Leadership, Emotions and Crowd Hypnosis
“Like Midas, the Rationalist is always in the unfortunate position of not being able to touch anything, without transforming it into an abstraction; he can never get a square meal of experience.” ― Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays
Donald Trump is the 45th and current President of the United States, in office since 20th of January 2017, succeeding Barack Obama.[1] He took office as the most ridiculed presidential candidate in the history of late-night television talk shows.[2] He is said to be more dangerous than Kim Jong-un [3] and his reign reached a crescendo this week as we have learned that his administration had ordered more than 2,300 children, torn from their parents and locked up. [4] Some even warned of genocide risk in his administration policies. [5] Consequently, his actions have been likened to those performed by Adolf Hitler, [6] one of history's most notorious dictators, who initiated fascist policies in Nazi Germany that led to World War II. [7]
He succeeded in convincing 46.1 % of Americans that they were being stabbed in the back by media, terrorism, and immigration conspiracies. [8] According to his arguments these are the conspiracies that aim at making them suffer more than anyone else in order to totally destroy their morale, because the “America first” foreign policy makes America superior nation. [9] In order to overcome the power of these worldwide conspiracies all power must be concentrated in the hands of a single man who would have the will to triumph over every obstacle. [10] This, of course, is Donald Trump. Then, at the conclusion of an interview with the New York Times, the then Republican presidential candidate, when discussing his views on foreign policy with Maggie Haberman and David E. Sanger, said that he is “not isolationist” but that he is, in fact, “America First.” “I like the expression,” he said: “I’m ‘America First.'” [11] Probably the hardest to free himself from, however, is the comparison with Adolf Hitler. One could argue that the likeness between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler is to be found in the use of emotionally induced hypnosis to plant in the crowds and their consciousness an image of the leaders as protectors of their people from threats to national survival both inside and outside the homeland.
To understand the essence of crowd hypnosis this note turns to the study of Adolf Hitler and his performance. As argued by Estabrooks “Without in any way straining language we can truthfully say that he [Hitler] was one of the great hypnotists of all time". [12] Estabrooks recognizes that "the mob leader will count on emotional contagion (....). Emotions are far more contagious than the measles. This fact of emotional contagion was very important to Hitler." [13] He argues that emotional statements made by a leader, are "burned" into receptive subconscious minds with the permanence of an image engraved on a photographic negative. [14] This might be true of anyone drawn uncritically to any leader or dominant figure. Be it Obama or Clinton, Hitler or Churchill, Reagan or Dalai Lama, the difference in the degree of hypnotically induced allegiance depends on the skill of the leader, their intentions, conscious or no recognition of that ability (improvisation), and the suggestibility of the subjects (e.g.: crowds). McDougall in his book "In the Group Mind" seems to confirm that findings. He recognizes "that almost any emotional excitement increases the suggestibility of the individual, though the explanation of the fact remains obscure." [15]
He suggests, however, that "the explanation is to be found in the principle of the vicarious usage of nervous energy, the principle that nervous energy, liberated in any one part of the nervous system, may overflow the channels of the system in which it is liberated and reinforce processes initiated in other systems. If this is true, we can see how any condition of excitement will favor suggestibility; for it will reinforce whatever idea or impulse may have been awakened and made dominate by "suggestion." The principle requires perhaps the following limitation. Emotion which is finding an outlet in well-directed action is probably unfavorable to all such "suggestions" as are not congruent with its tendencies. It is vague emotion, or such as finds no appropriate expression in action, that favors suggestibility." [16]
By putting the horror mask on media, by petrifying Americans with tales of immigrants and terrorist connections, Donald Trump dusted off and refined crowd manipulation. "The one means that wins the easiest victory over reason: terror and force." (Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf).[17] He has been successfully using different persuasion and hypnotic techniques such as pacing and leading, anchoring, verbal confusion, repetition and turned off his followers rational thinking. [18] "The new experiments, which used brain imaging, found that people who were hypnotized "saw" colors where there were none. Others lost the ability to make simple decisions. Some people looked at common English words and thought that they were gibberish. "The idea that perceptions can be manipulated by expectations" is fundamental to the study of cognition, said Michael I. Posner, an emeritus professor of neuroscience and expert on attention. "But, fortunately, now we're really getting at the mechanisms." [19]
Unfortunately, however, deceptive mass hypnosis techniques are still being used by presidents and politicians. While emotion was traditionally seen as a nuisance to good governance, [20] more recent events suggests emotion is central to political participation, public opinion, processing of information, political discussion, and crowd hypnosis. Will this ever change? Most of us have little idea about how much our emotions shape our decisions and this include politics. By deeper understanding of our ideological cravings and tools used by politicians maybe one day we can win over our healthy political emotionalism and rational thought.
