ng psychological processes behind political campaigns from the rise of Donald Trump?
In our research we found that rage displaced from childhood physical punishment drives people’s attitudes towards political issues involving retribution against targets seen as deserving of punitive treatment. All too often, those targets are sought among members of despised out-groups. Politicians who offer simple, punitive policies toward such out-groups with the promise of making voters’ lives safer or correcting injustice that has prevented voters from achieving success can tap into displaced rage and the desire for retribution to win support. This is no more true today than it was in previous elections but there is one huge difference about the 2016 election cycle: Donald Trump’s willingness to engage in racist and divisive rhetoric—saying out loud what some voters secretly believe—and his success in defining such rhetoric as “plain speaking” or a lack of “political correctness” rather than hate mongering. Trump’s success in harnessing rage and punitive attitudes towards out-groups regardless of reality—painting all Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” for example, to support his candidacy despite a lack of clear or workable policies testifies to the power of emotion aside from rational thought in helping to define the political landscape and drive the vote.
You originally wrote this book when television and radio dominated political campaigning, and showed how dramatic and emotional coverage affected viewers’ perception of issues. How has the advent of social media impacted viewer engagement with and reception of political issues?
Social media and the internet have created an environment where it is dramatically easier for disparate communities of individuals to find each other and reinforce their emotionally-driven opinions, such as the alt-right movement, encouraging people to reject conflicting information more than they normally would, and strengthening their belief that there is a “silent majority” that will show up at the ballot box to support their candidate. The meme was circulating that polls were underestimating support for Trump because many people who supported him didn’t want to admit that to pollsters who called. Since computer-administered polls are showing results comparable to human-asked questions, this explanation is very unlikely.