The age-old format of dramatic storytelling is widely used in right-wing populism. An example is the Trump campaigns use of the urban legends about Haitian immigrants eating people’s cats and vicious and bloodthirsty criminals taking over the city of Aurora. Since there is no fact check in gossip, such stories can spread no matter if they are true or false. Yet, some of the stories most efficient in arousing emotions and mobilising politically are the individually true ones. Right wing organisations cherrypick and redistribute stories about immigrant crime. This also falls into the definition of populism. The telling of a victim of a violent crime gives an emotional edge, and has a much deeper impact than statistics and numbers and other facts that describe the bigger picture.
What differs right wing populism from classical rhetoric ?
Populism is the term for an ideology, strategy or form of communication that appeals to “the people”, as opposed to the “elite”. The most effective way to talk directly to people and spark public interest stories that stir emotion and urgency.
Moral is very important in our lives. Right wing populism is to a large degree spread by storytelling of serious individual moral misconduct and dramatic crime. The storytelling establish a dichotomy between good/bad, members of with minority groups as perpetrators. This causes the ideology in large degree to contain intolerance of minority groups.
Propaganda means the spreading of an ideology, belief or doctrine. Right-wing populist propaganda uses different types of means from mainstream and left-wing propaganda. I have named the latter “classical rhetoric”, to define a distinction.
There is a difference in genres between the classical rhetoric used by the mainstream and leftist political parties. “Storytelling” is more used in right wing populism. The focus is more on empirical facts such as statistics within classical rhetoric. One often tries to manipulate statistics or facts.
Classical rhetoric, as we know it from the political mainstream and left, is mainly based on mass publishing of written texts as a medium. In written representations, exactly described falsifiable facts based on numbers and statistics that can be scrutinised are important. This accuracy is possible because you do not have to remember all the facts and details when you write and send a text.
It is also a great strength that you do not have to remember written representations. Written texts and numbers can be saved, revisited, and shared over time. Falsifiable data like statistics is often preferred in political decision making. They provide cause to effect explanations, and you can check the numbers and have a better control of the outcome.
Falsifiability of the political statements are crucial for securing that information given to the voters can be corrected by criticism. The use of mass distribution of information through the the mass media like newspapers, radio and TV and other publications like scientific works and books and have in common that they are transparent for insight and reality check. Everybody can have access to the content of a newspaper article, or a TV broadcast. If it is false, the content can be falsified and the editorial responsible can be sued. A mass published book will be subject to public critics.
Mainstream and left parties uses more causal explanations. They attempt to find cause-and-effect explanations at a macro political level. For example, that climate change increases the risk of large wildfires.
Numbers can also be used by right-wing organisations, but in these cases, often rounded up with dramatic exaggeration. When numbers are used in right wing populism, they are often a part of a narrative with a causal explanation linked to individual moral misconduct. Refugees and migrants are often described with biased expressions like “illegal immigrants”, “welfare leeches”, “economic migrants”, “human locusts”, “aliens”, “Invaders”, “criminals”, “drug dealers”, “cartel members”, “thugs”, “gangs”, “aliens”, “rapefugees” “murderers” or “vermin”.
Right wing populism uses the storyteller´s language
The language in right wing populism is more based on storytelling than on facts like numbers or statistics. The storytelling emphasise on individual, emotionally charged narratives that often portray immigrants as perpetrators. The appeal of such stories lies in deep-rooted psychological and social mechanisms. Gossip has in ancient times played a crucial role in alerting communities to danger, fostering empathy and support for victims, mobilising collective defence, and reinforcing social norms through shared narratives. While these mechanisms have diminished in significance in the modern world—where institutions like the police and healthcare systems take on many of these roles—they still hold considerable influence in shaping perceptions and behaviours.
The language form used Right-wing populism, is characterised by its roots in the ancient medium of folk tale; narration or storytelling. Narrative language has a form and content that fit storytelling, originally told verbally from a person to the next. These stories are more dramatic and less detailed and fact based than the messages intended for written language. This simplicity is because you have to remember them.
A group of researchers connected to Harvard College has published a study showing that we remember stories much better than statistics. The study document that “as time passes, the effect of information on beliefs generally decays, but this decay is much less pronounced for stories than for statistics. Using recall data, we show that stories are more accurately retrieved from memory than statistics.“
The drama and sensation of the story also tempt us to tell it further to the next person. The important thing in storytelling is catching the audiences attention. In reality, mainstream and left-wing organisations parties sometimes use populism and right-wing organisations sometimes use classical rhetoric. But there is a distinct difference in their primary focus.
How to immunise yourself against criticism
It is the telling of a dramatic story that is important in populism. The storytelling form makes the content less accurate than you would find in classical rhetoric, that is based on written tradition. This also means that there is less empirical accountability.
The arguments used in right wing populism are not falsifiable in the same way as the arguments used in classical rhetoric. Use of statements that cannot be falsified, enable the politicians immunise themselves against criticism, with statements like “The policy failed due to sabotage”, or “The media is fake news!”.
