A video of a Tesla dealership in Las Vegas that had been burned by Anti-Elon Musk protesters was published on March 18, 2025 on an X account called Endwokeness.
The next day, Musk responded to the publication: “Some people just want to see the world burn,” an iconic 2008 Batman film line “The Dark Knight.” Alfred, the faithful butler of the Wayne family, tells the line to Bruce Wayne (Batman) to describe the motivations behind the chaotic acts of violence of the Joker.
Musk, and Alfred, were right. Some people, in fact, say they think that society should be burned to the foundations. It is part of a psychological measure created by political psychologists called “need for chaos.”
New data from the Political Communication Center of the University of Delaware suggests that these people, who want society to burn, are the ones that trust more, no less, in Musk. They also report greater confidence in the government efficiency department, the government entity that Musk Advisor, which the Trump administration claims to have created to reduce waste and government fraud.
However, critics point out that the apparently indiscriminate approach to Musk and Doge towards expense cuts runs the risk of damaging the necessary infrastructure for US innovation.
This desire to see the world does not arise from nothing.
Like the Joker, whose perpetual sensation of victimism – “Do you want to know how I got these scars?” – Promoted their need for chaos and destruction, people can develop a need for chaos in response to the feeling that they are losing.
When political psychologists introduced this concept of “need for chaos” in 2021, they did not describe it as a psychological feature, but as an adaptation of character that occurs when some people experience a cultural and political situation that makes them feel that they are losing status and power. For some people, this feeling triggers a desire to “burn everything” -that is, society, institutions, the world -, perhaps to rebuild everything again, or perhaps simply to see everything destroyed.
Only a small percentage of the US population, less than 15%, tends to have a high score in the need for chaos. But even so, understanding this minority is important to better understand this political moment.
For example, people who score high in need for chaos exhibit greater support for political violence and a willingness to share hostile and false information online. And in our data, people with the greatest need for chaos report that they have more confidence in Musk, Doge and Trump than people who obtain a lower score to the extent of the need for chaos.
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Need for chaos promotes the support of some Americans to Elon Musk taking a chainsaw to the US government
We are political psychologists who study the link between psychological features and political beliefs. Last month, the Political Communication Center of the University of Delaware conducted a national survey that we designed to understand what the public’s position on various political issues is and how these beliefs are related to psychological features, including the need for chaos.
In our national study of 1,600 Americans held between February 27 and March 5, 2025 by Yougov, we asked the respondents how much they agreed or disagree with the following statements:
• “I fantasize with a natural disaster that ends most of humanity, so that a small group of people can start over”
• “I think society should be burned to the foundations”
• “We cannot fix the problems of our social institutions; we have to tear them down and start over”
• “I need chaos around me, it’s too boring if nothing happens”
As in previous works of the author Kevin Arceneaux and his colleagues, our data show that a very small number (less than 20% of the sample) agrees or something in accordance with each element.
However, when observing the need for chaos between groups of different ages, educational levels and media habits, we find the highest scores of need for chaos among people under 40, those who have less education and those who pay less attention to politics.
Our new data also show that, although people most in need of chaos report to have more confidence in Musk, Doge and President Trump, these people looking for chaos report having less confidence in “people in general”, journalists or the federal government. These findings are maintained even when other factors are taken into account, including the party, race, gender, education and ideology.
Musk’s inclination for wielding chainsaws as a symbol of Doge’s work provides an idea of why chaos search engines may like what they see in Musk.
It is not clear exactly what Musk’s goal is with his work in Doge, since he eliminates the jobs of hundreds of thousands of government workers.
What is clear, however, is that, according to many reports, mass layoffs and the dismantling of agencies, such as the United States Agency for International Development and the Peace Institute, are sowing chaos. And a significant part of the Americans wants precisely that.
*Dannagal G. Young He is a professor of communication and political science at University of Delaware; While Kevin Arceneaux is director of the Center for Political Research and Professor of Political Science.
This text was originally published in The Conversation/Reuters.
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