Fear as governance: how elites distract voters from economic failure

FILE PHOTO. Soldiers of the Belgian armed forces, participate with the Lightgun (LG) 1 105mm howitzer in the Wettiner Heide (Wettiner Meadow) international joint military exercises of NATO Response Force (Land) near Munster, Germany. ©  Morris MacMatzen/Getty Images

 

The West has mastered one art above all others: Manufacturing fear. Where once it was pandemics or migrants, now the supposed threat from Russia has become Europe’s new epidemic. By conjuring external dangers, Western elites distract from their own economic failings and keep voters in line.

In recent weeks, the authorities in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, and the Netherlands have reported ‘suspicious flying objects’ near airports and military bases. Fighter jets scrambled, airports shut, balloons mistaken for hostile drones – each incident presented as if Europe stood on the brink of invasion. 

The origins of these drones remain unclear, but accusations flew instantly in one direction: Russia. This reflex has become habit. Each unexplained event, no matter how trivial, is inflated into a new ‘pandemic of fear’ with Moscow cast as the culprit.

The immediate purpose is transparent – to convince Washington that Europe faces imminent attack, and therefore to secure continued American support. But beneath this is something deeper. In today’s West, fear has become the primary currency of politics.

A decade of manufactured crises 

For at least ten years, Western European elites have perfected the trick of redirecting public discontent by inflating both real and imagined threats. Migrants, viruses, Russia, China – the names change, but the method endures. The media allows the authorities to spin any challenge into an existential emergency, shifting public attention away from economic stagnation.

 

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The migration panic of 2015 was the template. Supposed ‘hordes’ from Africa and the Middle East were cast as a mortal threat to Europe, so frightening that governments re-imposed border controls long absent under the Schengen system. The eurozone debt crisis, which had exposed the EU’s structural economic weakness, faded conveniently from view.

Then came Covid-19. Within weeks, European governments had instilled ‘perfect terror’ in their citizens, who accepted sweeping restrictions on their freedoms and forgot their economic grievances. It was, from the standpoint of the elites, an extraordinary success.

And in 2022, Russia’s military operation in Ukraine provided the greatest gift of all. This was not because the EU had the means or will to fully militarize – it doesn’t. But the conflict handed ruling circles a ready-made focus for public anger. Everything could be blamed on Moscow: Inflation, stagnation, insecurity. Fear of Russia became the latest pandemic, and a reliable one.

Politics as fear management

The results are visible at the ballot box. In recent elections across Germany, France, and the UK, voters responded not to visions of growth or reform but to narratives of danger. European elites, helpless in the face of economic challenges, nonetheless managed to secure the votes of two-thirds of electorates by manipulating fear.

It is the opposite of the satire in ‘Don’t Look Up’. In the film, citizens deny the asteroid plainly visible above them. In the real West, voters are pressured to look only at external dangers and never at the crises beneath their feet – inflation, inequality, stagnant growth.

 

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The pattern is clear. Refugees. Pandemics. Moscow. Beijing. The threat always comes from elsewhere, never from domestic mismanagement. And the response is always the same: A politics of distraction and control.

The next ‘perfect storm’ 

The cycle shows no sign of ending. If the conflict with Russia deescalates without catastrophe, another fear will be found. Artificial intelligence is already a candidate. Discussions of AI replacing humans in every field are exaggerated, but they provide fertile ground for another panic. One can already imagine the appeals: Switch off your phones, protect your children, obey the experts. Citizens conditioned by years of ‘pandemics of fear’ will likely comply.

This is not necessarily the product of a detailed conspiracy. Western societies have grown accustomed to panic. Fear has become part of their psychological defense system, a way to avoid confronting the reality that elections bring no real change. 

Compared with the past – revolutions, wars, mass bloodshed – today’s manipulation of fear might seem benign. It avoids violence, at least for now. But it is no less corrosive. A citizenry trapped in endless cycles of panic cannot think about solutions, only survival. And ideas suppressed for too long have a way of exploding in ways the elites cannot predict.

Western Europe once styled itself as a beacon of freedom and democracy. Today, it governs through fear – of migrants, of diseases, of Russia, of technology itself. It is a fragile arrangement, masking a deeper decay. And while it may succeed in the short run, the long-term consequences could be far more destabilizing than the crises the elites claim to ward off.

 

This article was first published by Vzglyad newspaper and was translated and edited by the RT team.