies of the vulnerable to prop up an ego that had been deflated by a lifetime of being second-best. It was a predation born of profound insecurity, a desperate need to feel powerful in the only room where he held all the cards.
And that brings us, inevitably, to Donald Trump.
To understand the 47th President, you don’t need to read the Constitution; you need to read a textbook on attachment theory and early childhood trauma. We are watching the real-time decomposition of a man defined by early maternal rejection and a father, Fred Trump, who demanded absolute emotional stoicism. In the Trump household, “feelings” were weakness, and weakness was a capital offense.
The result is a man who stopped developing emotionally at the age of the trauma. He is a “Killer” (his father’s favorite term) because the only alternative was to be a victim. His entire life has been a frantic attempt to prove to a cold, dead father that he is a “success.” The gold towers, the supermodels, and the obsession with crowd sizes are not the trophies of a winner; they are the pacifiers of a wounded child who is still waiting for mommy to come back and daddy to say “good job.”
This explains the misogyny. It isn’t just hatred; it is fear. Trump views women not as partners, but as props, acting as living validations of his virility. When a woman challenges him, she isn’t just a political opponent; she is an existential threat. She is popping the balloon of his fantasy. His aggression toward powerful women is the “pre-birth and post-natal maternal rejection” replaying itself on the national stage. He attacks them before they can reject him.
The misogyny also relates to his disconnection from the paternal. He mimics the “tough guy” persona of the 1950s, like the mob boss or the strongman, because he has no internal compass for what actual masculinity looks like. He thinks manhood is bullying because he was bullied. He thinks strength is cruelty because he was raised by cruelty. He is a caricature of a man, drawn by a boy who was never taught how to be one.
The danger of these men is not that they are too strong; it is that they are incredibly, dangerously weak. A man who is secure in his own skin doesn’t need to invade Poland, bomb Ukraine, or strip rights from women to feel powerful. A man who is at peace with his own sexuality doesn’t need to legislate who else can love whom. A leader who is confident in his worth doesn’t need a military parade to feel tall.
We are not being led by titans of industry or masters of war. We are being held hostage by broken boys who are using our armies, our economies, and our bodies to fight the ghosts in their own bedrooms. They are projecting their internal chaos onto the external world, and we are the ones paying the price for their therapy bills.
The revelation is this: We keep waiting for a “strongman” to save us, but the authoritarian is the weakest man in the room. He is the one who needs the most protection, the most validation, and the most control just to function. Until we recognize this, and until we stop mistaking their pathology for power, we will keep electing our own abusers.
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