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Austerity discourse, through the depoliticization of economic issues and the denial of the existence of alternative economic policies, goes against the primacy of politics and the irreducibility of antagonism—both likely, however, to reappear in times of crisis and social dislocation. This article analyzes how this discourse, failing to eliminate all traces of antagonism, diverts it toward abstract external figures and expresses it in moral terms in order to preserve social unity. The analysis covers a corpus of 302 statements made by three Italian and Spanish heads of government (Mario Monti, José Luis Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy) between 2010 and 2013, and combines lexicometry and metaphor analysis.