I’ve been reading a lot of 19th-century “travel/adventure” type literature lately, and savage natives seem to be a fairly stock villain.
This was probably taken as sort of a joke by most people, and forgotten, but I think this answer is the winner. The Jews were indeed the embodiment of evil in most of Europe for the longest time - to the point of being blamed for all kinds of ridiculous things, “blood libels,” well poisoning, not to mention economic trouble, and perpetually hated as Christ-killers. Whether or not they actually were evil is beside the point - they were universally reviled. Add to this the “protocols of the elders of zion” bullshit and the common perception that the Jews were in control behind the scenes, and the “authority” stipulation of the OP is fulfilled as well. I don’t think any of the other answers given come as close to the mark as the Jews.
I was going to say Turks. Their starring role as bogeyman/embodiment of evil, from western Europe’s point of view, came during the 16th and 17th centuries when the Ottoman Empire was already big and kept on expanding.
And the Moors had their back, or was it vice versa? Definitely a vice though.
Sorry to double post, but overlooked this. This is sadly true as well. I don’t believe the general public had any problems with the portrayal of Shylock and similar characters until after WWII, and too many still don’t.
To me, that doesn’t read so much as “I’m a black-hating autocrat-wannabe” as “look at the sorry state of our country, where we ignore the first principle of its founding! At least in Russia they’re not hypocrits–they outright state that men aren’t all equal in their society.”
Uh, I think that’s the point. The Russkies bite, and everyone knows they bite.
For some it was Yankees.
I heard the Dutch were pretty danged evil…
It always comes back to that damned Steinbrenner and his Evil Empire, don’t it?
As I wrote of anbove, the Yellow Peril:
Yeah exactly. The top American political thinker of the age (lets not quibble and say “one of the top”) was writing and dramatically reaching for an obvious place of despotism to make his point - a place everyone would readily recognize as despotic and making no pretense about it and reaching for that place in all his world he comes up with … Russia
Again not dismissing the other mentions on this thread – good ideas – just maybe this should be part of the conversation ina Euro-Centric 19th century context.
Let me ask this given that: **Is there ** really a GQ answer here? Won’t the answer be different for different people in different places at different times? I bet sometimes it was the Romans, Vikings, Muslims, and Indians etc. Answer depends on when/who/where
Well, the answer could be–and it seems as if it is-- “No one. There WAS no universal cliched embodiment of tyrannical authoritarian evil before the Nazis assumed that role,” which is kinda what I was thinking.
The interesting part to me is that the world got along for such a long time without one of the glues of western culture–the meme that has the Nazis fillingl that much-needed rhetorical role.
I mean if you said to your wife in the 1860s “Who are you, the czar of freaking Russia?” she might get you if she were geopolitically aware, but any dummy will get you now if you ask “who are you, Hitler?” even dummies born long after 1945.
before what? The Alamo?
I have two caveats against the winning answer to the OP being the Jews: 1) they haven’t been a politically unified, organized, aggressive regional military power since the days of antiquity (even during the times of the worst European anti-Semitism, nobody feared that the Jews would defeat the Pope or the Hapsburgs, etc.); 2) has there ever been a time when all of the powerful Western and Near Eastern empires been anti-Semitic at the same time? Haven’t there always been escape valves allowing some refuge from the worst persecutions? There have always been elements of philo-Semitism in the West and notable instances of religious tolerance of Jews in the Arab, Moorish, and Ottoman worlds, and the whole Semitism question has generally been met with a big shrug in much of the Far East. Even during the Holocaust, anti-Semitic attitudes weren’t shared by all European Christians, as many brave individuals sheltered Jews; Jews also found refuge in Macao and under the aegis of a Japanese diplomat, who heroically issued thousands of visas.)
OTOH, who has ever had any genuine regard for the Mongols, so long feared for their aggression and reviled for their primitive barbarism (some recent historical revisionism re. Genghis Khan notwithstanding)? The fearsome spectre of Mongol hordes on the rampage has been a historical bogeyman for most of the Eurasian continent for much of the eight hundred years since the death of Genghis Khan, who conquered and slaughtered millions from Korea and China, to Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus region, Arabia, the Persian empire, the Near Eastern Turkic peoples, the Levant, some Pashtun and Indian lands, and Eastern and Central Europe. Who else has ever posed a mortal threat to so many varied peoples, bringing about such a universal consensus of fear and revulsion amongst these erstwhile enemies? IIRC, when the Mongols laid waste to Kiev, the number of Rus survivors were said to have numbered in the single digits, and it took two or three centuries for Kiev to rebound to a population of 10,000.
If the Mongol spectre has been long eclipsed by more recent villains, it’s due to their utter degradation and insularity during the modern era. But back in the day, they were the absolute epitome of rapine and destruction.
Oh, then I think I’ve been whooshed. jimmmy tricked me into believing that he was serious about Lincoln being evil.
The fact that he highlighted the relevant part of his post gave him away somewhat.
The Jews.
The anti semitism in Europe one hundred years ago was unbelievable.
True dat. 
Good subject for your 88th post, Hitler.
(Just kidding. Jesus!)