References:
(OSCOLA style of referencing)
[1] P Baker and MD Shear, 'Donald Trump Is Sworn In as President, Capping His Swift Ascent' (The New York Times, 20 January 2017) <www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/politics/trump-inauguration-day.html> accessed 24 June 2018.
[2] C Framke, "Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers are the faces of a growing divide in late-night TV Two NBC late night hosts, two opposite approaches to joking under President Trump" (Vox, 28 March 2018) <www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/28/14985226/jimmy-fallon-seth-meyers-trump-tonight-show-late-night> accessed 24 June 2018.
[3] C Pongratz-Lippitt, 'Trump is more dangerous than Kim Jong Un, says former head of Benedictines' (International, 30 December 2017) (https://international.la-croix.com/news/trump-is-more-dangerous-than-kim-jong-un-says-former-head-of-benedictines/6311#) accessed 24 June 2018.
[4] M D'Antonio, 'In Trump's heart, no room for a crying child' (BBC, 21 June 2018) <https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/21/opinions/trumps-new-height-of-cruelty-dantonio/index.html> accessed 24 June 2018.
[5] T Helm and J Tapper, 'UK rabbi warns of genocide risk in Trump policies' (The Guardian, 23 June 2018) <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/23/british-rabbi-trump-immigration-policy-like-genocide-theresa-may-visit> accessed 24 June 2018.
[6] A Millington, 'A high-ranking Russian politician is comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler' (Business Insider, 14 April 2018) <http://uk.businessinsider.com/trump-russian-politician-compares-us-president-to-adolf-hitler-2018-4> accessed 24 June 2018.
[7] 'Adolf Hitler' <www.history.co.uk/biographies/adolf-hitler> accessed 24 June 2018.
[8] Z Ray, 'How Many People Voted For Trump And Made Him President?' (Newsweek, 18 January 2018) <http://www.newsweek.com/how-many-voted-trump-president-784019> accessed 24 June 2018.
[9] CA Kupchan, 'The Clash of Exceptionalisms. A New Fight Over an Old Idea' (Foreign Affairs, March/April 2018 Issue)<https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2018-02-13/clash-exceptionalisms> accessed 24 June 2018.
[10] L Zhou, 'Trump loves how North Koreans treat Kim Jong Un: “I want my people to do the same”' (Vox, 15 June 2018) <www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/15/17467644/trump-kim-summit-fox-news> accessed 24 June 2018.
[11] The New York Times, 'Transcript: Donald Trump Expounds on His Foreign Policy Views' <www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/us/politics/donald-trump-transcript.html?smid=tw-nytpolitics&smtyp=cur> accessed 24 June 2018.
[12] MR Nash, The Oxford Handbook of Hypnosis: Theory, Research, and Practice (OUP Oxford 2012) 38.
[13] ibid.
[14] ibid.
[15] W McDougall, The Group Mind: A Sketch of the Principles of Collective Psychology (e-artnow 2017).
[16] ibid.
[17] A Hitler, Mein Kampf (1933) Vol 1 Ch 2.
[18] S Adams, Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter (Portfolio 2017).
[19] S Blakeslee, 'This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis' (The New York Times, 22 November 2005) <www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/science/this-is-your-brain-under-hypnosis.html> accessed 24 June 2018.
[20] M Edelman, 'Political Language and Political Reality' (1985) 18 Political Science and Politics 10-19; Kuklinski et all, 'The cognitive and affective bases of political tolerance judgments' (1991) 35 American Journal of Political Science 1-27.