The Grievance Gateway - Amygdala Hijack
I wanted to preface this post. I’m a sci-fi writer, but I’m also someone who cares deeply about the freedoms we enjoy in this country, and how easily they can slip when emotion replaces reason.
With a background in the military, information science, info security, and psychology, I’ve seen how narratives can shape people, and how they can be used to divide them.
Lately, I’ve been alarmed by how U.S. political movements are influencing our own conversations here in Canada, especially on campuses. These so-called “Campus Conversations” are being presented as open dialogue but often serve as emotional recruitment tours for Christian nationalist groups.
As a parent with sons in that age group, I wanted to make sure, our generation, their generation — and their peers — have the tools to think critically about what they’re hearing. This article is part of that effort: helping young Canadians (and others globally) recognise manipulation, ask better questions, and protect the integrity of real dialogue.
It starts with defending how we think, not just what we believe.
Grievance feels righteous — that’s why it works.
Grievance doesn’t start with hate. It starts with loss, a feeling that something once fair, familiar, or secure has been taken away. It’s the ache of watching your community change, your bills climb, or your voice ignored. That emotion is valid. It’s human.
But grievance is also the gateway drug of authoritarianism. Once someone learns how to steer your emotions, to make your anger feel righteous and your fear feel patriotic, you stop asking why you’re angry and start asking who to blame.
That’s how it begins. And on campuses across Canada, that playbook now comes dressed as “Campus Conversations”, polite-sounding forums built to inflame rather than inform, turning civic dialogue into emotional conditioning.
The Alberta Warning: A Grievance Turned Weapon
In a recent Globe and Mail column, Alberta advocate Don Slater issued a blunt warning: “Alberta is the canary in the coal mine.” His message wasn’t about oil or politics, it was about empathy.
Slater described how his province had become infected by a divisive ideology imported from the south, one that rebrands cruelty as strength and turns compassion into weakness. He wrote that empathy, once central to Alberta’s culture, is now treated like a flaw.
“Empathy replaced by suspicion. Compassion reframed as naivety. Those who need help seen as burdens rather than neighbours.”
It’s a quiet tragedy, but also a familiar one. The same emotional script has played out across democracies, from the United States to Hungary, from Brexit-era Britain to our own backyard. And it all starts with grievance.
The Grievance Hijack Cycle
To understand how grievance becomes control, you have to see the emotional mechanics behind it.
| Stage | Emotional Trigger | Manipulator's Goal | Typical Message |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Loss | “Things used to be better.” | Seed nostalgia, create vulnerability. | “They took your country.” / “The country is broken.” |
| 2. Betrayal | “You were lied to.” | Break trust in institutions. | “The elites sold you out.” |
| 3. Threat | “You’re under attack.” | Override empathy, justify hostility. | “Immigrants / refugees / woke culture are destroying your way of life.” |
| 4. Vindication | “You’re the real victim.” | Cement identity loyalty. | “You’re just defending what’s right.” |
Each step feels natural, even empowering. But by the time you reach step four, you’re emotionally captured.
As Dr. Kurt Braddock explains in Weaponized Words (2020), extremist movements don’t start by convincing you of an ideology, they start by hijacking your emotional processing. Once anger or fear dominate your reasoning, your brain craves certainty more than truth. That’s when you’re easiest to control.
How the Hijack Works
When outrage takes hold, your amygdala, the brain’s threat detector, fires off like an alarm. It floods your system with adrenaline and cortisol, making you feel alert, justified, right.
This “Amygdala Hijack,” coined by psychologist Daniel Goleman, temporarily shuts down the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for reasoning, empathy, and impulse control. You literally stop thinking clearly.
Now imagine that happening not once, but dozens of times a day through social media, partisan news, or online echo chambers. Each meme, each headline, each outrage clip is a microdose of grievance designed to keep your emotional circuits on fire.
The result is what researchers call Affective Polarization, a state where people no longer just disagree on issues but despise those who think differently (Iyengar & Westwood, AJPS, 2015). Once that emotional divide hardens, reality itself becomes optional.
That’s not an accident. It’s a business model, and increasingly, a weapon.
The Industry of Outrage
In The Outrage Industry (Berry & Sobieraj, Brookings, 2014), researchers describe a self-sustaining economy built on grievance. Anger drives engagement; engagement drives profit; profit drives more anger.
This is where foreign influence operations and homegrown populists find common cause. Whether it’s a Kremlin-linked troll farm or a “patriot influencer,” the emotional formula is the same:
- Provoke an emotional response (fear, anger, disgust).
- Validate it as moral (“You’re the only one brave enough to see it”).
