On Ethnolatrism

Rise of antisemitism, backlash to multiculturalism and rise of populism all linked to a concept

In March 2024, CRIF held its annual dinner, where French President Emmanuel Macron attended to condemn antisemitism while the CRIF leadership applauded Israels Gaza campaign that had killed 29,000 Palestinians by that date. This same organization spent a decade prosecuting French citizens for hate speech under laws it lobbied for while simultaneously defending Israels 2018 Nation-State Law defining Israel as a state exclusively for Jewish people, where non-Jews hold legal second-class status. The event was televised, presidential attendance was structurally required for political survival, and exactly zero French institutions identified any contradiction between prosecuting French ethnic consciousness as fascism while celebrating Israeli ethnic nationalism as liberation. Around a year earlier, Morocco advanced to the semi-finals in the 2022 World Cup, leading to joyful celebrations in Paris where French-Moroccan dual citizens draped Moroccan flags across the Champs-Élysées and chanted nationalist slogans. Many such dual citizens participate in French elections, often supporting left-leaning parties that criticize French nationalism as potentially extremist, while also voting in Moroccan elections for a constitutional monarchy that privileges Islam and the Arabic language. Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has described similar displays of multiculturalism as “beautiful diversity” in broader contexts, while in April 2025, the far-right group Luminis Paris faced a hate-speech complaint from SOS Racisme for distributing flyers near a Marine Le Pen rally that urged “French people, fight back” with images of a bloodied knife and xenophobic references to the national anthem warning of threats from foreigners, accused of inciting racial hatred despite the group’s claim of defensive ethnic pride. Observe that this configuration, minorities practicing explicit ethnic organizing and homeland nationalism, elites defending this while prosecuting majority equivalent, all operating through formal legal channels rather than underground resistance—represents standard institutional structure across Western democracies rather than French exception, suggesting a systematic pattern requiring explanation beyond individual group characteristics.

The standard explanation rests on three premises falsifiable through observation:

1. Minority ethnic organizing constitutes a defensive response to historical persecution and current vulnerability, suggesting victim status justifies asymmetric rules rather than conferring competitive advantages in resource allocation and political power that compound over time through network effects.

2. Majority and minority organizing differ categorically because majorities control state apparatus while minorities lack institutional power, making differential treatment legitimate rather than creating cartel arrangements where organized groups dominate atomized populations regardless of formal majority status.

3. Contemporary antisemitism, Islamophobia, and right-wing extremism demonstrate these asymmetric protections remain necessary for minority safety, suggesting rising populism proves minorities need more protection rather than representing rational backlash against observable double standards that suppression intensifies through demonstrating the asymmetric power critics claim exists.

Heres my alternative hypothesis: ethnolatrism (a term borrowed from monolatrism—worship of a single god while denying others the right to worship theirs, applied to ethnicity) operates when minorities practice three behaviors simultaneously: maintain strong ingroup preference and institutional solidarity, support or embody explicit particularism through ethnic homelands or cosmopolitan institutional networks, and condemn equivalent majority behavior as supremacist requiring legal suppression. This creates asymmetric rule structures functioning as pseudo-cartel arrangements in political, economic, and cultural competition. The asymmetry serves not only as a defensive accommodation of historical victims but as a systematic organizational advantage that compounds through increasing returns to network scale, generating populist backlash not from irrational ethnic hatred but from rational recognition of double standards combined with prohibition on articulating this recognition without facing professional destruction and legal persecution. The mechanism predicts that suppression of legitimate structural criticism creates the extremism organizations claim to prevent by proving critics thesis about asymmetric power while radicalizing moderates through unjust punishment, transforming “I notice double standards” into “theyre lying about everything” when merely noticing becomes prosecutable thoughtcrime.

I. THE MECHANISM

Pre-1990s ethnic minorities in European nations faced constraints where de facto residential segregation was enforced against them through redlining and discriminatory lending, explicit ethnic organizing invited state surveillance categorizing it as potential fifth column activity, maintaining homeland connections was technologically difficult requiring expensive international calls and rare travel, and social prejudice created real barriers to professional advancement through unofficially permitted discrimination. The inflection point occurred 1980-2020 when legal equality was achieved through anti-discrimination legislation making ethnic discrimination in hiring and housing formally illegal across Western democracies, technological infrastructure enabled sustained transnational connection through internet communication and budget airlines reducing travel costs by 90%, dual citizenship became normalized rather than viewed as suspicious dual loyalty, and ideological frameworks shifted from assimilation requirements to multiculturalism celebrating maintained ethnic difference as a moral good requiring institutional support through government funding and legal protection. By 2020 the constraint structure had completely inverted. Minorities could organize ethnically under diversity protection, in many cases with government funding and legal shield against interference. They could maintain explicit homeland nationalism including voting in homeland elections and lobbying for homeland interests without social cost or institutional scrutiny. They could practice ethnic preference in hiring and marriage without legal consequence because coded as “community support” and “cultural preservation.” Majority populations attempting equivalent organizing faced hate speech prosecution under laws lobbied for by the minority organizations practicing the behavior being prohibited, professional destruction through coordinated campaigns, and social ostracism under frameworks defining majority ethnic consciousness as inherently supremacist regardless of behavior.

The mechanism produces competitive advantage through cartel dynamics operating in plain sight without legal interference because protected under diversity ideology. Minorities maintaining strong ethnic networks gain preferential hiring within community networks reducing transaction costs through trust and shared information that operates without formal credentials, capital access through rotating credit associations and unofficial ethnic banking institutions that dont require traditional collateral or credit history, information advantages through closed social networks operating in heritage languages that exclude outsiders from employment opportunities and business intelligence, political power through bloc voting that swings close elections making local politicians dependent on community leaders for electoral survival, and legal protection under diversity frameworks that prohibit interference with ethnic organizing while simultaneously prohibiting majorities from equivalent organizing. Simultaneously majority populations prevented from equivalent organizing through legal prohibition and social taboo face atomized individual competition without collective bargaining power or institutional support, higher transaction costs in hiring and capital access requiring formal credentials and credit history rather than network trust, diffuse political power through ideologically fractured voting patterns without coordination mechanisms, and legal risk from any ethnic organizing that can be classified as discrimination or hate speech making even defensive coordination prosecutable. Observe that this advantage compounds over time through network effects. Organized groups accumulate resources faster than atomized individuals. Success within the network funds expansion of network capacity. Initial organizational asymmetry expands exponentially rather than equilibrating. Atomized populations cannot coordinate a response without triggering the legal frameworks protecting organized minorities. Increasing returns to organization transform initial advantage into permanent dominance absent external shock.

