Scare, Divide, and Conquer: The Oldest Weapon in Politics

How Fearmongering and Political Manipulation Work

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” Franklin D. Roosevelt famously stated in his first inaugural address. Yet, we are manipulated through fear almost daily, often without realizing it.

Fear as a Tool: From Advertising to Power

We are constantly bombarded by advertisements with a condensed, aggressive message: “Buy this product, or you will suffer and die alone.” We start to fear diseases we had never even heard of before, or we worry that our household chores will turn into a nightmare if we refuse to buy a “magic” mop.

Usually, this anxiety is subtle or even subconscious, but it successfully draws attention to a new “need.” This is the first stage of fearmongering and political manipulation.

Same Mechanism, Different Goals

Politicians employ this same phase of fear management. Their narrative suggests that voters should—at least for a while—forget about their daily concerns and focus on the threats being served to them. In the second phase, a danger that was initially perceived subconsciously begins to take a much clearer shape. In the age of social media, this environment is perfect for such strategies.

First the Threat, Then the Solution

The final stage involves offering a ready-made solution to the problem. In a commercial, this strategy unfolds in dozens of seconds. In a political endeavor, all three phases can follow one another or run in parallel for years.

The goal is often to distract from more significant, controversial, or inconvenient issues for the “fear merchants.” For example, if a social group is suffering from poverty, it is cheaper to redirect their anger toward the opposition than to fix one’s own systemic errors. Additionally, one can build their own political capital by discrediting rivals—a goal in itself. Another objective is mobilizing society around a specific policy, sometimes even justifying aggression toward others under the guise of “national security.”

Fear as the Foundation of Dictatorships

Using fear to manage entire nations is a staple of dictatorships. Nazi Germany constantly identified external enemies to keep citizens in a state of fear and readiness to fight, which was intended to justify any aggression. A vast majority of society in the Third Reich also believed the propaganda about the internal threat posed by Jewish people and collectively supported their persecution and, later, extermination.

The Necessity of an Enemy

Communist dictatorships followed the same blueprint of governance. The “Western imperialists,” always ready for a physical attack, remained the external enemy, while an internal struggle persisted against the “subversive enemies of the system”—who could be almost anyone. This permanent state of threat and vigilance strengthened a regime surrounded by a cult of infallibility.

Disinformation and the Management of Fear

Disinformation is an inseparable attribute of fearmongering and political manipulation. This is why communist propaganda in Poland sought the initiators of the bloodily suppressed riots of June 1956 in Poznań and those on the Coast 14 years later among “Western agents and the reactionary underground.” It was no different in 1968, when Polish People’s Army soldiers headed south convinced they were saving Czechoslovaks from a German landing.

Fear Needs Disinformation to Thrive

The actions of the “imperialist underground” were also supposed to be the inspiration for events threatening the economy. In June 1950, communists in Poland launched a massive propaganda campaign regarding the potato beetle plague. It began with messages that sounded more like dispatches from a battlefield than a potato field.

Enemies Even in the Potato Field

According to communiqués published in the main party organ, Trybuna Ludu: “American planes, violating established flight zones, dropped a huge amount of potato beetles at night near Zwickau, Werdau, Lichtentanne, Eisenstock, and Berndorf.” In cinemas, every viewer had to watch the Film Chronicle before the screening. They learned that “progressive world opinion has properly judged the crimes of American pilots… Due to storms and wind, the beetle reached Poland.”

The plague was real, but the idea that it was a sabotage operation by US imperialists was a “value-added” lie for the authorities. By spending millions on propaganda, they motivated everyone to remove pests while uniting society in a common cause—common fear and common anger. Soon, internal enemies were found: priests and wealthy peasants were blamed for lacking “enthusiasm” in the fight against the pests.

When Fear Overcomes Logic

This is one of the most tragic examples of how fear can kill logic. Fear is faster than rational thought. The superiority of emotion over logic was further proven by Mao Zedong’s “Four Pests” campaign in China during the late 50s and early 60s. The government decided to eliminate rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows.

The Price of a Logic-Free Decision

The first three were sources of disease, while sparrows ate grain. The entire nation forgot its existing troubles and threw itself into hunting these “evils.” Birds died from slingshots or fell from exhaustion after being hunted from every nesting spot. No one listened to the logical argument: while sparrows ate grain, they also ate the locusts. The result? A massive locust plague, followed by a famine that killed millions.

Fearmongering and Political Manipulation Today

Despite the decades, the rules haven’t changed. Lukashenko’s dictatorship in Belarus consolidates power by scaring citizens with the “Wild West” and Poland’s defense potential. The effect (defense) is presented as the cause (aggression) to justify the presence of Russian forces.

Fear in Democracy

This doesn’t mean fear management is exclusive to dictatorships. In practice, every political force—including those in democratic countries—utilizes emotion. They keep their electorate in a state of tension and uncertainty regarding the opposition’s moves.

Emotions, not rational calculations, are the most frequent messages used to motivate voters. By skillfully using fear and anger—the easiest emotions to trigger—society can be shaped far away from common sense. Because fear doesn’t have to be right. It just has to work.

Read the original article in Polish: Straszyć, dzielić, rządzić. Tak działa najstarsza broń polityków