Fear-driven Americanization drew the most popular support but achieved the least

Evidence

The settlements, on the other hand, had acted in response to a human need, rather than a political or economic threat; their gentler kind of assimilation arose from sympathy, not from dread. One program drew support from nativistic groups and emotions, the other from the tolerant, cosmopolitan traditions of American democracy. … It was part of the paradox of the movement that the side which evoked the most ardent American response produced the slightest positive results. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1421

Categorization

• XREF: Evidence for the reader’s hypothesis that fear/threat-based solidarity mobilizes masses while sympathy-based integration does not — bears on what sustains manufactured enmity. — connects to: Coercive Americanization backfired, driving minorities into their own defensive nationalisms — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1531; Mass support for assimilation came from fear of disloyalty, not from reform ideals. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1458; Late-20th-century globalization was Americanization plus the fallout of Third World state collapse — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 112
• QUESTION: Why did the fear side produce the weakest results? Does this suggest manufactured-enemy solidarity is intense but brittle, relevant to what happens when the threat recedes?