- Amplify it through repetition and community reinforcement.
- Redirect it toward a target group or scapegoat.
Don Slater’s observation about Alberta fits this cycle perfectly. It's what my novel is based on. This slow creep. The real frustration, over affordability, alienation, and change, gets recycled into resentment. The legitimate grievance is never solved, because solving it would end the outrage supply.
That’s why, as RAND’s Truth Decay report notes, emotional manipulation has become the core tactic of modern disinformation. It doesn’t just distort facts, it makes people stop caring about them.
Imported Division: The Americanization of Canadian Grievance
Slater warned that the divisive politics of the United States have “crept in like a shadow.” He’s right, and not just metaphorically.
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) has tracked cross-border influence campaigns that inject U.S.-style culture war narratives into Canadian politics: “Canada is broken,” “Freedom movement,” “Woke takeover,” “Restore the North.”
Groups like Turning Point USA have quietly cultivated networks here, reframing local frustration through imported grievance scripts. The playbook is identical:
- Emotional simplicity (“You’re being silenced.”)
- Moral absolutism (“You’re good; they’re evil.”)
- Community reinforcement (“Join the movement.”)
The result is a homegrown version of U.S. polarization, less violent so far, but just as corrosive.
Reclaiming the Emotion: From Hijack to Healing
The answer isn’t to suppress emotion. It’s to understand it before it’s weaponized.
Emotions are information, they tell us what we value, what we fear, what we want to protect. But when grievance is the only emotion we feed, we starve the others, empathy, curiosity, humility, until they wither.
Reclaiming emotional literacy is the first act of resistance. It’s how we defend democracy at the psychological level.
That’s why the 5-Step Info-Check is your best first line of defense:
- Pause. What emotion did that post make you feel first, fear, anger, disgust, pride?
- Probe. Who benefits from me feeling this way?
- Pattern. Have I seen this same emotional trigger before?
- Proof. Is there actual evidence, or just outrage?
- Protect. If it fuels hate, don’t amplify it. Let truth breathe instead.
From Alberta to Everywhere: The Call for Empathic Vigilance
Don Slater’s warning wasn’t just for Alberta, it was for all of us.
“Do not look away from Alberta. We are the canary in the coal mine.”
That canary isn’t about oil, or religion, or party politics. It’s about empathy, the first value sacrificed when grievance becomes identity.
We can’t afford to lose it. Because empathy is not weakness, it’s the immune system of democracy.
And like any immune system, it fails not all at once, but quietly, one cell at a time, until the sickness takes hold.
So if you feel angry, that’s okay. If you feel unheard, that’s human. But before you share the post or repeat the talking point, take a breath and ask:
Whose hand is on the dial of my outrage? And what do they gain by keeping it turned up?
The answer to that question, more than any headline or hashtag, is what will determine whether we heal or fracture.
Dude, that was a lot.
I know this is a lot to take in, but that’s the point.
Influence doesn’t work because people are stupid; it works because it’s subtle, emotional, and everywhere. This isn’t about silencing anyone or fighting every post online. It's not about shutting down "Campus Conversations." It’s about pausing long enough to tell the difference between a real conversation and emotional bait.
This isn’t the final word, it’s one small tool to help you spot manipulation, grievance-baiting, and performative outrage before it hooks you. The real work happens when we keep talking, thinking, and challenging each other with empathy and facts.
Let’s keep the real conversations going, the ones rooted in curiosity, not control. I've added some of the articles and research that I've used in the references below.
References & Recommended Reading
- Braddock, K. (2020). Weaponized Words: The Strategic Role of Persuasion in Violent Radicalization and Counter-Radicalization.
- Berry, J.M. & Sobieraj, S. (2014). The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility. Brookings.
- RAND Corporation. (2018). Truth Decay: The Diminishing Role of Facts in American Public Life.
- Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence.
- Iyengar, S., & Westwood, S. (2015). Affective Polarization in the American Public. AJPS.
- Stenner, K. (2005). The Authoritarian Dynamic.
- Brown, R. (2022). Manufacturing Grievance: The Politics of Victimhood.
- Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). (2023). Cross-Border Influence Networks in Canada.
- Slater, D. (2025). Alberta, the Canary in the Coal Mine. Calgary Herald.
I’m Jason, a science fiction writer obsessed with the places where technology, military life, and human nature collide - often in spectacularly messy ways. With a background in info tech and the military, I love crafting stories full of sharp dialogue, immersive worlds, and unexpected humour. Follow along if you enjoy these kinds of stories or want to learn more about my writing and upcoming novels.