Is Peter Dutton, the opposition leader with the clenched fists and irritated expression, about to do a Trump. With a federal election on the horizon, is he toying with the temptation of adopting the rallying cry “Make Australia Great Again” and going the full MAGA Monty that has captured a good slice of the American-as-apple-pie voting public?
Trump’s self-obsessed Potemkin prophecy, “Make America Great Again”, lifted from Ronald Reagan’s triumphant 1980 presidential campaign and straight out of French polymath Gustave Le Bon’s 1896 book on crowd theory, Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. Le Bon points to telling the crowd whatever they want to hear, whatever brings about the “greatness of the nation”.
Le Bon qualifies this in the lines: “nothing is more fatal to a people than the mania for great reforms [my emphasis], however excellent these reforms may appear theoretically”. MAGA mania is driven by the promise of reform — to Make America Great Again — which, theoretically, is anything the popular vote wants to hear.
Le Bon cites the method by which this is achieved in the sentence: “When the structure of a civilisation is rotten, it is always the masses that bring about its downfall.” Convincing the masses that the structure of a civilisation is rotten — its economy, its news media, or its political system, for instance — is the first act of the insurgency.
Intrinsically, our perception of reality, when “the structure of a civilisation is rotten”, is always tenuous enough to leave it vulnerable to manipulation by a would-be king who demands a response from the crowd.
Le Bon further explains the psychology of crowds in that they acquire strength through numbers but anonymously and, thus, without the consequence of responsibility, which fosters a sense of invincibility.
The second act of the insurgency: The crowd, shocked into an insurgency by the promise of great reform, is consumed by a contagion wherein “every sentiment and act” is infectious to the extent that every individual will readily sacrifice their personal interest for the collective interest.
The third act of the insurgency is the act itself. The January 6 Capitol riot is an archetypal case in point. Reality was lost in the anonymity and invincibility of an orchestrated rage purposefully manufactured to serve the interests of the instigator.
An idea, not a reality
We might furthermore point to a crowd inspired by a sense of nationalism and Engelsist/Marxist philosophy found in the works of Alfredo Rocco and Giovanni Gentile and rooted in Hegelianism that places ultimate reality in the form of an “idea”. An idea powerful enough to elevate Mussolini and Hitler to absolute power.
Mussolini explicated this in a speech (there are different exact wordings of this speech) on October 24, 1922, in Naples to a crowd estimated at 40,000 to 60,000 animated believers: “We have created our myth. The myth is a faith, it is passion. It is not necessary that it shall be a reality. It is a reality by the fact that it is a goad, a hope, a faith, that it is courage. Our myth is the nation, our myth is the greatness of the nation.”
Mussolini substitutes Hegel’s “idea” or “notion” with myth. It does not need to be reality, but it is made so through hope, faith, and courage. The myth, or idea, is “the greatness of the nation”. From this, we see the genesis of Make America Great Again. It’s an idea, and as history shows, ideas are powerful motivators.
The idea of something better
Elections are based on the idea of “something better”. It is estimated that in 2024, around half the world’s population — a record of roughly four billion people — will vote for their country’s next leader. The US presidential election in November 2024, will possibly be the most pivotal in their country’s history.
Lamentably, with Chomsky and Herman’s propaganda model in full swing, whether voters are informed or misinformed about who to vote for hinges on where they get their news and how vulnerable they are to emotional manipulation.
Emotional manipulation is when “someone uses your emotions to get what they want, steer your behaviour, or influence your ideals”. Emotional manipulators will lie, exaggerate events, and downplay their role in a conflict to gain your sympathy.
Common Sense
Trump, the eponymous antihero of his own satirical roadshow — a narcissist, deceiver, and liar, albeit a charismatic one, is a master emotional manipulator. Indeed, if we exclude the mocking of his rivals and boasting about his imaginary triumphs, he has nothing to say. Forget democracy and good policy, it’s all about Trump.
On January 10, 1776, the English-born American Founding Father and revolutionary Thomas Paine published a 47-page pamphlet titled Common Sense, a timeless treatise on the governance of the people for the people.