These over-simplifications ignores the complexity of problems, ignore evidence or exceptions (“Vaccines cause autism-debunked by peer-viewed studies), and reject falsifiability (conspiracy theories that dismiss counter-evidence as part of the cover up). These kind of tautological arguments can not be falsified or verified because they do not refer to any facts that can be checked, or to any causal explanations.
Unlike classical rhetoric, populism does not try to show to quantitative analysis on a macro level, such as statistics or other numerical facts.
There is also no qualitative analysis, meaning explanations on a micro level, rooted in research like criminology, sociology or psychology or other sciences, or other analysis that contain falsifiable information and thereby can be scrutinised.
Because of this, the political means and measures arising out of populism often become makeshift and disproportionate.
The political solutions presented on complicated problems are often easy to understand, but unrealistic. For instance that immigrants and immigration is to blame for nearly all problems, that the climate crisis could be solved by downplaying the problem, or that Israel-Palestine conflict could be solved by forcibly displacing Palestinians from Gaza.
The truth is also what you do not tell
You rarely see right wing populists focus on important issues that would need careful investigation, planning, cooperation and great efforts, like:
- References to research and science in general.
- Climate change and environmental policies
- Women’s rights and women’s rights to control their own body
- Science-based approaches to major disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires, and the COVID-19 pandemic
- Unequal distribution of resources
- Tax cuts for the rich
- Labour rights and unionisation, economic redistribution
- The importance of a free independent press in safeguarding freedom of speech, in informing voters, countering disinformation and providing political criticism
- How to control online disinformation and protect democracy against it
- To protect the constitutional separation of powers among three branches in most democracies-judiciary, legislature, and executive
- Support for international cooperation such as the United Nations, WHO, the Paris Climate Accords, The International Court of Justice, The International Criminal Court or other multilateral bodies and international conventions and treaties
- Public healthcare expansion
- Progressive eduction reforms with emphasis on inclusivity, critical thinking or teaching about systemic inequalities
- Positive effects of immigration
- Telling the undramatic stories of the vaste majority of refugees and immigrants who live peacefully and get up early every morning to go to work
- Racism and ethnical discrimination
- Sexual exploitation committed by individuals in positions of power
- Support for Pride
- Discrimination of sexual minorities
- War and conflict forcing refugees to flee their home countries.
- Refugee rights
- Mass shootings and gun accessibility
- Police violence
- Right wing violence and terrorism
- Religious extremism by other than muslims
- Conspiracy theories
- Fascism and neofascism
You can take man out of the cave, but you can’t take stone age out of man
Why do stories of moral misconduct catch our interest ? Story telling and other gossip carry an important function for the construction of community. This is probably one of the reasons why we pay attention to these tellings:
- First of all, these stories can warn us about real and serious threats. Some individuals and groups of individuals, both within and outside a community, engage in actions that pose risks to themselves or others.
- The story of an external or internal threat can bind the community together.
- They can tell us about the dangers of unwanted behaviour. The stories of reckless, immoral or other unwanted actions and the consequences of such, can strengthen the social norms, our unwritten rules for behaviour. The strengthening of norms are important to maintain the social stability, by telling us what acts are wanted, and what is unwanted or dangerous behaviour.
- Talk in a community also mark social norms by sanctioning unwanted behaviour. The talk in a group of people can be a very powerful sanction, for instance by ousting somebody from the community after a scandal.
One of the negative sides is that ousting can be psychologically damaging for the individuals who are frozen out. It could also lead into stereotyping and xenophobia when the narrative in question forms a bias of an ethnical, sexual, political or religious minority, or about some other out-group. There is furthermore no fact check in gossiping and other storytelling.
The widespread use of the written language is relatively recent. Before that, we depended on peer to peer delivered information. Gossip was the way information was spread. The mass production of books started in the 16th century. Before this, the vast majority of Europeans were illiterate. Genetically, and probably also mentally, we are not very different from people who lived 40 000 years ago.
This heritage has most likely affected our cognitive apparatus and how we perceive, interpret and remember information. When we visit for coffee, we remember dramatic stories about juicy scandals more easily than the small talk and the coffee tableware. Our minds are more tuned into remembering a dramatic story than remembering numbers, statistics and facts… especially if it the story warns against danger.
Robert Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Liverpool, has proposed the concept of “the gossip factor”, suggesting that gossip played a crucial role in binding social groups among our ancestors together. Social groups like family, friends, neighbourhood charities and religious organisations were probably even more important before public health care and the modern welfare state were developed. Even today, 2/3 of our conversation revolves around social relationships (Dunbar 2004).
The sensation and the drama is important for making an urban legend successful. Psychology researcher Joe Stubbersfield states that stories about people are more interesting to us than stories about the physical environment. Firstly, he states, people are attracted to stories about threats to survival and social relations. They were also more likely to pass both these categories of stories on. Secondly, urban legends that contain social information, like the cybersex legend, or combined social information with information about a survival threat, such as the terrible baby crying legend, were far more easily remembered than those only carrying survival information, such as the spider in the hairdo legend.
