Fearmongering

Fearmongering, or scaremongering, is the act of exploiting feelings of fear by using exaggerated rumors of impending danger, usually for personal gain.

For example, some parents have kept their children at home to prevent abduction while they paid less attention to more common dangers such as lifestyle diseases or traffic accidents.

For example, official warnings about the risk of terrorist attacks have led to increased support for the proposed policies of US Presidents.

[9][10] Collective fear is likely to produce an authoritarian mentality, desire for a strong leader, strict discipline, punitiveness, intolerance, xenophobia, and less democracy, according to regality theory.

Historically, the effect has been exploited by political entrepreneurs in many countries for purposes such as increasing support for an authoritarian government, avoiding democratization, or preparing the population for war.

It begins with a little girl standing in a meadow, birds chirping in the background; she picks and clumsily counts the petals off of a daisy.

False flag attacks have been used as a pretext for starting a war in many cases, including the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the Shelling of Mainila, and Operation Himmler.

[19][20] A remarkable tactic is the strategy of tension, which is based on making violence and chaos in order to create political instability, to defame an opponent, to pave the way for a more authoritarianism or fascist government, or to prevent the decolonization of colonies.

Historians disagree about who were controlling the strategy of tension, but there is evidence that both national neofascist groups and foreign powers were involved.