The homeland nationalism dimension transforms defensive solidarity into offensive ethnolatrism through visible double standard. Supporting ethnic kin is universal human behavior. Italian-Americans supporting Italy or Irish-Americans supporting Ireland generates no particular resentment because these represent ethnically similar populations practicing symmetrical nationalism that doesnt threaten the host nation through competing loyalty. What generates resentment: minorities supporting explicit ethnonationalism or particularist institutions elsewhere—Israel as Jewish state through Nation-State Law, Morocco as Islamic monarchy through constitution, Turkey under Erdogans explicit Turkish nationalism, progressive cosmopolitan institutional networks operating as ideological homeland—while simultaneously participating in ideological coalitions condemning host-nation majority populations for practicing equivalent ethnic consciousness, lobbying for laws prosecuting majority ethnic organizing as hate speech, and claiming that noticing this asymmetry constitutes bigotry proving their victimization. This creates a visible double standard. Particularism is legitimate liberation when “we” practice it. Dangerous fascism when “they” do it. Made intolerable when combined with organized advantage. Youre winning resource competition through ethnic cartel. Simultaneously preventing opponents from forming counter-cartels through legal prohibition and social taboo. Politically supporting ethnonationalism abroad while defining equivalent behavior locally as hate speech requiring prosecution. A perfect resentment-generation machine targeting populations lacking ideological frameworks to articulate their structural disadvantage without being labeled bigots and facing legal consequences. Legitimate structural criticism metastasizes into ethnic hatred when structural analysis becomes prohibited. Critics forced underground where legitimate criticism contaminates with racial animosity.

II. THE JEWISH CASE: ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY AS MAXIMUM VISIBILITY

French Jewish communities (450,000-500,000 population, under 1% total) demonstrate ethnolatrism through organizational density exceeding all other minorities by multiple orders of magnitude, producing maximum visibility that makes the asymmetry undeniable. The institutional infrastructure includes CRIF (Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France) functioning as the official representative body whose annual dinner the French President attends, making it the sole ethnic organization with direct mandatory presidential access, Community Security Trust equivalent organizations providing private security unprecedented for minority groups, an extensive network of 283 Jewish schools educating 30,000+ students receiving government funding, community centers and cultural organizations receiving state funding under diversity frameworks, and professional networks operating through synagogue connections enabling preferential hiring patterns legally protected as freedom of association despite producing the same outcomes as discrimination. This organizational capacity produces systematic advantages operating openly. Political influence through CRIFs direct presidential access gives Jewish community concerns priority treatment where a single organization representing under 1% of the population has more access than organizations representing 60%+ of the population. Professional advancement through network hiring operates openly without triggering anti-discrimination enforcement because coded as “community” rather than “ethnic.” Cultural reproduction through separate educational institutions funded by the state. Legal protection where criticism of Israeli policy is increasingly prosecuted as antisemitic hate speech under French law (40+ prosecutions 2015-2020 under laws CRIF lobbied for making criticism of a foreign countrys policy a domestic hate crime).

The double standard operates systematically across multiple domains. French Jewish organizations advocate vigorously through lobbying, litigation, and public pressure for hate speech laws prosecuting antisemitism defined expansively to include criticism of Israel and noticing Jewish organizational power, anti-discrimination enforcement preventing Christian or secular French ethnic preference in any domain, immigration expansion and refugee acceptance as a moral imperative where opposition constitutes racism, and multiculturalism over assimilationist models where maintaining distinct ethnic identity is a protected right. Simultaneously these same organizations and community members support through financial contributions, political lobbying, and public advocacy Israels 2018 Nation-State Law explicitly defining Israel as the state of the Jewish people alone where non-Jews possess legal second-class citizenship, Israels Law of Return granting citizenship based on Jewish ancestry including converts while denying citizenship to Palestinian refugees expelled in 1948 whose families lived there for centuries, Israeli settlement policies privileging Jewish citizens in territorial expansion that would be classified as ethnic cleansing if any other country practiced it, and Israeli immigration restrictions maintaining Jewish demographic majority through explicit ethnic criteria that would be prosecuted as racism if a European nation implemented equivalent policy. The asymmetry extends to organizational behavior. The French Jewish community practices high endogamy rates (50%+ marry within the community despite generations in France), maintains separate institutional infrastructure including schools, community centers, and professional networks, concentrates in specific neighborhoods and professions producing ethnic enclaves, and coordinates politically through ethnic organizations producing bloc voting. All behaviors that would trigger prosecution as discrimination or ethnic separatism if practiced by French majority populations. Protected as legitimate minority cultural expression requiring government funding and legal protection.

III. THE MAGHREBI CASE: TOKEN ETHNOLATRISM AND RADICAL LEFT INSTRUMENTALIZATION

Maghrebi populations in France (3-4 million of Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian descent) demonstrate similar ethnolatrism structure with lower organizational capacity but receive ethnogenesis permissions as a useful power bloc for the radical left rather than through independent institutional development. Theyre stuck in a situation where permitted to organize ethnically but only as tokens serving elite political projects, much less wealthy than the elites but more organized than the native middle class, instrumentalized by the radical left as a demographic weapon against the native middle class while never achieving elite material status themselves. Morocco’s World Cup 2022 advancement revealed this. Paris streets filled with Moroccan flags and nationalist celebrations. Participants were overwhelmingly French-Moroccan dual citizens voting in French elections for parties condemning French nationalism while participating in Moroccan elections supporting a constitutional monarchy explicitly privileging Islam and Arabic where Amazigh and linguistic minorities are sidelined. The displays were public in the French capital. Broadcast on French television. Defended by French politicians including Anne Hidalgo as “beautiful diversity.” The dual citizenship patterns reveal the homeland nationalism dimension. Moroccos 2021 elections saw massive French participation. 1.6 million Moroccans in France were eligible to vote in Moroccan elections. Turnout in France exceeded turnout in Morocco for some districts. French-Moroccans are a swing voting bloc in Moroccan politics. Same populations voting in French elections. Maintaining political allegiance to a monarchy that constitutionally privileges Islam and practices systematic discrimination against the Amazigh minority. Open legal celebrated transnationalism. The French government encourages dual citizenship. The Moroccan government coordinates French diaspora voting. Zero institutional scrutiny despite creating explicit dual loyalty.

