On the morning of June
25, 2018 at 10:11am, President Donald Trump tweeted the following:
“Congresswoman Maxine
Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy
Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to
supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement.
Be careful what you wish for Max!”
These types of social
media rants have become a useful tool to modern-day demagogues. U.S. President Trump uses a lot of these
tools. So does Geert Wilders, leader of
the Freedom Party in the Netherlands.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also relies on this strategy. Even Ontario Premier Doug Ford has asserted
that social media connects him directly to the Ontario public. These figures use media to fuel their
rhetoric to the masses. Through the
shouting of passionate policy pledges or the challenge of ideologies both on
screen and on social media, these “concerned leaders” put on shows that
captivate their target audiences. Their
use of populism and psychology to dehumanize certain groups of people is an
effective tool to gain favour from angry disenchanted citizens (often
male.) In fact, they are all very good
at telling people what they want to hear and so are many other “passionate” and
seemingly “good ol’ boys” from around the world. “Demagogues’ strident opinions engender dark
feelings like fear and anger in their followers, who are especially vulnerable
during times of personal or social turmoil, or when they feel that they and
their families are threatened,” writes Dr. Saul Levine in Psychology Today.
There is no place for these types of demagogues in our society and actually
there are very few useful arguments in defense of these demagogues. A
manuscript first published in 2002 by the Mises Institute defends the necessity
of the demagogue. “For it is one of the
most admirable qualities of the demagogue that he forces [people] to think,
some for the first time in their lives.”
It may very well be that some of those acolytes of current demagogues
are thinking something for the first time in their lives, but it is not likely
that they are using the opportunity for reason and good argument. The demagogue in this example is simply a
passionate person of politics questioning the control of public opinion by the
state. The demagogues threatening our
societies today embody this example, but they also inject “...appeals to
racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and nativism…” into their narrative according to
the Human Rights Watch 2017 World Report.
The combination of populist opposition laced with this divisive
narrative has resulted in a staggering display of political recourse, social
media rants, and baseless gatherings that have ended in violence.
The “us vs. them”
narrative is a very useful tool in these demagogue’s climb to fame. Demagogues create this identity, “us,” that
is nourished with divisive rhetoric; rhetoric often founded in conjecture,
intolerance, bigotry, and violence. And
since this rhetoric comes from seemingly intelligent and popular public
leaders, people adopt it as their own narrative. They take to platforms they find safe to
express these narratives (i.e. the Internet) and let loose on “them” - people
of color, women, queer/trans people, visible minorities, and disabled folks who
are organizing their own inclusive identities.
And as if this divisive behaviour was not already harmful enough to
marginalized folks trying to find space in our society, some of these angry
people (often men) start to congregate and radicalize. They have even killed people.
The bad news is there are
few solutions to destabilizing these demagogues and deradicalizing these angry
men. Populist demagogues have no quarrel
relinquishing responsibility for their base and their acolytes are not fame
seekers looking for their one moment.
These angry people (mostly men) are seeking an identity, conformity, and
some semblance of competency in their lives and modern-day demagogues are more
than willing to scoop that up in their ascendancy to power. The key, according to Ruth Conniff of The
Progressive is “...political empowerment and social change.” Hit the streets, so to speak. Shape democracy at the local level and
rebuild communities that are suffering from problems related to unemployment,
lack of education, and limited access to healthcare. Get angry people (mostly men) involved in
being a force of change for an identity that benefits their community and
unites them with other people. It’s not
a quick fix but its a slow treatment to the infection of recent demagogue
fever.
Sources
Almond, S. (n.d.). Demagogue Days. In Not That You Asked. Random
House. (Original work published 2007)
Bauerlein, M., & Jeffery, C. (2017, November/December). Less hot
air, more sunlight. Mother Jones. Retrieved from https://www.motherjones.com/mag/2017/11/toc/
Bryden,
J. (2019, March 23). Ford says social media allows politicians to circumvent
mainstream journalists. Retrieved from https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/ford-says-social-media-allows-politicians-to-circumvent-mainstream-journalists
Conniff, R. (2018, December 01). Middle America: How to beat a demagogue.
Retrieved from https://progressive.org/magazine/middle-america-how-to-beat-a-demagogue/
Gerson, M. (2016, December 05). Dehumanizing demagogues. Retrieved from https://libsecure.camosun.bc.ca:2443/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct&db=bwh&AN=wapo.392407e0-1860-11e6-9e16-2e5a123aac62&site=eds-live
Kanopiadmin. (2002, April 23). In Defense of Demagogues | Murray N.
Rothbard. Retrieved from https://mises.org/library/defense-demagogues
Landesman, C. (2018, August 22). Stop calling me 'a
privileged white man' – I'm more than that. Retrieved from https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/stop-calling-me-a-privileged-white-man-im-more-than-that/
Levine,
S., MD. (2016, September 10). Who Is a "Demagogue"? Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/our-emotional-footprint/201609/who-is-demagogue
Roberts-Miller, P. (2017, June 10). Demagoguery vs. democracy: How
"us vs. them" can lead to state-led violence. Retrieved from https://www.salon.com/2017/06/10/demagoguery-vs-democracy-how-us-vs-them-can-lead-to-state-led-violence/
Rohac, D., Kumar, S., & Heinö, A. J. (2017). The wisdom of
demagogues: Institutions, corruption and support for authoritarian populists. Economic
Affairs, 37(3), 382-396. doi:10.1111/ecaf.12264
Shaun. (2017, April 18). The fate of the frogmen. Retrieved March 24, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_yfnQPaD_E
Signer, M. (2019, March 08). Yes, Trump is undignified. Demagogues have
to be. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/yes-trump-is-undignified-demagogues-have-to-be/2019/03/08/bd8d8d9c-4109-11e9-a0d3-1210e58a94cf_story.html?utm_term=.6003593c24ec
Wehner, P. (2017, January 19). Obama opened the way for cynical demagogue,
conservative analyst says. [Interview by S. Inskeep, Transcript]. In Morning
Edition. NPR.
World Report 2017: Demagogues Threaten Human Rights. (2017, January 13).
Retrieved from
https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/01/12/world-report-2017-demagogues-threaten-human-rights
