especially evil that works against human needs and legitimate national interests, there's usually financial interest involved. Yes, follow the money.

I went to school with a couple of Saudis, one was actually a very minor princeling in the royal family. They were all intelligent and sophisticated men, well educated and quite reasonable, even liberal in their world views. They did not actually believe any of that fundamentalist Islamic Wahabi crap, but it was instrumental in keeping the monarchy in place.

Like with our own Conservatives here, the strict fundamentalist integration of traditional religious custom in civil life was just a technique to allow them to maintain and perpetuate the political and economic stranglehold their family/class had on their country. And like what is happening with the American Right and the TParty/Evangelicals, this ultra conservative world view has started to get out of control, go populist, and work against the interests of the Ruling Classes that originally got it rolling.

What we're seeing in the Islamic World as well as in the USA is manifestations of the same phenomenon. Communist China had its Cultural Revolution, both the Muslim World and Conservative Americans are now having theirs.

This is nothing new. It happened in France during their 1789 Revolution, and in Russia too in 1917. Unlike the American and British Revolutions (which were bourgeois uprisings against an aristocracy and a monarchy), populist uprisings have a tendency to get out of hand, escape the control of their puppet masters and go in unexpected, even chaotic directions.

Everybody is concerned about Trump becoming President. It may turn out even worse if he doesn't. His followers may lash out violently, not just fade away. They have been offered a glimpse of paradise and they will not be denied.