The organizational infrastructure operates at the neighborhood level rather than national institutional level, producing equivalent advantages through the same mechanisms but revealing a class dimension where Maghrebi communities receive organizational permissions and government funding while remaining economically marginalized relative to the elite. Maghrebi communities maintain strong residential concentration in specific banlieues with parallel institutional infrastructure, informal commercial networks employing co-ethnics preferentially, cultural and religious institutions including mosques, Islamic schools, and community centers receiving government funding despite serving populations in economic precarity, ethnic preference in marriage with high endogamy rates, and political coordination through mosques and community organizations producing bloc voting that the radical left depends on for electoral viability. These networks enable preferential hiring through family and community connections operating without formal credentials, capital access through informal credit systems bypassing traditional banking, information advantages through Arabic-language networks excluding outsiders, and political power through bloc voting swinging local elections. Mechanisms identical to Jewish organizational advantages but operating from a position of relative poverty rather than wealth, producing organizational capacity without material advancement, suggesting ethnolatrism permissions function as a substitute for economic mobility rather than a path to it.

The radical left instrumentalizes Maghrebi ethnolatrism as a demographic weapon against the native middle class while keeping Maghrebi populations economically subordinate. A perfect arrangement. Maghrebi communities get organizational permissions and cultural celebration compensating for continued economic marginalization. The radical left gets a reliable voting bloc and moral justification for suppressing native middle-class organizing. Elites get cheap labor and prevention of class politics threatening their material interests. Maghrebi organizations receive government funding and legal protection for activities that would be prosecuted as ethnic separatism if practiced by native French. But this protection comes with an implicit requirement to support the radical left politically and ideologically. This makes Maghrebi ethnolatrism tokenistic rather than independent. Permissions can be revoked if political support wavers. But nonetheless the double standard operates identically to the Jewish case. Maghrebi community organizations receive government funding. Ethnic preference in hiring is protected as “community support” rather than prosecuted as discrimination. Residential concentration in banlieues is defended as cultural solidarity while French ethnic neighborhoods would be condemned as segregation. Arabic language instruction in public schools is cultural respect. Dual citizenship and homeland voting is celebrated transnationalism. French ethnic consciousness is dangerous nationalism. But Maghrebi populations experience this asymmetry from a position of continued economic precarity. Organizational permissions function as compensation for blocked economic mobility rather than a path to elite status.

The class dimension becomes obvious when comparing Maghrebi organizational permissions with economic outcomes. Despite decades of organizational capacity and government funding for community institutions, Maghrebi populations in France show persistent poverty, unemployment rates 2-3x native French, educational underperformance, and residential concentration in the most economically depressed areas. Organizational capacity produces political power and cultural preservation without economic advancement. Ethnolatrism permissions serve elite interests—keeping Maghrebi populations as a reliable radical left voting bloc, preventing Maghrebi-native working-class alliance through ethnic division, maintaining a cheap labor pool—rather than Maghrebi material interests. The oikophobic elites fetishize Maghrebi culture while keeping Maghrebi populations economically subordinate. Celebrating Maghrebi festivals, food and Islamic traditions while opposing economic policies that would threaten the cheap labor supply or enable Maghrebi economic competition with the elite. Maghrebi youth face a choice: maintain community ethnic solidarity accepting economic precarity, or attempt individual economic mobility requiring cultural assimilation and loss of community support. The third option—collective economic advancement through class-based politics—is prevented by both the elite who benefit from ethnic division preventing class solidarity and Maghrebi organizational leadership whose power depends on maintaining ethnic bloc cohesion. A perfect trap. Organizational permissions substitute for economic opportunity. Ethnic identity becomes compensation for class immobility. Those noticing this arrangement get accused of racism by elites who materially benefit from maintaining it.

IIII. THE PROGRESSIVE CASE: PROTO-ETHNOGENESIS

Elite left-progressive populations in Western democracies constitute a functional ethnicity through ideological markers substituting for ancestral markers, practicing all components of ethnolatrism while claiming to transcend ethnic particularism entirely through universal values. This demographic, university educated, urban concentrated, professionally clustered in education, media, academia, NGOs, and government, upper income, maintains extreme residential segregation where American progressive districts average 75-80% white versus conservative districts 65-70% white despite diversity rhetoric. European progressive neighborhoods show the same pattern. Institutional separation where children attend private schools or elite public schools achieved through residential selection producing the same ethnic homogeneity as formal segregation. Endogamy through assortative mating by education and political ideology where progressive marries progressive producing ideological dynasty. Explicit ingroup preference in hiring where “culture fit” requirements filter for political alignment operating as ethnic nepotism coded as values alignment. Shared identity markers including linguistic patterns such as vocal fry, uptalk, and specific vocabulary, consumption choices including organic markets not discount supermarkets and craft beverages not mass market products, and moral frameworks functioning identically to ethnic markers in determining group membership and social acceptance.

The mechanism operates through ideological ethnogenesis converting political position into quasi-ethnic identity with all structural features of ethnicity except biological ancestry. Progressive identity requires specific cultural capital including knowing correct terminology for current gender ideology, understanding implicit social rules about what can be discussed, and consuming appropriate media from approved sources. Linguistic markers including certain vocal patterns signaling class and education, specific vocabulary proving initiation, and proper accent. Geographical concentration in urban cores, university towns, and specific neighborhoods gentrified by progressive influx. Professional clustering in education, academia, journalism, the NGO sector, tech, and creative industries where progressive monoculture is absolute. And critically, endogamy where political alignment determines romantic and social relationships more powerfully than traditional ethnic markers, producing higher ingroup preference than most immigrant populations. Note that progressive populations exhibit higher separation and ingroup preference than most ethnic minorities. More residentially segregated. More professionally clustered. More endogamous by ideology than most immigrant populations are by ethnicity. Yet this separation gets coded as moral evolution rather than ethnic organizing. Ideology substitutes for ancestry as the membership criterion, making exclusion acceptable.

The double standard operates at maximum intensity because progressive ethnicitys defining feature is condemning other groups ethnic organizing while practicing equivalent or more extreme segregation and preference. Progressive populations advocate diversity while maintaining the whitest neighborhoods through price barriers and zoning manipulation, champion public schools while using private schools or residential selection achieving the same segregation as formal tracking, demand open borders while living behind security systems in gentrified neighborhoods where immigrant presence is minimal and controlled, and condemn native working-class ethnic consciousness as racism while practicing extreme political endogamy excluding ideological outsiders more completely than ethnic minorities exclude ethnic outsiders through social ostracism and professional blacklisting. The mechanism produces advantages identical to minority ethnolatrism. Professional networks hire through ideological affinity operating as ethnic nepotism without legal risk. Political power through institutional capture of universities and media controlling discourse and credentialing. Cultural dominance through control of prestige production determining what counts as legitimate knowledge. Legal protection where progressive ideology defines what counts as discrimination and hate speech, meaning progressives cannot by definition discriminate because discrimination requires power plus prejudice and progressives define themselves as lacking power despite controlling institutions.

