鈥淗ow could this happen?鈥� seems to be the question on almost everyone鈥檚 lips. Republican Donald Trump has surfed his wave of divisive and racially charged rhetoric right into the White House. Like the Brexit vote in the UK, it鈥檚 a key moment that has .
Millions, if not billions, of people around the world were hoping that US citizens would reject Trump. But that didn鈥檛 happen, and in a way, we are all responsible.
The outcome is not about the intelligence of voters, it鈥檚 about emotional arguments and outlook on life. Generally, when a politician gets into office, he or she has judged the prevailing mood correctly. And the mood in many parts of the world is nationalistic and pretty ugly.
Advertisement
To win voters to his cause, Trump tapped a vein of nationalism that social science calls honour culture (see 鈥�Reputation is everything: Unearthing honour culture in America鈥�, and 鈥�An excess of honour could help explain the appeal of Trump鈥�). His key message has been that foreign countries are doing better than the US and this makes the country look weak.
Honor Bound, a new book by social psychologist , lists US states by how concerned residents are about their reputation and their desire to retaliate against perceived slights. The top 10 are South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee and Texas. Trump was victorious in all of these except for Virginia.
Using an external threat in this way also takes advantage of the fact that . Playing on fears is far more effective than promising good times.
Welcome to dystopia
This seems to be a clever tactic to win voters over, but it comes at a cost. Many of Trump鈥檚 strike the same divisive chord: there is a crisis of identity and the only way to get through it is to club together to fend off outside influences. We are great, but outsiders aren鈥檛 to be trusted. It鈥檚 oddly reminiscent of the slogan in George Orwell鈥檚 dystopian novel Animal Farm: 鈥淔our legs good, two legs bad.鈥�
Creating distrust in this way can result in enmity; if you鈥檙e not with us, you鈥檙e against us. Hardly the route to a united country or world.
Why did Trump鈥檚 us-and-them mantra take hold? Because of the way people build opinions, especially new ones.
John Zaller at the University of California, Los Angeles, has written about how this happens. It starts with hearing or reading information, and deciding whether to allow it to become a 鈥渃onsideration鈥�, a kind of reference point that you refer back to when making your mind up and forming opinions.
If you are constantly bombarded with similar emotive us-and-them messages, chances are one will lodge in your head, perhaps because it鈥檚 tied to something you already believe. And because existing considerations work as filters for new ones (so-called confirmation bias), this makes it easier to accept the next campaign message.
On the shoulders of giants
This makes it possible to reshape opinions widely. It helped change long-held views on slavery, race, women鈥檚 rights and same-sex relationships. But just as advocates can pull us towards better ideals, they can move us in less desirable directions.
You could, perhaps, try to pin Trump鈥榮 success on the man himself, but he wouldn鈥檛 have had a chance if the groundwork hadn鈥檛 been laid by others. Rhetoric about making your country great again, criminal foreigners and outsiders sponging off the state has been widely spouted by many political groups, including the Conservatives and UKIP in the UK and the National Front in France. So perhaps UKIP鈥檚 Nigel Farage and those who backed him are partly responsible.
You could also point at the language used to fuel suspicion of foreigners and give police and government agencies greater power to pry into our private lives in the name of fighting terrorism. You could blame terrorists themselves. But then you might have to conclude that they have won because we鈥檝e played into their hands and are intent on self-destruction.
Be the change
The simple truth is that finding someone to blame is immaterial. If we鈥檙e thinking differently as a group, a large proportion of society has changed its outlook, and the only way to tug things back to something more morally acceptable is to speak up.
The onus is on all of us to think about what we really value and spread those ideas, but politicians in particular have to realise the responsibility on their shoulders.
Their statements carry further than those of the rest of us. Their job is not just to represent the electorate鈥檚 view, it is to guide society towards a better future. To do that, they need to consider the damage they could do if they keep spouting hyperbole that encourages a distrust of foreigners.
For every glib, contextless tweet designed to appeal to the masses and whip up emotional fervour, there is a response. It could be shock or cheap laughs. It could be . Or it could be a race-related stabbing in Leeds.
The actions of many of our politicians are starting to feel dangerous, and it鈥檚 time we countered them by planting seed ideas for the future we want our society to grow in.
