One may say "capitalist" or "Jew" or "terrorist" or "immigrant" or "infidel." It’s the same fantasy or delusion: that a particular class of people is responsible for the downfall of the nation; of the universe, really. Groups are held together by by their shared fantasy of who the "evil enemy" is and are convinced of the truth of the conclusion.

Each group is held together by a paranoid fantasy; by a specific paranoid object called an "enemy" or "infidel." Each group selects a specific object to consolidate or firm up its paranoid desire. One can call the enemy a "Jew" or a "capitalist," or  a "communist" or a "terrorist" or "Palestinians" or "Zionists" or "the Great Satan." From a theoretical perspective, It really doesn't matter at all.

Each society needs to identify some group of people is the source of chaos, disorder & evil. Each group is convinced of the reality or truth of the paranoid object that they have selected. Each society lives within its own delusion.  

Political discourse is constituted by a binary structure: people identify with a nation or ideology on one hand, and an enemy on the other. Am oppositional group is required to hold the society together. This dynamic was operative in Hitler's time. We witness the same dynamic today, right now before our eyes. The paranoid fantasy generates the selection of a particular group as its enemy.

The group selected as the source of evil may bear no relationship to the actual  reality of this group. Hitler claimed that Jews had great political power in Germany as he rose to power. However, in the central forum of political representation, the Reichstag, Jews were significantly underrepresented. Of 577 members of parliament elected on Sept. 14, 1930, 17 were or Jewish origin. Of 608 members elected on July 31, 1932, 14 were Jewish. Historian Jeffrey Herf concludes that the “conspiratorial notion of vast Jewish power had no factual basis.”

Most political movements grow out of a paranoid fantasy. Paranoid fantasies hold societies together. The excitement of fighting an "evil other" energies a society; provides meaning. American political culture today is held together by maniacal fantasies. Beneath these fantasies is the fear of chaos or disintegration. 

Richard Koenigsberg