Another ethnic marker is oikophobia, which in some cases reaches pathological levels. The progressive elite exhibits genuine psychological revulsion toward native working and middle-class culture while fetishizing minority cultures as authentic and valuable. The progressive bourgeois experiences more comfort and moral validation attending an immigrant cultural festival than a native working-class gathering. Feels more shame at the national flag than foreign flags. Considers native nationalism uniquely dangerous while viewing minority nationalism as an understandable response to oppression. Not strategic positioning, sincere preference. Elites have been psychologically conditioned through education and socialization to view their own cultural inheritance with suspicion requiring constant interrogation for hidden bigotry. They view minority cultural practices with uncritical celebration as automatically worthy of protection and public funding. The fetishization serves material interests perfectly. Celebrating minority cultures while despising native working-class culture prevents a class-based political coalition that would threaten the elite economic position. Maintains ethnic division through cultural hierarchy. Cosmopolitan progressive culture sits atop. Approved minority cultures occupy the middle tier receiving celebration and funding. Native working-class culture occupies the bottom tier requiring suppression and “education” to civilize its backward tendencies.

The elite fusion becomes perfect when progressive ideology is elite ideology rather than a separate allied group. Progressive populations arent a separate group allied with the elite. They are the elite. The elite-aligned professional class serving elite interests while claiming to represent the oppressed. When progressives support minority ethnolatrism, defending Jewish ethnic organizing, Maghrebi community solidarity, any minority particularism, while condemning native middle-class ethnic consciousness, this isnt an alliance between distinct groups but a single group (elite progressive) defending both minority particularism and their own class-coded ethnic particularism against the native middle class threatening both through repeated demands for symmetrical rules. The progressive living in a gentrified neighborhood, sending his children to private school, working in a foundation funded by finance capital, condemning native working-class nationalism while defending minority ethnolatrism isnt a hypocrite but a rational actor protecting an organizational monopoly serving both class interests (preventing working-class solidarity threatening economic extraction) and ideological interests (confirming progressive moral superiority through supporting designated victim groups against designated oppressor groups). The arrangement is almost beautiful except for the fucked up consequences and the fact that the native middle class increasingly recognizes theyre getting fucked by a system rigged against them.

V. THE POPULIST SYNTHESIS: SYMMETRY DEMANDS WITHOUT SOLUTIONS

Marine Le Pens National Rally polling 30%+ in France, AfD winning German state elections, Geert Wilders winning Dutch elections, Trumps 2024 victory, the Brexit referendum, Swedish Democrats rise, Italian rights success, and Spanish Voxs rise all represent not isolated “far-right extremism” but systematic revolt by native middle classes against ethnolatrist asymmetry across Western democracies, producing similar movements simultaneously because theyre responding to identical structural conditions. But the critical insight: these movements rise because the asymmetry is real and intolerable. The issue is their solutions are performative rather than structural. Riding discontent without delivering change. The populist demand articulates as “enforce rules symmetrically.” Either everyone can organize ethnically or no one can. Either everyone maintains particularist institutions or no one does. Either everyone practices endogamy and hiring preference without prosecution or no one does. Either everyone supports homeland nationalism or no one does. When Le Pen says “France for the French” shes echoing the demand that France adopts Israels model (Jewish state by law), Moroccos model (Islamic kingdom by constitution), or progressives model (cosmopolitan networks by elite class) rather than inventing novel fascism. Demanding that native majorities receive the same permissions minorities exercise openly with government funding and legal protection. When AfD says “Germany for Germans” theyre demanding permission for what Turkish-Germans practice openly, community organizations receiving government funding, homeland voting, ethnic preference in hiring and marriage, maintenance of separate cultural identity, rather than proposing unprecedented ethnic consciousness. The demand is a legitimate response to observable asymmetry.

The problem: parties capitalizing on this recognition dont actually solve it because theyre either captured by the same elite interests or incompetent at governance when achieving power. Italys Giorgia Meloni provides the perfect example. Won election in 2022 on an anti-immigration platform promising to defend Italian identity against the multiculturalist elite and demographic replacement. Once in power immigration continued at similar or higher rates while performative culture war bullshit substituted for actual policy change addressing the asymmetry. Meloni collaborates with the EU on migration deals that dont reduce flows. Maintains relationships with business interests demanding cheap labor. Performing nationalism through rhetoric while governing as the same neoliberal elite, maintaining the same system benefitting progressive elites at expense of the Italian middle class who voted for change. The UK provides an even sharper example. Conservative governments from 2010-2024 promised immigration reduction in every election cycle. Won elections based on these promises. Immigration ballooned to record highs under their governance including massive increases in non-EU immigration post-Brexit. Promises made. Promises broken. The asymmetry continues. Voters get told they got what they wanted through symbolic victories that dont address material conditions or organizational asymmetry. The parties successfully identify the asymmetry generating resentment. Then either fail to address it through incompetence or refuse to address it through elite capture. Theatrical nationalism that doesnt threaten the elite-minority alliance maintaining asymmetric rules.

The immigration focus represents the most visible asymmetric example and most easily exploitable discontent, making it the perfect vehicle for parties that identify the problem without solving it. Native middle classes observe through direct experience that the elite benefit from immigration: cheap labor suppressing wages, service workers enabling lifestyle, cultural status from supporting diversity, while insulating from costs through wealth and geography. They dont compete for jobs or housing, children in private schools are unaffected by integration challenges, neighborhoods remain homogeneous through price barriers. Organized minorities benefit from immigration of co-ethnics, strengthening community networks, political power through numbers, cultural maintenance through scale. The native middle class bears the full cost, wage suppression through labor competition, housing pressure, school dysfunction, crime spillover, cultural friction, atomization preventing collective response, while lacking insulation mechanisms or organizational permissions for defensive coordination. When the native middle class complains about observable patterns: immigrant overrepresentation in crime statistics documented in police data despite publication restrictions, welfare usage rates, housing pressure, the elite condemns them as racist, fascist while living where consequences dont penetrate through private security and geographic segregation. This resentment targets double standards, not immigration which is a legible byproduct. The elite and organized minorities maintain ethnic homogeneity through different mechanisms (elite through price, minorities through permitted preference) while preventing the middle class from equivalent organizing through laws the elite lobbied for and minorities benefit from. Populist parties successfully articulate this resentment. Win elections based on promises to address it. Then fail to deliver because either incompetent at policy implementation or captured by business interests benefitting from continued immigration and ethnic division preventing class politics.

