john a. powell: ‘When fear wins, democracy crumbles’

Almost every country and culture, at some point, defines itself through the differentiation and exclusion of an “other.” They may be called foreigner, invader, enemy. Or: Black, Muslim, immigrant. Different names to mark those who must remain outside the dominant “us.” john a. powell (always lowercase), director of the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, has devoted his life to understanding how certain groups in society separate and exclude others to consolidate power. Through legal, social, and political mechanisms, opportunities are denied, and those who embody difference are discriminated against or criminalized — whether due to race, ethnic origin, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.

As a civil rights expert, powell has worked in Brazil, Mozambique, South Africa, India and Europe, analyzing inequality, injustice before the law, and the long struggles for resistance and emancipation in the pursuit of freedom, justice, and rights. In his recent books The Power of Bridging and Belonging without Othering, he lays out paths toward more inclusive societies. The key concept in his work is belonging. Unlike inclusion, belonging entails full recognition of the other as a co-creator of society. Another of his central arguments is a rejection of the idea that otherness and belonging are natural: groups are socially constructed through habits, biases, and narratives that either exclude or include.

His books contain an arsenal of ideas wrapped in velvet prose and far exceed academic conventions. Each page is a tapestry of history, law, sociology, psychology, and behavioral economics, interwoven with sharp observations and personal experiences that trace back to his childhood. At the age of 11, powell questioned Christian dogma in a deeply religious family — his first painful rupture, and a lesson in what it means to be an “other” even within one’s own household. That blend of spirituality and clarity — not to be confused with self-help — has led him to conclude that all humans have a right to social creation, and that belonging is, therefore, a universal right.

We met on a crisp Sunday morning in his spacious study — or rather, a small cottage — at the back of his garden in the Berkeley Hills. Less than 48 hours earlier, a wave of protests had erupted in Los Angeles against massive ICE raids. U.S. President Donald Trump had ordered troops into the streets. It was inevitable that our conversation kept circling back to the criminalization of migrants — the quintessential “other” in Trump’s strategy to reclaim the power of white racial hegemony in the United States.

Question. You’ve witnessed many social strugglesin this country. Now we see massive protests against Trump’s government. What’s going on in the U.S. right now? How has othering evolved from the 1960s to the Trump era?

Answer. What’s happening is very unfortunate — and not just in the U.S., but worldwide. The U.S. has played a particular role since WWII, positioning itself as a promoter of democracy. Sometimes that was just rhetoric, but sometimes it meant something. Now we have an administration that doesn’t align with democratic principles at all. Trump has close ties with authoritarian leaders like Putin and praises Kim Jong-un and the far right in Europe. He halted investigations into cyberattacks, used the military against the protests in Los Angeles for political purposes, and operates as if above the law. The U.S. has always struggled with the question of who belongs — who is part of “We the People.” The government, though imperfect, often tried to play a unifying role. That’s changed. Trump weaponizes power while attacking democratic institutions. He targets lawyers and firms that oppose him, punishes dissent, and even turns on the courts when they rule against him.

Q. So the U.S. is no longer a democracy?

A. We may have a weak democracy, or we may be in a competitive authoritarian moment. What is clear is that our democratic norms are rapidly declining. There are still elections, but their integrity is eroding. Democracy relies on norms, and those norms are collapsing.

Q. You’ve studied othering extensively. How does it work in today’s immigration policy? And how does MAGA construct an exclusionary national identity?

A. Othering is a powerful mechanism. Every society has an “other,” often imagined more than real. In the U.S. Black Americans have been the formative other. Today, non-white immigrants and Muslims are part of the story of the dangerous other. We don’t know much about the other except that they are different and scary, but they serve as a symbolic threat. Othering can be fleeting, like someone who’s dressed extravagantly at a party. That person would be the other, but after the party, life would continue without a problem. But when the government others you, it’s a different story. Then it affects who can vote, speak, belong, appear in history books, migrate, or be a refugee. When the state others you, there’s no place to retreat to. You’re permanently marked.

