The Authentic Appeal of the Lying Demagogue: Proclaiming the Deeper Truth about Political Illegitimacy

Abstract

We develop and test a theory to address a puzzling pattern that has been discussed widely since the 2016 U.S. presidential election and reproduced here in a post-election survey: how can a constituency of voters find a candidate “authentically appealing” (i.e., view him positively as authentic) even though he is a “lying demagogue” (someone who deliberately tells lies and appeals to non-normative private prejudices)? Key to the theory are two points: (1) “common-knowledge” lies may be understood as flagrant violations of the norm of truth-telling; and (2) when a political system is suffering from a “crisis of legitimacy” (Lipset 1959) with respect to at least one political constituency, members of that constituency will be motivated to see a flagrant violator of established norms as an authentic champion of its interests. Two online vignette experiments on a simulated college election support our theory. These results demonstrate that mere partisanship is insufficient to explain sharp differences in how lying demagoguery is perceived, and that several oft-discussed factors—information access, culture, language, and gender—are not necessary for explaining such differences. Rather, for the lying demagogue to have authentic appeal, it is sufficient that one side of a social divide regards the political system as flawed or illegitimate.

Brexit, Cabinet Norms and the Ministerial Code: Are we Living in a post‐Nolan Era?

“…24 In the so-called 'post-truth' world, academic research tells us that crises of legitimacy create space for demagogues to cast themselves as authentic speakers of truth to power, and give partisan or aggrieved publics cover to forgive breaches of norms that formerly would have been condemned. 25 Nolan depended on a shared political consensus about the norms which underpin standards in public life. That consensus depended on peer endorsement within Westminster, and peer pressure to uphold agreed standards; on a media that endorsed those standards and ways of operating, and refused to downplay breaches of norms simply because the politician affected shared their views on a particular issue; and it probably also depended on a public which had not yet reached the state of cynicism about parliamentarians that the 2009 expenses scandal produced.…”

Stand-in Labor and the Rising Economy of Self

“…The reason is that not all social selves are valued in contemporary society; instead, it is the presentation of "authentic" selves that has become the goal (Erickson 1995, 122). Indeed, as scholars have noted, the search for authenticity has become a distinctive marker of contemporary life (Demetry 2018;Fine 2003;Grazian 2003;Hahl et al 2017;Hahl, Kim, and Zuckerman 2018;Peterson 1997Peterson , 2005Wherry 2006). As the management consultants James Gilmore and Joseph Pine (2007) assert, managing authenticity-"whether concerning people, places, or things"-has become critical in today's economy "because people increasingly make purchasing decisions based on how real or fake they perceive various offerings" to be (xii).…”

“…Scholars have described this phenomenon as "personal" or "self" branding (Hearn 2008;Vallas and Christin 2018;Vallas and Cummins 2015;Wee and Brooks 2010), and have linked it to the neoliberal imperative for individuals to both produce and sell social selves (Burchell 1993;Du Gay 1996;Foucault 2008;Lane 2011;Vallas and Hill 2018). Moreover, the more "authentic" these crafted selves appear, the more value they seem to command in contemporary life (e.g., Erickson 1995;Fine 2003;Hahl et al 2018;Peterson 1997Peterson , 2005.…”

Trump, celebrity and the merchant imaginary

“…Indeed, his loyal followers are disposed to distinguish between what he says for public consumption and what he authentically means. (Hahl et al, 2018) The subjects of Trump's exclusionary populism are a convocation of White Americans who share the perception that their national heritage is being stolen by the 'over-population' of nonwhites, multiculturalism, affirmative action, capital flight and the influx of 'cheap' immigrant labour. The Golden Age to which Trump promises to restore America is the post-second World War period of increasing prosperity, high employment and high moral purpose for the White majority.…”