Dehumanization Tactics: How Autocratic Regimes Create and Target “Internal Enemies”

Throughout history, autocratic regimes have systematically targeted and demonized “internal enemies” as a means to consolidate power and control their populations. This pattern, seen across authoritarian and populist governments on both political extremes, follows predictable frameworks that experts have now clearly identified and documented.

These regimes employ dehumanization campaigns to divert attention from policy failures, justify repression, stifle critical thinking, and create a more compliant citizenry. While specific tactics vary, the underlying strategies remain consistent.

“Dehumanization, as a psychological and socio-political process, represents one of the most destructive phenomena in human history,” notes the Gnomon Wise Research Institute. “It involves the denial of attributes that define individuals or social groups as human, thereby devaluing their moral status and legitimizing violence and cruelty against them.”

Professor Nicholas Haslam of Melbourne University has identified two distinct forms of dehumanization commonly exploited by authoritarian regimes. The first, “animalistic dehumanization,” portrays targeted groups as lacking uniquely human traits such as rationality, morality, and self-control. This framing reduces them to animals, vermin, or disease carriers that threaten the nation’s wellbeing.

The second form, “mechanistic dehumanization,” characterizes targeted groups as lacking essential human qualities like individuality, emotions, and empathy. These groups are portrayed as soulless machines, evil entities, or foreign agents devoid of moral capacity.

Through these propaganda techniques, regimes create a polarized worldview of good versus evil, patriot versus traitor. The resulting societal division becomes easier for authorities to manipulate and control.

Historical Precedent: The Nazi Regime’s Persecution of Jews

Nazi Germany provides perhaps the clearest historical example of systematic dehumanization leading to catastrophic consequences. The regime’s propaganda machine, led by Joseph Goebbels, weaponized pre-existing antisemitic stereotypes to portray Jews as Germany’s primary internal enemies.

The Nazis transformed perception of Jews from a religious or ethnic group into a supposed biological threat—described as vermin, race polluters, and infections threatening the “Aryan race” and German nationhood. They employed the term “Untermensch” (subhuman) to establish Jewish inferiority, providing justification for increasingly severe legal restrictions.

In September 1935, the regime enacted the Nuremberg Laws, which codified racial theories into legal framework. The Reich Citizenship Law stripped German Jews of citizenship, defining “Germans” as only those of “German or kindred blood.” Anyone with three or more Jewish grandparents was classified as Jewish regardless of religious practice, while those with one or two Jewish grandparents were labeled “Mischlinge” (mixed-race) with increasingly restricted rights.

The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor prohibited marriages and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jewish Germans, labeling such relationships as “race defilement” (Rassenschande). The law also barred Jews from employing German women under 45 as domestic workers, claiming this would prevent sexual exploitation.

These legal structures, building upon dehumanizing propaganda, ultimately facilitated the Holocaust, resulting in the murder of approximately six million Jews—two-thirds of European Jewry and one-third of the global Jewish population.

Contemporary Parallel: Targeting Transgender Communities in the United States

Similar dehumanization patterns have emerged in contemporary America, where right-wing political forces have increasingly targeted transgender people. Familiar tropes depict transgender identity as a fad, mental illness, or dangerous ideology threatening society.

These campaigns have manifested in a wave of restrictive legislation across numerous states. According to recent reports, anti-transgender bills continue proliferating nationwide in 2026, limiting access to healthcare, civil rights protections, sports participation, public facilities, education, and legal recognition.

Kansas Senate Bill 244, known as the “Women’s Bill of Rights,” defines gender solely as biological sex assigned at birth for all state purposes. The law requires sex-segregated public facilities based on birth assignments and mandates state agencies reissue identification documents accordingly.

Wisconsin’s AB100, passed in 2025, explicitly prohibits transgender athletes from participating on teams aligning with their gender identity rather than birth-assigned sex. The law also restricts access to locker rooms and requires notifications to parents about any changes to team designations.

At the federal level, a 2025 executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” narrowly defines sex based on reproductive cell size. The order eliminates recognition of transgender identities on federal documents including passports, terminates transgender-related healthcare coverage for federal employees and prisoners, and redirects transgender women in federal prisons to male facilities despite court rulings against such policies.

Warning Signs from History

Hannah Arendt, the renowned German Jewish philosopher who pioneered discussions on totalitarianism, warned about regimes that reduce individuals to “superfluous people”—mere bodies deemed expendable without moral significance.

While history rarely repeats exact events, it often reveals recurring patterns in human behavior and governance. The targeting of transgender communities and other marginalized groups in contemporary America bears striking resemblances to historical precedents of authoritarian control.

The process typically begins with dehumanizing rhetoric, advances to legal restrictions, and can potentially escalate to more severe human rights violations if left unchallenged. By recognizing these patterns early, societies may prevent repeating the darkest chapters of human history.

As political polarization intensifies globally, the deliberate targeting of internal “enemies” serves as a warning sign that demands vigilance from those committed to preserving democratic values and protecting vulnerable communities.