Q. So it’s institutionalized?

A. Yes, othering becomes both weaponized and institutionalized. And that’s how the MAGA movement works. Trump isn’t subtle: he makes clear that America, to him, is white, European, and Christian. The story we tell and the language we use matter. People used to say “Happy Holidays” out of respect for religious diversity. Now it’s “Merry Christmas.” It is meant to make clear that this is a Christian country. We’re not celebrating Muslims, Buddhists, or Hindus. So, Merry Christmas, goddammit! That’s dangerous. Every country has made mistakes. Acknowledging that isn’t hatred. Love of country means wanting it to grow. But MAGA pushes a version of patriotism that denies our history. We can’t talk about slavery, the genocide of Indigenous peoples, or our current imperial presence. We have military bases in over 100 countries. That’s not an opinion — it’s a fact. The government shouldn’t decide which facts are acceptable. The purpose of teaching our history, all our history, is not to make us feel good and certainly not erase inconvenient history, it is to help us grow and learn.

Q. What happened to American culture, to its ideals?

A. There’s no single answer. There are always multiple stories. And all stories should be grounded in fact, but also open to perspective. America is huge, with over 300 million people, and it has many histories. We need all those voices to understand ourselves. Take January 6. That was an attack on Congress. That’s a fact. But how do we interpret it? As insurrection or patriotism? That’s meaning-making, and meaning is what binds societies together. When people are afraid, the part of the brain that activates is the amygdala — our “lizard brain.” It reacts, not reasons. The world today is filled with fear: pandemics, economic shifts, and technological disruption. The Human Flourishing Study shows that people across 100 countries are struggling. Anxiety is global. And when people are anxious, their tolerance for difference shrinks. We make sense of these things through stories. And one kind of story is what I call a breaking story: “You feel bad — and it’s their fault.” That connects to the demographic shift. The world is more diverse now — more languages, cultures, foods, and religions. Migration and technology have made us more pluralistic. But MAGA sees diversity and migration as a threat. What does diversity mean, except difference?

Q. Why is the difference threatening?

A. Rich countries are facing population decline, and economists are sounding the alarm. So what are we doing? We’re building walls to keep people out. At the same time, we’re paying citizens to have more babies, but not those babies at the border. Why not? Because those babies “aren’t like us.” That’s the core of the breaking story: the world is changing. It’s scary. And it’s their fault. That story makes the other into an existential threat. When the Proud Boys chant, “The Jews will not replace us,” it’s not based on facts. No one is trying to replace them. But they’re reacting from fear, from the lizard brain. And that fear is what they’re organizing around.

Q. Are they really driven by fear? Or is it more calculated political strategy to push a certain agenda?

A. The answer is yes to both. One is the mechanism — fear — and the other is the story. There’s actually a term for the leaders who profit from this: conflict entrepreneurs. These are people who take our anxiety and curate it into fear, into hate, not because they believe it, but because it gives them power.

Q. They manufacture conflict.

A. Exactly. They’re not worried about Jews replacing whites, but they’ll use that story because it helps them organize people. It’s a power play by manipulation. And yes, the fear of losing power is real, but the stories that feed that fear don’t need to be factual. They’re not appealing to the rational part of the brain. People aren’t engaging with those narratives from the prefrontal cortex: they’re reacting from the amygdala. When someone believes something absurd, like “they’re eating people’s cats,” the question isn’t whether there’s evidence. It’s that the fear lives elsewhere in the brain.

Q. How can we help people see that they’re being misled?

A. That’s the central issue. There are two kinds of stories. The breaking story takes people’s fear and turns it into hate. Trump tells people, “Be afraid. Everything’s a mess. Only I can save you.” It’s a deeply cult-like message. But there’s also the bridging story. It looks at the same facts and says: Yes, we’re more diverse. Yes, the climate is changing. But that just means we need a bigger “we.” America didn’t become great by closing the circle, it expanded the “we.” We started as a country where most people couldn’t vote. Expanding: that is what made us who we are. It’s not something to be ashamed of. It’s something to celebrate. And symbols matter. Take Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He didn’t say “You’re hungry” or “You lost your job.” He said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Because when fear takes over, we do destructive things. So instead of telling people “Don’t be afraid” or “You’re stupid for watching Fox News,” we need to meet fear with compassion. If your kid thinks there’s a monster under the bed, you don’t say, “That’s irrational.” You say, “What if I lie down next to you?” Calm the fear. Create safety.

