Aristocracies weaponized antisemitic slogans to mobilize mobs against liberalism

Evidence

Friedrich Engels once remarked that the protagonists of the antisemitic movement of his time were noblemen, and its chorus the howling mob of the petty bourgeoisie. This is true not only for Germany, but also for Austria’s Christian Socialism and France’s Anti-Dreyfusards. In all these cases, the aristocracy, in a desperate last struggle, tried to ally itself with the conservative forces of the churches—the Catholic Church in Austria and France, the Protestant Church in Germany—under the pretext of fighting liberalism with the weapons of Christianity. The mob was only a means to strengthen their position, to give their voices a greater resonance. Obviously they neither could nor wanted to organize the mob, and would dismiss it once their aim was achieved. But they discovered that antisemitic slogans were highly effective in mobilizing large strata of the population. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 146

Categorization

• XREF: Elite instrumentalization of mass hatred as a political tactic — connects to hegemony/‘common sense’ framing and later Islamophobia readings on elite-driven mobilization. — connects to: High-capacity low-democracy regimes use rights rhetoric while suppressing organized Islamist opposition — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 513