Totalitarian elite formations command total loyalty through an exclusive closed band

Evidence

Totalitarian movements have proved time and again that they can command the same total loyalty in life and death which had been the prerogative of secret and conspiratory societies. … So long as the movement exists, its peculiar form of organization makes sure that at least the elite formations can no longer conceive of a life outside the closely knit band of men who, even if they are condemned, still feel superior to the rest of the uninitiated world. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 878

Categorization

• XREF: Distills the secret-society origins of totalitarian loyalty — a mechanism that carries into how Islamophobic movements build closed in-group solidarity.
• DEFINE: Defines the distinctive loyalty structure of totalitarian elite formations as total, life-and-death, and world-excluding.