Q. Calm the amygdala.

A. Then we can engage the prefrontal cortex again. Then we can talk about policy, power, and the larger “we.” We can choose the bridging story over the breaking one. Look at Nelson Mandela. He had every reason to choose a breaking story. After decades of apartheid, he could have said, “Now it’s our turn to punish the Afrikaners.” But he didn’t. He negotiated in Afrikaans, their language. He said: “Your sacred symbols matter too.” That’s bridging. Some people now say he gave up too much, but the point is: he offered a vision of coming together. He chose the story of South Africa as one nation, not two enemies.

Q. Do we have any effective bridge builders left in U.S. politics? Or is polarization just too profitable?

A. In 1955, a dark time, if you’d asked, “Is there a leader who can offer a different vision?” you might not have thought of Martin Luther King. But he did it. So, yes: storytelling, leadership, courage, all matter. And Trump knows that. That’s why he doesn’t just argue with other stories. He tries to erase them. Silence them. Punish the tellers. Whether it’s Harvard or the media, it’s not enough for him to disagree. He wants to break and destroy them.

Q. How do you interpret Trump’s political rhetoric regarding migrants?

A. Trump is an excellent example of a conflict entrepreneur. People have feelings; we have anxiety. And by definition, anxiety doesn’t have a specific object. It’s just: “I feel anxious.” What the story does is tell you why you’re anxious. It says: “You feel anxious? It’s because of all those damn immigrants.” Most Americans don’t know any immigrants. If they know someone from another country, they like them. Trump tries to play with this a bit. He says, “We’re not after the average immigrant. We’re after the criminal, the gangbanger, the drug dealer.” Of course, in practice, he’s indiscriminate. It’s everybody, students, people who criticize America. When Obama was running for president the first time, I was leading an institute. One of the things I looked at was how America was processing his campaign, consciously and unconsciously. What we saw was a certain disquiet — especially among whites, but not only whites — about whether there would still be a place for them in this new America where we might have a Black president. I wrote about it during Obama’s campaign, saying: yes, we have a lot to celebrate, but there’s also this underlying anxiety among a large segment of the population that they may no longer belong. Because, in a sense, what the amygdala is most afraid of is not belonging. I got defunded by some of my supporters just for talking about this.

Q. What kind of effect is Trump’s immigration policy trying to produce in a society that is multiracial and multicultural?

A. I’m not clear on what their long game is other than power and money. But in some ways, what’s happening is not “making America great again.” It’s breaking America. Here in the Bay Area, look at the tech companies. Most of the top leaders are either first or second-generation Americans. Google, Microsoft, Nvidia — all the big ones. Elon Musk came here in 1995. If you take all those people out, what’s left? What made America great?

Q. Steve Bannon would argue that those people are the ones breaking America, not the MAGA movement. That MAGA is restoring sanity and cohesion.

A. What is Bannon trying to restore? The 1950s? Before the civil rights movement? Before the women’s movement? Before environmental regulation? Before we reformed immigration law to lift restrictions on certain countries? Yes, he has a vision of America. He has the right to advocate for it. But others also have the right to offer a different vision. The truth is, the future is unknown and can be scary. It’s coming fast. The MAGA movement doesn’t really represent the future — it represents the past. Steve Bannon wants to go back to when America was great for some. And then you ask: when was that? Before Black people could vote? Before women could vote? Before we cared about the environment? It’s not going to happen. And sure, there are serious problems and opportunities. But they’re not the immigrants’ fault. And just saying that isn’t enough. We have to humanize the story. When fruit can’t be picked in California, when ICE raids playgrounds where people are watching children, that’s when we need to tell these stories. The immigrant story is essential. We are an immigrant country.

Q. Why — and to what end — is fear used as a tool to consolidate power through exclusion?

A. Martha Nussbaum, a philosopher, in some of her writings, says that fear is the first emotion. The way the brain works is at different speeds. One reason the unconscious is so important is that it’s much faster than the conscious mind. When someone is trading on fear, they’ve got a big playground to work in. Rationality, love can happen, but it takes time. People are ready to be afraid. We also have a tendency to think in binary terms — good and evil. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the brain likes more complex stories. If we can find a way to tell a complicated story that penetrates the unconscious, people can take it in.

Q. How do you understand the way Trump and other authoritarian leaders turn polarization and “othering” into political capital?

