(CNN) Extremism has a knack for metastasizing and coming back to wreak havoc upon its hosts. Once a cohort or society builds a hateful mindset, the hatred takes on a life of its own. Extremist ideology not only hurts a society’s enemies, but also eventually attacks from within and harms the society from which it originated. I first started observing this phenomenon abroad — and it saddens but does not surprise me that we are starting to see it haunt American democracy too.
Consider how the kingdom of Saudi Arabia disseminated the Wahhabi sect’s fundamentalist attitudes against Jews and Christians at home and abroad. It helped to fund the madrassas that fostered the extreme perspectives that eventually contributed to the September 11th terror attacks on New York and Washington. Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden did not just seek to destroy Americans — he wanted to destroy all things Western. The great irony is that his unbridled hatred had also prompted him to attack the Saudi kingdom, too. Bin Laden’s extremist hunger was such that even the Saudi Wahhabis who helped inculcate his all-consuming intolerance could no longer prove pious enough in his eyes. His efforts to overthrow the Saudi monarchy launched an opposition movement that got him expelled from the country.