I think that China could do absolutely untold damage to the American psyche and illusion of invulnerability if it simply instantly obliterated these clowns on Taiwan from hundreds of kilometers away with a cloud of drones dense enough to block out the sun. America treats the navy seals like they are all Master Chief, when in reality they are just guys who can carry a log and swim for a long time or some shit. Maybe that matters when you’re like… raiding a compound of a guy who has been on the run for decades while he’s asleep with Neon Genesis Evangelion playing on the TV, but genuinely what are these guys going to do to actually fight back against China? China will never even let them see a single PLA soldier lmao.
Dehumanising the enemy, literally talking about them as if they don't qualify as human, is an absurdly common approach. It's clearly an effective way of 'other'ing, but it leads to completely unrealistic attitudes like you describe. There's a line that gets crossed between bigging up your team/talking shit about the enemy, and simply losing grasp of reality.
I do think it's an inherently fascistic process, and it's something I still sadly see in the left, including Hexbears, when talking about terrible people and class enemies. Obviously some are speaking in metaphor, but not everyone.
I think you're right about it being a reactionary tendency. While it's good for morale in small doses, I think it sort of...anaerobically metabolizes away your ability to engage with reality. Like in the absence of fresh data, fantasy begins to feed on itself and produce ever-stranger ideological metabolites