Right-wing storytellers engaged a tried-and-true strategy linking two potent symbols: the scarecrow — who to fear — and the scapegoat — who to blame.
Build up fear. Give it a name. Put a face to the name. Blame the face. Attack the face. Rouse the followers to do the same. Repeat as necessary.
Keep the loyal followers continually terrified — and always on alert.
Conservative anxiety is activated primarily through three scarecrows, each of which provide many targets for blame:
1) They Will Take Our Safety
2) They Will Take Our Liberty
3) They Will Take Our Culture
https://truthout.org/articles/the-right-wing-worldview-is-one-of-scarecrows-and-scapegoats/
Build up fear. Give it a name. Put a face to the name. Blame the face. Attack the face. Rouse the followers to do the same. Repeat as necessary.
Keep the loyal followers continually terrified — and always on alert.
Conservative anxiety is activated primarily through three scarecrows, each of which provide many targets for blame:
1) They Will Take Our Safety
2) They Will Take Our Liberty
3) They Will Take Our Culture
https://truthout.org/articles/the-right-wing-worldview-is-one-of-scarecrows-and-scapegoats/
Truthout
The Right-Wing Worldview Is One of Scarecrows and Scapegoats
The GOP keeps followers loyal with a continual narrative of fear and blame of the “other.”…
"9/11 was a godsend for an increasingly adrift American Empire. The emergence of a “radical Islamic threat” allowed American foreign policymakers to return to the Schmittian logic that had triumphed during the Cold War: similar to the evil Soviets, elites argued, evil “jihadists” promoted a totalizing ideology and wanted to dominate the entire globe. The United States we live in today, with its domestic surveillance, its permanent mobilization, and its endless wars, is the natural outcome of a way of thinking that divides geopolitics into good versus evil."
"One of the most important projects to which leftists can dedicate themselves in 2020 and beyond is threat deflation—persuading their fellow citizens that we’re actually extremely safe and have nothing to fear from terrorists, or Russia, or China, or whomever the next enemy is. While this won’t be enough to end US imperialism, it’s a crucial first step in building the public consensus necessary to begin drawing down the American Empire. Indeed, it’s especially important to move beyond a Schmittian framework given that the United States needs to cooperate with Russia and China to solve global problems like climate change, inequality, and—as is particularly apparent at the moment—pandemics."
https://fx.substack.com/p/the-american-empire-and-existential
"One of the most important projects to which leftists can dedicate themselves in 2020 and beyond is threat deflation—persuading their fellow citizens that we’re actually extremely safe and have nothing to fear from terrorists, or Russia, or China, or whomever the next enemy is. While this won’t be enough to end US imperialism, it’s a crucial first step in building the public consensus necessary to begin drawing down the American Empire. Indeed, it’s especially important to move beyond a Schmittian framework given that the United States needs to cooperate with Russia and China to solve global problems like climate change, inequality, and—as is particularly apparent at the moment—pandemics."
https://fx.substack.com/p/the-american-empire-and-existential
Substack
The American Empire and Existential Enemies
Since its emergence in the middle of the twentieth century, the American Empire has been fueled by the search for an enemy.
"In giving instructions on how to join the elite rather than critiquing the inequality upon which the idea of an elite is premised, self-help books serve only to normalize existing unjust power structures.
The neoliberal ideas these books mirror have been shipped to Kyrgyzstan like so many copies of The Secret, propagated by the bevvy of pro-business development agencies that have set up shop along the avenues of central Bishkek since the fall of the Soviet Union. Viewed in this context, the self-help guides so popular among young people here serve as apologias for the economic policies and political restructuring for which these agencies are advocates—and which the United States promotes abroad for its own gain."
"How have neoliberal international development agencies “self-helped” Central Asia? Attempts to make Kazakhstan’s education system “more efficient” in the 1990s led to the closure of thousands of preschools and smaller, “inefficient” schools in the countryside. In one of the areas of Tajikistan most affected by the country’s Civil War, the introduction of a steep new fee system for medications left many who were already barely surviving on aid unable to afford direly needed medication. And in Kyrgyzstan, which has adopted more of these types of policies than anywhere else in the region, the privatization of what were formerly collective farms after the Soviet Union’s collapse decimated rural economies and spurred a massive exodus of laborers from the countryside to the capital in search of work. Meanwhile, Bishkek’s move from building social housing to high-rise apartments has forced many of these poor migrants to build their own make-shift homes on the city’s periphery, sometimes adjacent to health hazards. Viewed in this context, self-help books’ exhortations to “think positive” and “practice gratitude” seem like paper swords in a fight against massive and systemic problems."
currentaffairs.org/2020/09/you-can-heal-your-life/
The neoliberal ideas these books mirror have been shipped to Kyrgyzstan like so many copies of The Secret, propagated by the bevvy of pro-business development agencies that have set up shop along the avenues of central Bishkek since the fall of the Soviet Union. Viewed in this context, the self-help guides so popular among young people here serve as apologias for the economic policies and political restructuring for which these agencies are advocates—and which the United States promotes abroad for its own gain."
"How have neoliberal international development agencies “self-helped” Central Asia? Attempts to make Kazakhstan’s education system “more efficient” in the 1990s led to the closure of thousands of preschools and smaller, “inefficient” schools in the countryside. In one of the areas of Tajikistan most affected by the country’s Civil War, the introduction of a steep new fee system for medications left many who were already barely surviving on aid unable to afford direly needed medication. And in Kyrgyzstan, which has adopted more of these types of policies than anywhere else in the region, the privatization of what were formerly collective farms after the Soviet Union’s collapse decimated rural economies and spurred a massive exodus of laborers from the countryside to the capital in search of work. Meanwhile, Bishkek’s move from building social housing to high-rise apartments has forced many of these poor migrants to build their own make-shift homes on the city’s periphery, sometimes adjacent to health hazards. Viewed in this context, self-help books’ exhortations to “think positive” and “practice gratitude” seem like paper swords in a fight against massive and systemic problems."
currentaffairs.org/2020/09/you-can-heal-your-life/
Current Affairs
You Can Heal Your Life
The self-help genre has become a booming American export, and a precarious stand-in for mutual aid and mental health resources.
"A recent report on digital infrastructure by Mat Lawrence, Thomas Hanna, Miriam Brett, and Adrienne Buller included the suggestion that the proceeds of spectrum auctions be put into a fund to support local media and journalism. Victor Pickard, author of Democracy Without Journalism?, has similarly suggested the creation of a trust funded by a number of new taxes that would support independent public media.
In the UK, Tom Mills, Dan Hind, and Leo Watkins have laid out a plan that would see the television license fee replaced with a digital license fee on internet to fund a democratized BBC that actually responds to the public. Their plan would also grant everyone over the age of fourteen an annual voucher they could use to support non-profit cooperative journalism, divided evenly between regional and national media. It would be funded by a tax on advertising or public relations services."
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/09/big-tech-journalism-democratic-socialism-decentralization/
In the UK, Tom Mills, Dan Hind, and Leo Watkins have laid out a plan that would see the television license fee replaced with a digital license fee on internet to fund a democratized BBC that actually responds to the public. Their plan would also grant everyone over the age of fourteen an annual voucher they could use to support non-profit cooperative journalism, divided evenly between regional and national media. It would be funded by a tax on advertising or public relations services."
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/09/big-tech-journalism-democratic-socialism-decentralization/
Jacobinmag
Big Tech Can’t Save Journalism. Democratic Socialism Can.
We need a plan for public funding of the media that can revive the ability to do more in-depth investigative reporting, hold power to account, and prioritize local journalism. Socialists have solutions.