Just to get back to Sara's thing about "voiceless" and "powerless," there was actually an article in The Atlantic that looked at the characteristics of Trump supporters, and although it talked about the usual triad of male, poor, and white, the article said that the two most strong predictions of who supports Trump were not having a college degree and people who feel voiceless and powerless. So that voiceless and powerless trait looks like it aligns with both supporting Trump and being prone to believing in conspiracy theories. [...]
It’s really striking how he lines up with some of these anti-science charismatic leaders on some of the basic characteristics. One of the big things for him is that he’s positioned himself as an outsider and being on the fringes. That actually helps him build up his charisma and his identity as a charismatic leader because it creates a very strong sense of him being able to come in and create a totally different order and a revolution. But it also allows him to create a very strong us-versus-them narrative, in which he can really point to a very large group of people—no matter what party they're in—it's all of the government is against him and against us, the Americans. [...]
I once heard a speech by Wayne LaPierre, the director of the NRA. And you could insert almost any cause into that speech, because he almost never actually used the word gun. He talked all about freedoms, fairness, protection, family—you could imagine a far left person talking about their cause putting it in the same words. You’ll very rarely hear Wayne LaPierre talk about the data about whether personal gun ownership is actually safe or not. He’ll talk about, “I’m protecting your freedom.”
And you have the same thing when Trump talks about immigration. He’ll never cite actual data on the number of crimes committed by immigrants vs. non-immigrants. You probably heard if you listened to the VP debate when the moderator said to Pence, "but you know the most recent incidents were all done by American citizens, how do you account for that?" and he ducked that question and went right back to very loaded emotional words — “tragedies occurring to families.” So what he does is deflect attention away from the data onto these base emotions, and then they tell you, “we’re the only ones who can save you." And if you already feel like you're a person who doesn't have a voice, that's an extremely attractive way to put things. [...]
I think the example we use in the book is in a healthcare setting. So if you have a patient who comes in and says “vaccines cause autism.” There’s a tendency is to just immediately say, "That's not true—here's the data against that, blah, blah, blah.” That really antagonizes the person and actually can backfire and make their beliefs stronger. Which is a little bit frightening. What you could do instead is say, "As I understand it," in a calm measured voice, "Andrew Wakefield argues," and sort of list the arguments out. And if you do that multiple times, people really do start to calm down. They disengage the emotional part of their brain, which frees up space to engage a more rational part of the brain.
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