Why populists become the liars they are
“I cannot tell a lie.” There is a legend about founding American President George Washington. Apparently when Washington was six years old he received a hatchet as a gift and damaged his father’s cherry tree. When his father discovered this, he became angry and confronted his son. Young George bravely said: “I cannot tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.” Washington’s father expressed that his son’s honesty was worth more than a thousand trees.
Well, how times have changed! Thanks to the legacy of former President, con man and habitual liar Donald J. Trump, telling the truth is now regarded as lying, or “fake news.” Meanwhile, fabricating stories and falsifying data is totally acceptable to those, like Canada’s Maxime Bernier of the People’s Party or Pierre Poiliviere of the Conservatives, who think swallowing snake oil is conducive to correcting a nation’s ills.
If you have had the opportunity to travel the world as extensively as I have, you may notice similarities among disparities. In those countries where populists have gained power, their followers have shown strong resistance to social change. In Britain the elderly voted for Brexit for fear immigrants were taking over, even though Indian curry long ago replaced fish and chips as the national British snack. In the United States, according to Trump, Mexicans labourers (“rapists”) were the main threat to the nation, even though there few low income Americans are willing to harvest cauliflower at far less than minimum wage.
Global leaders like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jingping, Turkey’s Recep Erdogan, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, India’s Narendra Modi, Hungary’s Victor Orbin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Canada’s own horse manure purveyor Pierre Poiliviere all deliberately lie through their teeth. “Skippy,” as Poiliviere is known in political circles, the pit bull puppy of Parliament and leading contender for leadership of the Conservative Party, frequently confuses his audacity with mendacity. Steeped in dissembling and illogic, he is supposedly a law and order conservative yet welcomed the hot air anarchists to Ottawa so he could blow his own populist horn. Poiliviere has been described in media reports as someone who “savagely attacks opponents without regard to nuance, or even the basic facts.” Facts, of course, are obsolete to those on the far right.
How has right has become wrong, black become white, and up is now down? Let’s start with George Orwell and his masterpiece 1984. “War is peace” was the key slogan in the book. Also: “Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” Literary critics explain War is Peace was intended to show unity in hatred of an enemy. Freedom is Slavery encouraged followers to find freedom in serving the party’s ideology, because followers won’t find it on their own. Ignorance is Strength encouraged people to rely on the powers of the party because they cannot possibly comprehend the world by themselves.
Well, it’s 2022 now and the world is upside down and certainly not at peace, and only idiots believe that ignorance is strength. According to William Schultz Ph.D writing in Psychology Today, those on the far right of the political spectrum have a strong resistance to change. “A meta-analysis culled from 88 samples in 12 countries revealed that several psychological variables predicted political conservatism. Which variables exactly? In order of predictive power: Death anxiety, system instability, dogmatism/intolerance of ambiguity, closed-mindedness, low tolerance of uncertainty, high needs for order, structure, and closure, low integrative complexity, fear of threat and loss, and low self-esteem. The core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and a justification of inequality.”
Peter McKnight, writing in the Vancouver Sun November 2021 about misinformation being spread about Covid 19, shared information from the American Psychological Association. Studies found those who believe or share misinformation often fail to carefully consider the materials they read or hear, tend to be intuitive rather than analytical thinkers, and have limited numeracy skills. Psychologists have found that people who embrace conservative ideologies, especially those on the far right, are more likely to spread misinformation intentionally.
According to a series of studies conducted by Duke University, the key factor is not political ideology, but conscientiousness. Conscientiousness, one of what psychologists refer to as the Big Five personality traits, encompasses “a broad domain of positive traits such as orderliness, impulse control, conventionality, reliability, industriousness and virtue.” The eight studies of more than 4,600 people discovered that both liberals and conservatives who scored highly on conscientiousness measures were unlikely to share information they knew to be false. In contrast, conservatives with low conscientiousness scores displayed a significant willingness to knowingly spread false information.
Vancouver “futurist” Dr. Tomorrow, aka Frank Ogden, summed it all up well in his 1993 book The Last Book You’ll Ever Read and Other Lessons from the Future. “The only constant is change. Learn to love it. The next big step is into chaos.” But let’s leave the last word up to humourist Mark Twain. “Never argue with idiots. They’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”