American Regime Institutionalization, Segregation, Integration And Assimilation: The Social Identity Dynamics Of Utilitarian Cooptation

The study highlights how authoritarian populist leaders manipulate the anti-Semitic and other stereotypes in scapegoating to overcome intra-core group polarization and mobilize political support. Alignment by two heretofore adversaries against a common third target as a perceived source of shared threat can generate a positive “ally†stereotype in shared mutual perception among the other former adversaries. Part of the anti-Semitic stereotype is the conspiratorial component, i.e., the advanced minority has higher socio-economic status because of ingroup hidden manipulation of significant components of the polity. Despised lower status ethnic ingroups, stereotyped as backward and childlike by the core, are prone to be perceived as being instruments for manipulation by the envied higher status outgroup. This analysis thus shows how the Holocaust was an essential element of the wartime German regime. It mobilized societal resources around scapegoating which was part of the normative active and coercive and utilitarian control mechanisms characterizing Nazi political control. Authoritarian populist regime enthusiasts can join the coercive apparatus to gain esteem and material benefits. Normative active control utilizing racist xenophobia was a means by which to generate support internally. Inferences from Great Power midtwentieth century authoritarian populism are applied to the analysis of the US Trump phenomenon.