It can be a Communist takeover, a Nazi revival, nuclear war, earthquakes, floods, or the wrath of God. Whatever it is, it's just around the corner unless we follow their program and listen to the special insight and wisdom, to which only the truly enlightened have access. This is done with little or no remorse as long as it's in the service of defeating the Communists or Fascists or whomever. With extremists, the end justifies the means. Symbolism plays an exaggerated role in their thinking, and they tend to think imprecisely and metamorphically.
Effective extremists tend to be effective propagandists.
Propaganda differs from education in that the former teaches one what to think, and the latter teaches one how to think. Although few extremists are clinically paranoid, many of them adopt a paranoid style with its attendant hostility and distrust. Indeed, the ideologies and belief systems to which extremists tend to attach themselves often represent grasping for certainty in an uncertain world, or an attempt to achieve absolute security in an environment that is naturally unpredictable or perhaps populated by people with interests opposed to their own. Extremists exhibit a kind of risk-aversiveness that compels them to engage in controlling and manipulative behavior, both on a personal level and in a political context, to protect themselves from the unforeseen and unknown. Extremists, their organizations , and their subcultures are prone to a kind of inward-looking group cohesiveness that leads to what Irving Janis discussed in his excellent book Victims of Groupthink .