Ideologies that succeed in hard times generate enemies even if they start without them

Evidence

Often all these tendencies work together. The groups that are attractive in hard times often provide an ideological blueprint for a better world and an enemy who must be destroyed to fulfill the ideology. Sometimes having a scapegoat is the glue in the formation of the group. But even if the ideology does not begin by identifying an enemy, one is likely to appear when fulfillment of the ideological program proves difficult. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3976

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A strong mechanism: enemy-construction is not optional but emergent from the failure of ideological fulfillment — the scapegoat appears as a structural necessity, not just a rhetorical choice.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s prior interest in moral panic dynamics — the enemy’s appearance is demand-driven by the ideology’s own unfulfillable promise. — connects to: The perceived permanent Enemy binds pluralist societies into cohesive defense societies — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 235; The nationalist ideology needs a manufactured enemy to mobilize — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 303; Generic anti-foreign feelings rerouted onto new targets when old enemies failed — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 517 (+3 more)