The most evident sign of totalitarian democracy is the fact that “it treats all human thought and action as having social significance, and therefore as falling within the orbit of political action.” So the space for personal decisions is continuously narrowed and politics (i.e. political men) reigns supreme. Politics becomes the new religion and it could very well be seen as the new “opium of the people.

https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Totalitarian-Democracy-J-Talmon/dp/0393005100

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Talmon

It’s true that having an enemy is not necessary for a strong common identity. Icelanders for example have a strong common identity without much concern about a common enemy.

Group conflict between different human groups is not inevitable but it is highly probable. Modern nations have had only a limited success in suppressing traditional identities as shown for example in the conflict in Spain between Basque, Catalans and Spanish and of course WW II involved highly violent ethnic conflict. Certainly a nation such as Yugoslavia turned out to be very ephemeral compared with much deeper ethnic identities.

Religions have been more successful than nations in transcending older tribal identities but nevertheless for example Kurds, Arabs and Turks don’t get along so well just because they share religious beliefs.

A distinction between in-group-outgroup is fundamental to human morality.

In multi-cultural democracies politics is certainly likely to be organized on ethnic/tribal lines. Because of a high degree of internal conflict multicultural democracies are unstable and tend either to disintegrate or evolve into authoritarian structures like the Ottoman Empire.

It’s also of course true that the degree of hostility between different groups can vary a lot in intensity. And groups in conflict at one time may eventually get along fairly well. However generally speaking ethnic/tribal conflict tends to be highly persistent. Perhaps thousands of years from now Jews and Arabs in the Levant will get along fairly well but certainly not in the foreseeable future.

His use of ‘fear and despise’ implies that love of one’s tribe or ingroup and desire to see it preserved in its current form requires one to fear and despise the outgroup, rather than just wish it well on its own path.

Historically, both options have been widely exercised. Usually only 1 or 2 outgroups are feared and despised, among many known. Trad enemies, usually.

And even then, the degree of fear and despising can vary widely. The English and French managed to war for centuries without reaching the levels of hate one could find in the 20th century.