Nationalism and anti-immigration movements recycle the same script: identify an external group, blame them for decline, and convert frustration into political capital. Yet the structural causes—corporate monopolies, rent-seeking industries, regulatory capture—remain largely unexamined. People misattribute the erosion of wages, housing affordability, and job security to migrants because scapegoating offers a simple, visceral answer where systemic critique would demand uncomfortable complexity.
The paradox is that displacement of blame sustains the very structures producing discontent. By focusing resentment outward, populations leave internal predation intact: corporations consolidate power, extract wealth, and externalize costs while public anger is redirected toward the vulnerable. It is a feedback loop—political actors amplify fear of the outsider, the public accepts the narrative, and the deeper economic drivers remain untouched. The “easy answer” functions not as a solution but as a mechanism of systemic continuity.
Daedelus Kite 