What explains the perpetual need for political enemies?

[Celerity]

https://aeon.co/essays/what-explains-the-perpetual-need-for-political-enemies


Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, 1 May 2020. Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters

Some people seem driven more by what they oppose, reject and hate than by what they promote, affirm and revere. Their political commitments, personal identities and emotional lives appear to be structured more by opposition, resentment and hostility than by a positive set of ideals or aspirations.

Tucker Carlson, a prominent Right-wing television host and former Fox News anchor, has no shortage of enemies. On his shows, he has condemned gender-neutral pronouns, immigrants, the removal of Confederate statues, mainstream media, the FBI and CIA, globalism, paper straws, big tech, foreign aid, school curricula, feminism, gingerbread people, modern art – and the list goes on. Each item is presented as an existential threat or a sign of cultural decay. Even when conservatives controlled the White House and the US Senate, he presented those like him as under siege. Victories never brought relief, only more enemies, more outrage, more reasons to stay aggrieved.

In April 2025, Donald Trump took the stage to mark the 100th day of his second term as US president. You might have expected a moment of triumph. He had reclaimed the presidency, consolidated power within the Republican Party, and issued a vast range of executive orders. But the mood wasn’t celebratory. It was combative. Trump spent most of his time attacking his predecessor Joe Biden, repeating false claims about the 2020 election, denouncing the press, and warning of threats posed by immigrants, ‘radical Left lunatics’ and corrupt elites. The tone was familiar: angry, aggrieved, unrelenting. Even in victory, the focus was on enemies and retribution.

This dynamic isn’t unique to the United States. Leaders like Narendra Modi in India, Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil have built movements that thrive on perpetual grievance. Even after consolidating power, they continue to cast their nations as under siege – from immigrants, intellectuals, journalists or cultural elites. The rhetoric remains combative, the mood aggrieved.

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[Walleye]

2. I think some of it laziness, can't come up with popular ideas.

Bashing people is easy , helping people is hard work. And having policies to help people really goes against the only principles they have so they have to sell us enemies.

[Raven123]

3. Good read. Thanks for posting

A lot to think about. Generating devotion to overcome the politics of grievance is a long term process. The devil is in the details. Politics requires compromise and unfortunately that in itself will generate grievance. If the politics of devotion don’t generate enough confidence for enough people, the grievances are fed and multiply until you get Trump.

[Timeflyer]

4. Nothing unites a group of primates like hate of the "other."