All populists/demagogues ever do is validate people's feelings. I do think this analysis understates the motivations of people to harm others in the name of 'doing what's right'. Some people yearn to be called on to do 'what must be done'--so much that the worse the 'necessary' job is, the more validation they get from it. A pathological need for validation separates the wolves in sheep’s clothing from the sheep--and is not the product of any particular ideology or theology: those kinds of people are flocking to the right because that is where their greatest opportunities lie at present. All ideologies and theologies, being based on beliefs, make 'zeal' a virtue that can readily conceal a knife.