This thesis predicts populism will increasingly fracture between factions articulating legitimate symmetry demands without solutions (current “far-right” parties delivering performative nationalism) and potential future movements framing demands as anti-asymmetry enabling native middle class and minority youth coalition across ethnic lines. Native middle class and working-class Maghrebis both compete for the same jobs and housing. Both groups are harmed by elite immigration policies maximizing labor supply and elite offshoring destroying industrial employment. Both groups experience neighborhood disorder while the elite lives in secured enclaves isolated from consequences. Both groups lack effective organizational representation in policy formation despite Maghrebi organizational permissions because those permissions serve elite interests rather than Maghrebi material interests. If populism evolves to frame as “symmetrical rules for all middle and working-class populations” rather than “native ethno-nationalism against minorities,” potential exists for a coalition threatening the elite-minority alliance more completely than current populist parties manage. Recognizing ethnolatrist asymmetry as an elite mechanism preventing middle-class organization regardless of ethnicity rather than essential minority nature requiring elimination transforms ethnic conflict into class-based conflict where it rightfully belongs. Makes visible that asymmetric rules serve elite material interests and organized minority leadership interests against the atomized middle-class majority of all ethnicities who could unite around economic interests if ethnic division was overcome.

But this evolution faces massive obstacles. Current populist parties benefit from ethnic framing maintaining them as acceptable opposition that doesnt threaten elite economic interests (cultural nationalism is manageable, class politics threatening capital is not). The elite will intensify suppression of any movement attempting cross-ethnic middle-class coalition through accusations of racism on one side, ethnic betrayal on the other. Organized minority leadership will oppose losing organizational monopoly and elite patronage. The native middle class is so atomized and demoralized by decades of suppression that building effective organization seems impossible. The more likely outcome: current populist parties continue riding discontent without solving structural problems, the elite-minority alliance adapts through minor concessions and performative gestures maintaining the existing system, the asymmetry continues generating resentment that gets channeled into ineffective theatrical nationalism increasingly morphing into ethnic nationalism, and the cycle repeats with increasing social tension until something breaks catastrophically. The fact that parties identifying real asymmetry cant or wont solve it doesnt mean the asymmetry isnt real. Means were trapped in a system where recognizing the problem doesnt produce solutions because all available political vehicles are captured, incompetent, or both.

VI. THE SUPPRESSION ESCALATION: TIGHTENING THE NOOSE

The elite-minority alliance responds to rising populist recognition of asymmetry not through addressing legitimate grievances but through escalating suppression producing ever more expansive control mechanisms that prove the critics thesis while generating more extremism. The UK provides the clearest example of this trajectory. Hate speech laws have expanded systematically from 2010-2024 where initial frameworks prosecuting explicit racial threats evolved into prosecuting any criticism of immigration, multiculturalism, or minority behavior classified as “stirring up hatred.” Current UK law permits arrest for social media posts questioning immigration policy, sharing crime statistics showing immigrant overrepresentation, or expressing concern about demographic change, all prosecutable as hate speech despite being factual statements or political opinions. The expansion operates through slippery-slope. Each incident used to justify slightly broader interpretation. Person A is prosecuted for explicit racial slurs (legitimate). Next person B is prosecuted for criticizing Islam (questionable). Next person C is prosecuted for sharing official crime statistics (absurd). Next person H is prosecuted for expressing concern about neighborhood change (totalitarian). Each prosecution expands the acceptable target list. Legal frameworks originally sold as protecting minorities from violence get weaponized to suppress political speech about immigration and demographic change.

The control mechanisms escalate systematically across multiple domains.

• Online identification requirements: UK Online Safety Act 2023 requires age verification for internet access, laying groundwork for mandatory digital ID linked to all online activity eliminating anonymity necessary for dissent. EU Digital Services Act 2022 imposes massive fines on platforms failing to remove “illegal content” (defined expansively to include political speech about immigration) within 24 hours, forcing platforms toward aggressive preemptive censorship rather than risk penalties.

• Financial deplatforming: UK banks close accounts of people expressing wrong political opinions (Nigel Farage, multiple others) without explanation or appeal, creating financial unpersoning where disagreeing with elite consensus makes you unbankable.

• Professional destruction campaigns: coordinated efforts by activist organizations and compliant media to identify people expressing forbidden opinions, contact their employers demanding termination, destroy careers as warning to others.

The mechanisms compound. A person expressing concern about immigration gets social media account suspended, identified by activists, employer contacted, fired from job, bank account closed, no recourse through the legal system because they didnt technically violate law, just became too controversial to employ or bank. Total social destruction for thoughtcrime. The message: shut up or lose everything.

EU regulations provide a supranational layer preventing democratic accountability or national resistance to suppression. The European Commission pushes the Digital Services Act and similar legislation requiring all member states to implement identical content moderation standards, removing national discretion about what speech is permitted. Countries that resist (Poland, Hungary) face financial penalties and rule-of-law proceedings threatening EU funding withdrawal. Creates a ratchet where any individual country attempting to protect free speech faces economic punishment until compliance. Supranational governance insulates policy from democratic pressure. No election can change EU regulations without unanimous consent of all member states and EU bureaucracy, making course correction impossible through normal politics. A perfect system for the elite maintaining control. National populations can vote for populist parties promising change. But actual policy is set at the EU level where elected politicians have minimal influence nationally and unelected bureaucrats answer to no voters. Only the Commission can propose laws. The Parliament just amends and votes. The Commission can brute-force a law year after year until it is applied (i.e Chat Control). A populist government takes power in Italy or the Netherlands. Discovers they cant change immigration policy without violating EU law. Cant reduce hate speech prosecution without violating EU directives. Cant deplatform censorious NGOs without violating fundamental rights as defined by EU courts. The system designed to prevent democracy from threatening elite interests.

