Official recognition threatens totalitarian movements more than persecution does

Evidence

It seems that official recognition is felt to be a greater menace to the conspiracy content of the totalitarian movement, a menace of interior disintegration, than the half-hearted police measures of nontotalitarian regimes. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 973

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Contradicts the common assumption that repression always strengthens movements; connects to how legitimacy can domesticate radical ideological projects.

Related

• Official recognition, not persecution, threatens a totalitarian movement’s inner cohesion. (similarity 0.95)
• Totalitarianism feeds on the misconception that it is ordinary despotism (similarity 0.80)