People generally choose safety. This is not a trait unique to members of any race or religion. People want safety and security for themselves, but also for their families. And giving people what they want is certainly a route to power. Nations like to have leaders who are strong protectors. And for all of recorded history, opportunists like Trump have understood that they can rise on promises to protect their people from imagined threats just as much as from real ones.

XREF: Connects to political science literature on security-seeking behavior and demagoguery across history. QUESTION: What distinguishes exploited imagined threats from genuinely protective leadership? Worth exploring the mechanism.

XREF: Echoes Hobbes's Leviathan and the psychology behind authoritarian appeal across cultures.

Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Gl…, loc. 329