Abstract
This article examines the continuity of incidents linking Greta Thunberg to an ongoing stream of political shifts. It first takes us back to 1992 to her preteen predecessor, Severn Suzuki, and then forward to the COVID‐19 period and its consequences. The connecting thread that runs from 1992 to the present is the use of rhetoric to inspire terror in the population. Terror is used to promote acceptance of censorship and authoritarian restrictions that ironically interfere with the capacity of democracies to solve the problems confronting the world, such as climate change and pandemics. Elite actors create anxiety and terror to retain legitimacy in their control of narratives that preserve their power. This article shows how the World Economic Forum is transforming the acerbic language of Greta Thunberg into the basis for what is called the Great Reset, a set of policies that will enable the state and select businesses and NGOs to monitor and track the population and eliminate dissent. In short, when children are put in the world spotlight with a message, those who shine the light are the ones preventing real progress in solving problems.