What Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán Understand About Your Brain Why do some people who support Trump also wind up believing conspiracy theories? There’s a scientific explanation for that. Speeches by dictators and autocrats have one thing in common: they use dehumanizing metaphors to instill and propagate hatred of others. It is well-documented that for example words like “reptiles” and “parasites” were used by the Nazi regime to compare outsiders and minorities to animals. In 2016, during a state-orchestrated public campaign against refugees and migrants in Hungary, Orbán characterized them as a “poison.” In August 2017, when groups of white supremacists arrived in the college town of Charlottesville, Va., to participate in a “Unite the Right” rally, the protesters used both animal and dirt metaphors when they claimed they were fighting against the “parasitic class of anti-white vermin” and the “anti-white, anti-American filth.” Putin’s labeling of the Ukrainian leadership as “Nazi” falls into this category, a powerful slur against the Jewish leader Zelensky, whom Putin called a “disgrace to the Jewish people.” Dehumanizing metaphors have been used consistently to tap into the neural pathways of fearful or anxious people ready and waiting to believe. This helps explain why so many Trump supporters were influenced by the QAnon conspiracy hoax in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. Significantly, Trump also supported his Big Lie with the same pattern of conspiracy theories and fake news reported in far-right social media, such as QAnon, that spurred Trump supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. This sustained use of the central metaphor of a cabal of satanic, cannibalistic abusers of children conspiring against Trump will easily fit into the entrenched neural pathways of someone who is already willing to believe. The tricky thing about all this is that some people are more susceptible to this type of rhetorical manipulation than others. This comes down to critical thinking and brain training. If one wants to or needs to believe then the language works manipulatively and the neural pathways are built up. If we aren’t fearful or primed to believe, our brain has mechanisms to alert us to the deceit. Simply put — if we are constantly critical of lies, our brains are more trained to notice them. https://www.politico.com/news/magaz...litical-lies-and-conspiracy-theories-00108378
This type of rhetoric goes back to ancient times and is meant to reinforce tribal and national Identity. It’s why both the Chinese and Romans called everyone who lived out side their borders “barbarians”.