In it, he articulates what is generally accepted as a universal indictment by citizens on their governments: “Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”
A necessary evil government might be but a vote for a presidential candidate whose commentary by default is defamatory and deliberately dishonest, who has delusions of grandeur, who is being tried for insurgency, who is being sued by the state for fraud, who has been successfully sued for sexual assault and defamation, and whose mission statement, to “Make America Great Again”, is a policy vacuum, simply defies common sense.
In a nutshell, Trump believes the world, like wealth, like truth, is manufactured, which makes it malleable. The price paid for malleability is the same as for any other commodity, a promise for a promise. But to do this, you must ignore the rules of reality, which works until you find yourself in a predicament you can’t buy your way out of.
Will lying set you on a path to victory?
Conservatives worldwide, or those who present themselves as right leaning conservatives, have noticed Trump’s political success and have adopted his manifest, which poses an obvious question: Will slanderous gossipmongering and pathological lying set you on a path to victory, or is it stupid to think so?
One of the 19th century’s greatest thinkers, the English philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill, said, “Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.”
Mill was to qualify this, declaring that he did not mean that conservatives were generally stupid, but that stupid people are generally conservative. He further stated that “it is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman would deny it.”
Suffice it to say, in the current climate of the reckless abandonment of the truth, conservatives (in particular, MAGA extremists) have proved him correct. Or, at least, if not entirely stupid, entirely willing to rationalise its populist policies with lies.
The art of lying
The art of lying in politics as a pretence to the truth is a universal norm. Much like gossip, there is a mischievous admiration for a good liar and, contingent on the context and the raconteur, a certain savoir-faire attached to its execution.
The American writer and delightful humourist Mark Twain wrote in a critique of the dying art of everyday lying, On the Decay of the Art of Lying, presented to the Historical Antiquarian Club of Hartford, Connecticut, purportedly on 5 April 1880: “My complaint simply concerns the decay of the art of lying. No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted.”
According to Twain, we all lie, but good lying takes preparation and precision. Taken in jest, it is frivolous fun. However, Twain was not of that mind when he wrote his essay delineating lying as anything apart from strict candour.
To place things in context, lying to save a friend has always been considered a noble act. According to research by Maurice Schweitzer, a professor of operations and information management at the Wharton School of Business, although lying is traditionally associated with selfish intentions, “prosocial lies increase trust” — fibs that are mutually beneficial or benefit others — and we should teach our children, students, and employees how and when to lie.
Taken as a means to an end, however — lying to subvert the truth, to gain something unethically, or to extricate oneself from wrongdoing — is usually viewed as deceitful and the antithesis of a good upbringing.
Moreover, the most dangerous person is one who can goad a crowd into believing that something patently false is true, like Trump’s claim that the 2020 US presidential election was rigged against him.
Hardworking warriors and the vainglorious fools of politics
We are apt to blame politicians, and politicians are apt to blame each other for all society’s ills. There is a caveat, however, to the harsh critique of our politicians. Many are hardworking warriors dedicated to the honourable charge of ameliorating society’s lot: a calling that can be soul-destroying to the point of utter disgust, disappointment, and disenchantment.
I am not religious, but Jesus’s advice seems most apt here: “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16).
Still, allowing for the distraction of politricks and duplicity, the incompetence, the unmitigated madness of the crowd and the conflict of ideas — egotistical inclinations that nurture sinister ethnocentrism and some truly irrational beliefs and the madmen that propagate them — advanced democracies have proven they have the right stuff.
It’s just a matter of eliminating the most tenacious of human afflictions: greed, bigotry, hubris, dogmatism, and denial.
As for the crowd, only a fool would choose to live vicariously through the machinations of a madman. As the celebrated German satirist Sebastian Brant wrote in his 1494 satirical trope Ship of Fools: “One vessel would be far too small to carry all the fools I know.”
Suffice it to say that a rudderless ship captained by a madman and crewed by a ship of fools is not the inspired version of the free and fair democracy we all aspired to.
To end on a more upbeat note and quote a legend with more substance in one fingertip than most of the current crop of politico-elites could summon in a lifetime. The late, great Bob Marley, whose rallying cry was for social justice: “The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.”
Marley was right; his music will go on forever, long after the vainglorious fools of politics are forgotten.