https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/7/14456154/dehumanization-psychology-explained

Dehumanizing policies can kick-start a cycle of retribution and hostility
During the Republican presidential primary, Kteily and Bruneau surveyed 200 Muslims in the US, and asked them to respond to statements such as, “Donald Trump sees people from Muslim backgrounds as sub-human,” and, “Donald Trump thinks of people from Muslim background as animal-like.”

On average, the Muslims in the sample “felt strongly disliked and dehumanized by both Trump and non-Muslim Americans more broadly.” On a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 indicating that Muslims did not feel dehumanized at all and 7 meaning they felt it intensely, the group average was 5.66, well beyond the halfway mark. (Similar results were found in a concurrent study of Latino Americans.)

This survey wasn’t designed to be nationally representative of all the Muslims living in America. Instead, it was designed to figure out what happens inside the mind of someone who feels dehumanized.

“And the consequences were big,” Bruneau explains. The more Muslims felt dehumanized by Trump, the more they dehumanized Trump. The more they felt dehumanized, the less likely they were to say they’d report suspicious activities in their communities.

The research predicts a vicious cycle. Trump’s policy and rhetoric gin up fear and dehumanize Muslim Americans. That provokes a more violent response from certain individuals in the Muslim community. Trump responds. And suddenly the whole country is a more hostile, less safe place for everyone, the researchers conclude in a paper that was recently published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

“We want to be careful to say that any backlash that we might expect isn’t unique to minority groups. In fact, some of our earlier work showed that Americans, too, who think they are dehumanized by Muslims are more likely to dehumanize Muslims,” Kteily says. “We think of this working both ways.”

Ben Herzig, a clinical psychologist in the Boston area who specializes in treating people from the Muslim community, says some of his patients are responding by withdrawing.


“When members of a marginalized group are dehumanized, their tendency is ... to retreat into familiar circles where they know they will be accepted by people like themselves,” Herzig says.
America has imported more warlord theocracy from Afghanistan than it has exported democracy.