Urban legends and wandering stories
Many of us recall the enchanting fairy tales and legends shared around the campfire as children and the strong impression of excitement and fear they made. Fairy tales are stories that do not pretend to be true. Adults know that fairy tales are not true. Children believe in Santa, while grown ups do not.
In the same way that the originally oral folk tales and legends have been written down by the Grimm Brothers and Asbjørnsen and Moe, urban legends can also be spread in written form.
There are good stories and bad stories. Fairy tales for children normally has uplifting narratives, with happy endings that strengthen the children’s moral. But not all stories have happy endings. The bad stories induce fear and paranoia, often targeting groups that the majority group have little social contact with, marginalised groups or foreigners.
Stories such as Urban legends are called “wandering stories” in Scandinavia. The Swedish folklorist Bengt Klintberg was the first to draw the world’s attention to the fact that these legends are very much still alive, and moving around in modern society.
Klintberg has described how urban legends have spread in society A wandering story, as he calls it, is a story that mainly spreads through retelling directly from person to person. Urban legends and rumours are told and retold. They can wander around by themselves when set into the rumour mill.
If you describe to much of the background of the characters, you risk to kill the story. It is the drama created by the moral conduct of the perpetrators that create the story. If the perpetrator fell down a staircase as a child and injured his head permanently, it would take some of the action out of the story, as he was no longer morally responsible.
It was quite clear who were the bad guys and who were the good guys in old western movies. The good guys wore white hats, and the bad guys had black hats. They are either good or bad, nothing in between. If you make the characters to complex, you take the drama and the momentum out of the story.
The urban legends function the same way. The main characters in in urban legends are often stereotypes. A villain often does immoral acts against a innocent and defenceless victim. The culprit is often someone in a group of people that that the majority group has little social contact with, like a newly arrived group of refugees or immigrants or other strangers.
Narrative language is the type of expressive language we use that allows us to tell stories. The sensation in itself is often a reason for us spreading a story. It is important that one can identify with the story, that you are deeply engaged and abs orbed in the story. Stories need conflict in order to create drama and, thereby, interest.
There is no fact check in gossip. Urban legends contain little verifiable or falsifiable information. Such stories spread regardless of whether the origin of the story was true or not, according to Klintberg.
The narrator often places the story in a specific named place. The source is often a friend of a friend, and often a reliable person like a doctor, police officer or other official. If the story has appeared in a newspaper, it is according to Klintberg seen as a guarantee that it is true in many peoples eyes.
Although news media sometimes feature urban legends and conspiracy theories, a free press remains essential for public debate, providing voters with reliable information, and upholding democracy. Editorial fact-checking often exposes conspiracy theories, and news media frequently offer critical analysis of those in power.
It is important to stay critical of media coverage, as outlets have their own perspectives and focus on different aspects of events. Still, unlike unregulated social media, news organisations have editorial accountability and can face legal consequences for spreading misinformation. For example, Fox News paid a $787 million settlement to Dominion Voting Systems to avoid a trial over promoting false claims about the 2020 election according to Associated Press.
Unlike social media, where misinformation spreads unchecked, traditional media can be held accountable. Right-wing populists often attack mainstream media to promote social media platforms, where stories and conspiracy theories thrive without resistance .
Gossip is not a victimless activity. Klintberg has described how such stories in several cases has led to hostile attitudes towards minorities, immigrants and refugees, like the story of “White slave trade”. It is described in chapter 5 that the old German Nazi party used the same urban legend in their propaganda.
Urban legends used in propaganda interlock together with other tools such as memes in drawings, images, leaflets, movies, TV, radio commentary and texts spread on social media platforms on the Internet. As shown in chapter 12, spreading of peer-to-peer by sharing a story is incredibly efficient. Storytelling is the key element in right-wing populist propaganda, which many of the memes refer to.
Urban legends
“The hookman” is an urban legend about a killer with a pirate-like hook for a hand, attacking a couple in a parked car. Another example of an urban legend is the story about Haitians in Springfield Ohio eating cats.
The psychology researchers Jean E Fox Tree and Mary Susan Weldon have published a study of how urban legends are retold. They say that while legend is generally presented as true by the teller, a rumour is a story presented as if you do not know whether it is true or not.
They found that frightening stories were more often retold. They also found that stories that had been frequently repeated in the past, also had a greater chance of being repeated in the future. They hypothesised that the repetition in itself increased the credibility, importance and scariness, and thereby the likelihood of being retold.
Additionally, they observed that urban legends were more likely to be retold when the teller believed in them. Because, unveiled as false, a retold legend might become an embarrassment to the teller.
Further, a story that was believed by the teller to be of importance, was often retold. Probably because not passing on potentially important or life-saving information would not be risked.
A collection of urban legends are found at www.snopes.com.