A. I think most people don’t follow politics in a deeply nuanced way. Most people care about a few concrete things: “How much is gas? How much do eggs cost?” Beyond that, it’s visceral. And that complexity creates space for a lot of obfuscation and confusion.

Q. What responsibility do traditional media and social media have in amplifying or countering these exclusionary narratives?

A. That’s hugely important. Social media was supposed to help us speak directly to each other, unfiltered. And there’s some truth in that. But it also opened the door to disinformation and greater isolation. Things aren’t vetted anymore. Extreme opinions aren’t moderated. We’ve lost the shared national stories we used to have.

Q. But at the same time, national stories seem to be back, in a big way.

A. True. But instead of Walter Cronkite [a respected American journalist, who narrated man’s landing on the moon], now it’s Donald Trump. And as much as people questioned Cronkite, I believe he had more integrity than Trump. In the 90s, billionaires started buying media: Fox. The Washington Post more recently. At first, they claimed, “News is over here. I’m just a businessman.” Until they weren’t. The line between media, politics, and money has broken down. It’s all about power now. Can you trust the media? Even with all the tech, we haven’t figured out how to communicate well. At Berkeley, students ask if I respect everyone’s opinion. I say, “No, why would I?” An opinion isn’t sacred. If it’s not thoughtful, researched, analyzed, why should it carry weight if it is not well thought and based on facts? We’ve lost the ability to think critically, to fact-check. That’s a real loss.

Q. Can that be repaired?

A. I think so. Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT, recently said there should be privileged communication between you and your AI — like attorney–client or doctor — patient confidentiality. That might be a dream, but the point is: things are out of control. Maybe there’s a way to put the genie back. But we need a cross-section of society to take this seriously. Our institutions are fraying, and people don’t always realize how much they matter.

Q. Trump has called Venezuelan migrants basically demons. Some are being deported to maximum-security prisons in El Salvador. What impact does this have on how Venezuelan migrants are perceived and treated?

A. It’s dangerous. When people are deeply “othered,” the part of the brain that lights up for human recognition shuts down. Instead, the brain reacts with disgust — as if seeing vermin. At that point, people stop being human. You can bomb them, starve them, cage them. Who cares? That’s how genocide and ethnic cleansing begin.

Q. It becomes normalized?

A. And it spreads. Susan Fiske’s research confirms this: the more often people hear dehumanizing narratives, the more real and acceptable they become. David French wrote a good piece in The New York Times pointing out that due process is not just for citizens, but for everyone. Because human dignity demands it. He’s right. But that argument appeals to the rational brain. When Trump calls the immigrants criminals, people don’t think: “Let’s give them due process.” The moral argument is lost.

Q. How do we counter that narrative?

A. My father was a Christian minister, and I’m reminded of the story where Jesus tells the crowd, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.” It’s a radical idea — that everyone belongs. We need to tell stories that affirm that idea. Not just about saints, but about sinners, too. We need to reclaim human dignity, not just with facts, but with movies, songs, narratives. That was the genius of King: he didn’t demonize whites, he insisted everyone belonged. We need that kind of moral clarity.

Q. Would that work?

A. I don’t know. But we have to try. The danger of othering migrants is that it denies them the right to help co-create society. They’re excluded from shaping our collective future, and that weakens the whole idea of “we.” We cannot keep denying the humanity of the other and hold on to either our humanity or our democracy.

Q. What would you tell marginalized groups today — migrants, Black people, LGBTQ+, Indigenous communities — fighting for inclusion?

A. Polarization is global — by race, religion, nationality. But underneath that, people are longing for belonging. It’s a distorted longing, redirected into hate: “You want to belong? Get rid of them.” But the longing itself is still there. The global study on human flourishing found that the most-used word wasn’t “God,” but “belonging.” People are lonely. They don’t see their neighbors. But they still crave connection. That’s powerful. And for marginalized groups, remember: no one is just one thing. You’re not just Black, or trans, or undocumented. Our communities are rich and complex. We must hold onto that, and resist the urge to other others or being othered. We have to call people into their own humanity. Suffering doesn’t give you a pass to dehumanize others. What’s happening in the Middle East reflects that logic. Some justify bombing Palestinians by invoking Jewish suffering. But power must be used responsibly. Acknowledging others’ humanity is how we affirm our own.

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