“Authoritarian minds simply cannot stand ridicule or mocking in any way, shape, form, manner, or fashion.”
During the House Un-American Affairs Committee (HUAC) hearings, that identified hundreds of communists who had infiltrated the US government, investigators learned a very useful fact about fanatical communists, or really, any form of fanatic.
They have such a small, sealed mindset that they cannot take a joke. And this is deadly serious.
In a normal person, a jo+ke creates a state of imbalance that, as a defense, elicits laughter as a protective mechanism. However, a fanatic’s mindset only accepts thoughts within his belief system. Other ideas are discarded as irrational.
Importantly, this closed mindset is both brittle and fragile. So such people, when forced to take in a new idea, may experience a collapse of their mindset, which can propel them into schizophrenia.
In any event, the HUAC investigators would tell the suspected communist a joke. If they were ignored, while not conclusive, it was a good indicator that the suspect was a fanatic.
And this still applies today. The left is filled with any number of fanatics, and if you hit one of their trigger issues, they launch into an attack against you. And it lacks any proportionality, because the issue doesn’t really matter. You have “attacked” their entire worldview. Any all such attacks they treat with deadly seriousness.
And if you shatter their worldview, what remains to them is madness.
Never apologize. It only makes matters worse. The Left never forgives.