The Manufactured Enemy
When authoritarians fear the people, they invent enemies of the people.
Necessity is the Mother of Invention
Last week, the administration announced that “Antifa” is now designated as a domestic terrorist organization. This is, of course, impossible. There is no legal pathway for such a declaration, and there is no “organization” to designate. Only a loose set of ideas, affiliations, and claims. The fiction doesn’t matter. What matters is the fear and false justifications it enables. When the people in power need to hold on tighter, they reach for a trick as old as politics itself: invent an enemy, declare it a threat, and promise safety in exchange for obedience.
Fear as a Governing Strategy
We are seeing this tactic everywhere. Portland, Oregon, an American city with protests, sometimes unruly, sometimes calm, is described as a “war zone.” Troops are deployed, not to secure a battlefield, but to reinforce a narrative. The reality doesn’t matter. What matters is that enough people believe there is chaos, and therefore accept more control, more surveillance, more suppression. History is thick with this game. McCarthy’s “reds”, the “superpredator” panic of the 1990s, the endless “war on drugs” and “war on terror”. Each conjured spectator became a license to expand power, shirk responsibility, and attack political opponents. And these are only the mild examples here at home. Students of history will readily connect these tactics to many of the worst atrocities authoritarians have levied against their own populations, the world over.
The Costs to Free Society
The cost to a free society is steep. When dissent is painted as terrorism, when protest is blurred into crime, the very act of speaking up becomes dangerous. That is the true aim: to chill voices, to make people look at their neighbor with suspicion, to silence the opposition before it begins. We saw the same instinct on display in the attempted gagging of a comedian on television. The business interests relented only when cancellations threatened their bottom line more than the risks of the administration’s ire. Different stage, same playbook. Dissent is costly, and power prefers silence.
The Pattern of Decay
This is what decay looks like. The outrages pile up until the public grows numb. Manufactured enemies give cover to concentrating authority. And while the administration turns the focus of state violence on fracturing its citizens, our adversaries in the world watch on with glee, readying the mechanisms of war and global power, encouraged by the weakness that is the festering divides and fear spreading rot and decay through our nation.
The Stewardship Alternative
Stewardship offers a different path. Our principle is simple: government should treat citizens as partners, not suspects. The state is not meant to rule through fear, but to build through trust. Real security does not come from militarizing cities or slapping inflammatory labels on ideas. It comes from healthy communities, accountable leaders, and a shared sense of responsibility. Stewardship rejects the politics of declaring enemies and insists on the politics of care. Instead of pouring resources into new ways to monitor or repress, we should be investing in the strength of our people and the resilience of our democracy.
Today’s false declaration about “Antifa” is tomorrow’s precedent for labeling anyone who dissents. That is the pattern, and it must be broken. The lesson is plain. Beware of rulers who need enemies more than they need citizens. Stewardship stands opposed. Care, not fear. Partnership, not scapegoats. Renewal, not decay.
Stand with us
The No Kings National Day of Protest is Saturday, October 18th. Find or host an event near you and join the defense of a simple principle: We have No Kings in America.