Make them believe

in times of desperation and panic, it is hard to govern , and hard to lead people who cannot trust someone in your position anymore , or maybe it's just hard to have hope if there is only death , corruption , famine and hate around you. 

if you want to keep a population's morale up , then make them believe in something , leaders have used lies and truth to let their people fight on in hard times , not necessarily wars. people like to hold on into something that is powerful, something that might save or protect them , something that will vanquish any evil maybe this will happen also if they help this "legend".

Like in Ukraine , the fighter ace ... the ghost of kiev , maybe his legend is true , maybe not , but what's certain is that normal folk inside the basements , will surely love to hear that one of their jets , who was outnumbered and outgunned managed to take down 5 other jets on his own. 

people like to have faith in something , people like to believe , people like to hope . You , as a leader , you need to give them that , you need to give them something to hold on to .

a hero , a symbol , a goal . 

in times of chaos , symbols keep people moving , meaning does too. 

Give them success in these times and they will value it. People use this in these periods , as lies as well , but it works too. The symbol could be a symbol of hate , like what the nazis did , or like what Daech did , and what the burning of the "witches" did , and so on. 

People will believe many things when their world is dark. 

picture credits :

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/hands-reach-hand-shaking-humanity-5655424/