The suppression escalation proves the populist thesis while creating the extremism it claims to prevent through a perfect radicalization pipeline. A person notices the asymmetry (minorities organize ethnically with government funding, natives prevented from equivalent organizing). Expresses the observation publicly. Gets arrested for hate speech or fired after an activist campaign or deplatformed across social media or financially unpersoned through bank account closure. Concludes: everything they said about asymmetric power was true, proved through the mechanism of suppression demonstrating the elite can destroy anyone questioning the system. Becomes radicalized through unjust punishment. Seeks alternative platforms in unmoderated spaces. Encounters a mixture of legitimate structural criticism and actual extremism. Cannot distinguish because all criticism is equally suppressed in mainstream spaces. Adopts an increasingly extreme position because moderate positions got them destroyed anyway. A system that produces extremists from moderates through the suppression mechanism designed to prevent extremism. The elite declares rising extremism justifies more suppression. More suppression produces more extremists. The cycle intensifies. No exit.

The trajectory is clear. The UK 2024 riots following the stabbing of children by a Rwandan immigrant produced a massive crackdown where thousands were arrested for social media posts, some imprisoned for years for sharing information about the attackers identity, online anonymity increasingly eliminated, and financial deplatforming accelerated. The elite response wasnt addressing legitimate grievances about immigration and crime. It was expanding suppression to include anyone questioning the official narrative about the incident. The Starmer government explicitly stated social media posts questioning immigration would be prosecuted more aggressively than physical rioting. Made thought more dangerous than action. Signal sent: violence in the streets is concerning but can be managed through police. Ideas spreading online are an existential threat requiring totalitarian response because ideas are contagious and violence isnt. This is correct analysis from the elite perspective. Physical riots are containable. Ideological recognition that the system is rigged against native populations spreading through social media threatens elite legitimacy. Must be suppressed at any cost including abandoning the pretense of liberal democracy. The mask comes off. Suppression becomes the point. Not preventing extremism but preventing recognition of the asymmetry that generates legitimate resistance to a rigged system.

VII. THE ASSIMILATION TRAP: MINORITIES FEEDING THE BEAST

The just resolution for minority populations facing an ethnolatrism accusation is straightforward assimilation into the civics of the host nation, where ethnic organizing gets abandoned, homeland nationalism relinquished, and universal liberal standards applied to all regardless of ethnicity. This path existed successfully through most of American and European history where immigrant populations assimilated over 2-3 generations, abandoned ethnic enclaves, intermarried with host populations, adopted host cultural and linguistic norms, and achieved full integration producing genuinely shared national identity transcending ethnic origin. Worked for the Irish, Italians, Poles, and Scandinavians in America. Worked for various European groups integrating across borders. It required that the host nation be willing to accept assimilated immigrants as full members, and immigrants be willing to abandon homeland identification and ethnic particularism, giving time for cultural integration to occur naturally and for a liberal framework to emerge treating individuals as individuals rather than members of ethnic groups. But this model faces two simultaneous blocks making assimilation impossible. First: multiculturalist ideology actively prevents assimilation through celebrating maintained ethnic difference, funding ethnic organizations and separate cultural institutions, and defining assimilation as oppressive cultural erasure rather than successful integration. Second: minority communities practice ethnolatrism making them disinterested in assimilation that would require abandoning organizational advantages and elite patronage.

The block from the elite side forcing multiculturalism operates through making assimilation socially illegitimate and institutionally impossible. Assimilation requires a common national culture into which immigrants integrate, an educational system teaching shared history and values, the expectation that immigrants will adopt host language and cultural norms over time, intermarriage normalizing over generations, and ethnic identity fading as the primary marker. Multiculturalism actively opposes each component. A common national culture gets deconstructed as oppressive imposition hiding racism and colonialism. The educational system teaches that all cultures are equally valid and the host culture has no privileged status in the host country. The expectation of cultural adoption gets labeled cultural erasure, ethnocide, racism. Ethnic identity gets celebrated and funded through government grants to ethnic organizations. Intermarriage gets problematized as minorities “losing their culture” to the dominant majority. The ideological framework makes assimilation not merely unnecessary but morally wrong. Immigrants need to maintain ethnic particularity, speak the heritage language, practice traditional culture, organize with co-ethnics, and support homeland nationalism, all celebrated as authentic diversity requiring protection. The immigrant who assimilates, adopts the host language, intermarries, and stops identifying primarily by ethnicity is viewed with suspicion as a sellout abandoning authentic identity, possibly suffering from internalized oppression or false consciousness.

Beware, your integrated minority

The institutional mechanisms prevent assimilation even for immigrants wanting it. Government funds ethnic organizations including mosques, cultural centers, and language schools maintaining ethnic separation. The educational system teaches in multiple languages preventing linguistic integration. Housing policy accepts or encourages ethnic enclaves. The political system organizes ethnically through bloc voting making ethnic identity politically valuable. Welfare systems are organized to benefit ethnic networks rather than assimilated individuals. All incentives point toward maintaining ethnic particularity. An assimilated immigrant loses community support networks, access to ethnic organizations and their resources, political power through ethnic bloc voting, claim to victim status enabling access to programs and protections, and cultural identity providing meaning and belonging. Gains abstract liberal citizenship providing no material benefits, potential economic mobility if individually successful (but ethnic networks often provide better economic opportunities than atomized individualism), and moral satisfaction of treating all equally (which the elite celebrate rhetorically but punish practically). The deal is shit. The rational immigrant maintains ethnic organization even if personally preferring assimilation because costs outweigh benefits in a system designed to reward ethnic particularity.

The disinterest from minority communities themselves completes the trap. Minorities practicing ethnolatrism have organizational advantages theyre not surrendering voluntarily. Jewish communities maintain separate schools, professional networks, political organizations, and cultural institutions, all providing concrete benefits to community members that assimilation would eliminate. Surrendering CRIFs presidential access, Jewish school funding, ethnic hiring networks, political bloc voting, and legal protections against criticism. Why the fuck would any rational Jewish organizational leader choose assimilation eliminating all organizational power? Maghrebi communities maintain mosques, cultural centers, informal credit systems, ethnic hiring networks, and political bloc voting, all providing material benefits that assimilation would destroy. Organizational leaders depend on ethnic solidarity for their power. Assimilation eliminates their reason to exist. Elite allies depend on ethnic division for preventing class politics. Assimilation creates a unified working and middle class threatening elite interests. Everyone with power opposes assimilation. The only people who would benefit are the atomized masses of the majority and any minorities lacking institutional power.

