The Protocols’ appeal was aspirational envy of power, not fear of the Jews.

Evidence

Nevertheless, this forgery was mainly used for the purpose of denouncing the Jews and arousing the mob to the dangers of Jewish domination. In terms of mere propaganda, the discovery of the Nazis was that the masses were not so frightened by Jewish world rule as they were interested in how it could be done, that the popularity of the Protocols was based on admiration and eagerness to learn rather than on hatred, and that it would be wise to stay as close as possible to certain of their outstanding formulas, as in the case of the famous slogan: “Right is what is good for the German people,” which was copied from the Protocols’ “Everything that benefits the Jewish people is morally right and sacred.” — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 839

Categorization

• XREF: The crowds’ admiration for the enemy’s supposed world-rule echoes how dominated populations can admire rather than merely fear the image of the powerful Other — a thread relevant to colonial psychic structures.
• SEED: Angles toward an essay on how antisemitic conspiracy functioned as a how-to manual for aspiring dominators, not just a scare story — propaganda that teaches rather than merely alarms.