Every political project requires a definition of “us,” the community of people it aims to unite and protect. This is true of both democratic and antidemocratic projects, it is true of nationalist and imperialist projects, and it is true, too, of autocratic attempts, though they are fundamentally antipolitical. Precisely because an autocratic attempt is the opposite of politics, it demands a narrowing definition of “us,” in opposition to an ever greater and more frightening “them.”