But heres the Faustian bargain: minorities practicing ethnolatrism are feeding the beast that will eventually eat them through a mechanism theyre creating but dont control. The resentment generated by visible asymmetry accumulates in the native middle class who currently lack organization but are increasingly recognizing their shared interests. When this recognition crystallizes into an effective political movement (whether through reformed populist parties actually solving problems or through revolutionary violence when all peaceful change gets blocked), minority populations that maintained particularist ethnolatrism while preventing similar majority organization will become obvious targets. The historical pattern is clear: interethnic peace requires either complete separation or complete assimilation. Nothing in between is stable long-term. This middle path of maintained ethnic particularity within a shared political framework only works when the asymmetry is accepted (it wont be once native populations gain consciousness) or when suppression is total (it cant be maintained forever as legitimacy erodes and costs compound). Minorities that chose ethnolatrism over assimilation are choosing organizational advantages in the present while mortgaging their long-term security. When the system breaks, not if but when, minorities that maintained separate identity while benefitting from asymmetric rules will be blamed for the systems collapse by populations that bore the costs. The new pogroms wont happen to fully assimilated populations indistinguishable from the majority like the Asians. They will happen to the visible minorities like the Jews or Turks that maintained a separate identity and organizational power that other populations resented.

The assimilation trap has teeth closing from both sides. A block from the elite making assimilation illegitimate and institutionally impossible. Another from minorities disinterested in assimilation that eliminates organizational advantages. Together producing a situation where minorities maintain ethnolatrism generating accumulating resentment while eliminating the escape route that would protect them long-term. Jews, Maghrebis, any organized minority practicing visible ethnolatrism in Western nations are feeding the beast that will eat them when native populations gain consciousness and organization sufficient to fight back. Assimilation was the just path, but now seems blocked. Making catastrophic outcome essentially guaranteed once the current system of suppression and elite-minority alliance breaks under its own contradictions. Minorities who could have chosen integration chose organizational power and elite patronage. The debt will be paid when the asymmetric system stops working. The historical irony is that minorities that maintained ethnolatrism claiming it was necessary for safety are ensuring their long-term destruction through the mechanism of generating resentment they cant ultimately suppress.

VIII. THE NEW ANTISEMITISM: ETHNOLATRY’S BLOWBACK

The rising antisemitism wave in 2023-2024, exemplified by figures like Nick Fuentes gaining mainstream recognition, represents not revival of historical ethnic hatred but logical consequence of visible Jewish ethnolatrism during the Gaza war combined with suppression proving Jewish organizational power critics claimed existed. This is a critical distinction. Old antisemitism (pre-WWII) was irrational hatred based on false claims about Jewish racial inferiority, religious deicide, and conspiracy theories manufactured from nothing. New antisemitism is a rational response to observable behavior that metastasizes into ethnic hatred when structural criticism gets suppressed. The progression operates through a clear mechanism.

• Phase 1: Person observes Jewish organizations practicing ethnolatrism (CRIF supporting Israeli ethnonationalism while prosecuting French nationalism, AIPAC spending millions defeating politicians for insufficient Israel support, ADL expanding antisemitism definition to include legitimate criticism).

• Phase 2: Person articulates observation as structural criticism (Jewish organizations have asymmetric power, practice double standards, influence policy through lobbying).

• Phase 3: Person gets destroyed for thoughtcrime through job loss, financial deplatforming, social ostracism, possibly legal prosecution.

• Phase 4: Person concludes observation was accurate because suppression proved Jewish organizational power exists.

• Phase 5: Person seeks alternative explanations and communities after mainstream destruction.

• Phase 6: Person encounters a mixture of structural criticism and essential antisemitism in unmoderated spaces where both are equally suppressed.

• Phase 7: Person adopts increasingly antisemitic views because moderate criticism got them destroyed anyway and suppression suggests all forbidden ideas might be true.

Nick Fuentes provides the perfect example of the pipeline operating at scale. Started as a mainstream conservative (not antisemitic, standard Republican talking points). Observed Jewish organizational power and asymmetric rules (not false observation, documented through AIPAC spending, ADL campaigns, organizational coordination). Articulated observations publicly (questioned Israeli influence on US policy, noted asymmetry between permitted minority organizing and prohibited majority organizing). Got destroyed by coordinated campaigns (deplatformed from all mainstream social media, financial services, media demonization). Became increasingly extreme because suppression validated his structural observations while eliminating the distinction between legitimate criticism and actual antisemitism through making both equally forbidden. Now operates as an explicitly antisemitic figure with a growing following among young men who recognize the system is rigged against them. The elite declares this proves antisemitism is rising requiring more suppression. More suppression produces more Fuentes figures through the identical pipeline. A perfect system for manufacturing the extremism claimed to be prevented.

New antisemitism differs from historical antisemitism in content and demographic patterns revealing a different causal mechanism. Old antisemitism believed Jews were racially inferior, religiously guilty of deicide, inherently evil or demonic, and engaged in blood libel and satanic conspiracy, all completely fabricated claims with zero basis in observable reality. New antisemitism believes Jews have organizational power through AIPAC and similar lobbying groups (true), practice double standards supporting Israeli ethnonationalism while opposing equivalent behavior in host nations (true), control significant portions of media and finance (partially true, overstated but not completely false), and use accusations of antisemitism to suppress criticism (true, documented through countless examples). New antisemitism starts from accurate observations then makes illegitimate inferences ending in crazy territory. Old antisemitism started from completely fabricated claims. This distinction matters because you cant suppress new antisemitism through the same methods as old antisemitism. Old antisemitism was false therefore could be defeated through education and evidence. New antisemitism starts from truth therefore suppression just proves antisemites right about organizational power and conspiracy to silence critics.

Demographic patterns confirm this different mechanism. Old antisemitism was highest among the uneducated, elderly, rural populations with low exposure to Jews and high susceptibility to traditional prejudice. New antisemitism is highest among the young, educated, urban populations with high information exposure to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Jewish organizational behavior. Young men like Fuentes and his followers are precisely the demographic that should be least antisemitic according to old models, educated, internet native, exposed to diversity, received extensive Holocaust education. Yet theyre developing antisemitic attitudes at unprecedented rates. Why? Because they observe Jewish ethnolatrism operating openly, attempt to articulate observations as structural criticism, get destroyed through mechanisms proving their observations about Jewish organizational power were accurate, and conclude theyve been lied to about everything making all forbidden ideas worth investigating. The radicalization is elite-manufactured through suppression proving critics right while forcing them into spaces where legitimate criticism contaminates with actual hatred.

