By age three, your authoritarian should be able to blame juice spills on political enemies, such as a baby sibling or a weird uncle. If he or she (but likely he) can’t, you should begin offering assistance. Tip over his cup of juice and see if he diverts the blame.
By age four, your authoritarian should be starting to demand loyalty from others, such as their stuffed animals.
Your authoritarian should start to create alternative facts by age five. If they haven’t, they might be dumb. Don’t worry, though—a lack of intellect doesn’t preclude them from becoming an authoritarian.
By age six, your authoritarian should have convinced a younger sibling that vegetables are a leftist conspiracy. The conspiracy itself should be easy for them to grasp, as it is true. What you want to look out for is their persuasion skills—are they developing at a normal pace? And if your authoritarian doesn’t have a younger sibling, make one. You don’t want them falling behind.
By age seven, your authoritarian should be drafting their enemies list. If they haven’t, try showing them yours to give them ideas. Or watch Mean Girls. What is an enemies list but a burn book intended to appeal to men? Like the Coke Zero of shit-talking?
By age eight, your authoritarian should begin gerrymandering. For example, if you tell them to clean the kitchen, and they redefine it to exclude the dishwasher, they’re on the right track. Obviously, this is sort of stupid of them because the dishwasher helps with the cleaning, but still. They’re eight. And again, they don’t have to be smart. I could give you examples of stupid authoritarians, but we’d be here all day.
You should be a little bit scared of your child by age nine. This happens early for authoritarians; for typical children, it doesn’t begin until age twelve.
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By age ten, they should be denying the existence of anything they don’t like or that upsets them. Spinach, math, girls, slavery, whatever. Well, wait, not girls. Girls exist. Two genders. Two genders only.
By age eleven, they probably have acne. This is unrelated to authoritarianism; it’s just one of these bullshit problems we haven’t fixed.
Your authoritarian should be fully developed by age seventy-nine. They should be confident enough in their power that they’ve outgrown their need for a showy military tank birthday parade. But we all develop at different speeds, so if they do throw themselves this parade, don’t panic. Unless no one comes. Then panic, as this might tip them over the edge into declaring war on Iran.
If at any age, your developing authoritarian begins showing signs of self-reflection, regret, remorse, empathy, or guilt, consult a specialist immediately. These behaviors are highly unusual and may indicate your authoritarian is broken.
