Authoritarian aggression ratchets upward after threat and does not recede.

Evidence

Perhaps authoritarian aggression, once aroused by threat, remains at a high level in spite of a decline in the overall level of societal threat. Such a ratchet effect might involve differential reactions by two distinct groups of people. Perhaps aggression and punitiveness on the part of more authoritarian people (dispositional authoritarians) may be more easily tolerated or condoned by the less authoritarian general population during high-threat periods. … In contrast to the dispositional authoritarians, then, mildly authoritarian and nonauthoritarian people may put on and take off aggression according to the climate of threat. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 840

Categorization

• XREF: The dispositional vs. situational split and one-way ratchet speaks to whether strategic/fixed identity postures can be turned off collectively — connects to the reader’s question about whether the essentialist bind loosens for everyone or only some.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 840