The Gaza war provided the perfect catalyst making Jewish ethnolatrism undeniably visible to populations that previously didnt notice or care. Before October 2023: Jewish ethnolatrism was background hum, abstract support for Israel that didnt penetrate the consciousness of people not paying attention, asymmetric rules existed but required sophisticated analysis to recognize. After October 2023: Jewish organizations vocally supported a military campaign killing 45,000+ Palestinians with the majority being women and children, suppressed criticism through coordinated campaigns destroying critics careers, demonstrated organizational power through AIPAC primary spending and institutional capture, and claimed victimhood from antisemitism while visibly wielding power to destroy anyone questioning them. The contradiction became impossible to ignore even for politically disengaged populations. Young people see Israel killing thousands (documented on social media breaking through traditional media filters), Jewish organizations supporting this while claiming to be threatened victims, anyone criticizing Israel or Jewish organizational power getting destroyed professionally, and this asymmetry between permitted Jewish ethnonationalism and prohibited criticism becomes undeniable. They conclude: something is very wrong with this picture, the people claiming to fight antisemitism seem to be protecting organizational power not preventing genocide, maybe the forbidden ideas about Jewish power are actually true, everything we were taught was a lie designed to prevent us from noticing.

This produces the Nick Fuentes phenomenon at scale. Fuentes didnt create new antisemitism through novel rhetoric or original ideas. He articulated observations millions of young people were making independently then getting suppressed for voicing. He became successful not through persuasion but through validation, through telling people what theyd already observed and concluded but couldnt say publicly without destruction. His antisemitism isnt rising Jew-hatred but symptom of failed suppression strategy that proves critics right while forcing them into extremism. Jewish organizations face this choice: acknowledge legitimate grievances about the asymmetry and reform behavior reducing ethnolatrism, or intensify suppression hoping to prevent a critical mass of the population from recognizing patterns. They seem to be choosing intensified suppression. Guaranteeing that new antisemitism will continue growing until either (a) suppression becomes so total that all criticism is impossible (authoritarian endpoint), (b) the system breaks and accumulated resentment produces violence against Jewish populations that fed the beast, or (c) Jewish organizations voluntarily abandon ethnolatrism accepting symmetrical rules (probability approaches zero given organizational incentives). A self-fulfilling prophecy where Jewish organizations claiming to fight antisemitism are manufacturing it at industrial scale through mechanisms that prove antisemitic claims about Jewish power while radicalizing an entire generation of young people who started with legitimate structural criticism and got transformed into ethnic hatred through the suppression pipeline. Every Fuentes follower is a person created through ethnolatrist actions. Theyre making more every day.

IX. THE LOCKED-IN TRAJECTORY

The ethnolatrism structure is locked in through mechanisms preventing internal correction because every actor optimizes for local incentives producing a globally catastrophic outcome. The elite-minority alliance benefits from asymmetric rules therefore will not voluntarily enforce symmetry where every move toward symmetrical rules threatens both organized minority advantages (loss of cartel protection and government funding) and elite class dominance (middle-class organization becomes possible threatening economic extraction and political control), making both groups oppose change through all available institutional mechanisms including escalating suppression that proves critics thesis while manufacturing extremism. Organizational capacity advantages compound over time through network effects therefore the gap between organized and atomized populations increases exponentially rather than equilibrating, where success funds expansion of networks producing more success creating increasing returns where initial asymmetry expands rather than correcting. The ideological frameworks protecting ethnolatrism have institutional capture of discourse production therefore cannot be challenged through normal democratic deliberation where universities, media, and legal systems controlled by the progressive elite define demands for symmetry as fascism, making legitimate grievance inarticulable without triggering hate speech prosecution or professional destruction that proves critics thesis while radicalizing them. Populist parties that successfully identify the asymmetry either fail to solve it through incompetence (incapable of policy implementation addressing structural problems) or refuse to solve it through elite capture (maintaining business and political interests benefitting from immigration and ethnic division), providing theatrical nationalism that channels discontent without threatening the system while proving to increasingly radicalized populations that peaceful democratic change is impossible.

The suppression escalation creates a perfect radicalization pipeline operating at industrial scale where a person notices the asymmetry, articulates the observation, gets destroyed through hate speech prosecution or professional destruction or financial deplatforming, concludes the observation was accurate because suppression proved organizational power, seeks alternative platforms, encounters a mixture of legitimate criticism and extremism in unmoderated spaces, adopts extreme positions because moderate positions got them destroyed anyway, the elite declares rising extremism justifies more suppression, more suppression produces more extremists, and the cycle intensifies with no exit. The elite response to rising populism and new antisemitism is doubling down on suppression through ever more expansive hate speech laws criminalizing political speech about immigration and demographic change, online identification requirements eliminating anonymity necessary for dissent, EU supranational governance preventing democratic accountability or national resistance to suppression, financial deplatforming creating unpersoning for wrongthink, professional destruction campaigns making employment contingent on ideological conformity, and institutional coordination across government, media, tech, and finance crushing any resistance to the elite-minority alliance. This proves every claim critics make about asymmetric power and conspiracy to silence opposition while manufacturing the extremism the elite claims to prevent through the mechanism of radicalizing moderates via unjust punishment.

Minorities that keep practicing ethnolatrism are feeding the beast that will eventually eat them through a mechanism theyre creating but surely not controlling. Assimilation was the just resolution protecting minorities long-term through integration eliminating visible difference and organizational threat generating resentment. But now blocked by a combination of elite multiculturalism making assimilation socially illegitimate and institutionally impossible, minority disinterest in assimilation that would eliminate organizational advantages and elite patronage, and suppression preventing articulation that assimilation would serve minority interests by eliminating the target of resentment before the system breaks. Minorities that maintained ethnolatrism while preventing native organization will be the obvious targets when the system breaks.

This essays contribution is naming a mechanism with sufficient precision permitting rational discussion rather than moral condemnation, acknowledging that current populist parties capitalizing on recognition of the asymmetry dont provide solutions because either captured or incompetent, and recognizing that suppression escalation proves critics right while manufacturing extremism through the radicalization pipeline. Current discourse treats populist symmetry demands as hatred requiring suppression. This alternative framework treats demands as a legible response to observable double standards suggesting resolution through symmetrical enforcement. The question isnt whether the current system breaks but when and how violently. Smart money says it ends ugly for everyone. The elite-minority alliance thinks theyll be insulated when it happens. Theyre wrong. Nobody escapes when systems collapse. Place your bets accordingly and prepare for impact because the rides about to get very unpleasant for people who thought rules would never apply to them, and also for everyone else because when societies collapse they collapse for everybody not just the people who deserved it since breakdowns exact tolls indiscriminately, often burdening those whose accounts were already settled.