“Why harp on the details, it is the exaggerations that makes a story attention-grabbing!” A favorite aunt as soon as exclaimed after I tried to fact-check a humorous household story she was narrating to an enormous, laughing viewers 20 years in the past. Every member of my clan cheered her on and it was the beginning of a pleasant night.
Donald Trump’s interview with Elon Musk despatched me again in time as I waded via the dialog. Each Trump and Musk know the significance of exaggerations in any narrative. The Indic epic poets knew it. Herodotus knew it. And so did Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Shakespeare. Trump’s exaggerations, ably supported by his interviewer, made for a superb story for his supporters. All 60 million of them he thought have been tuned into the dwell broadcast. This quantity is an exaggeration, too.
A Danger Price Taking
However why does Trump exaggerate on a regular basis regardless of a bevvy of fact-checkers ready to offer every syllable uttered by him a hang-draw-quarter therapy? Political storytelling is assessed below completely different rubrics than literary texts. Is that this a danger price taking? The reply is a convincing sure.
Trump capitalises on narcissism when he indulges in making outlandish claims. To know this hyperlink higher, let us take a look at what the specialists must say about narcissism. “For the narcissistically concerned individual, there is just one actuality: that of his personal thought processes, emotions and wishes. The world outdoors isn’t skilled or perceived objectively, i.e., as present in its personal phrases, situations and wishes,” Erich Fromm proposed within the Fifties. Fromm additionally posited that narcissists have a stronger sense of entitlement. This lays naked the explanations behind Trump’s fixed resort to exaggerations.
Narcissism And Politics
All politicians are narcissistic in some measure; this trait permits them to, first, enter politics, after which keep in it. Narcissism, nevertheless, has a extremely specialised operate for sure political ideologies. The interlinkages of narcissism with the sense of entitlement are vital to grasp whereas analysing why Trump’s narcissism works for him politically. A research carried out by political scientists Peter Ok. Hatemi and Zoltân Fazekas discovered that “Within the 2016 election, increased entitlement mirrored the temper of most people, definitely among the many working class, which voted Republican in better numbers”. Hatemi and Fazekas suggest that narcissism might have a job to play within the rise of populist politics. Trump’s constituents and people interested in him are supplied a blanket of familiarity.
In easy phrases, Trump’s worldview, offered with an exaggerated sense of self-importance and confidence, wins folks over. People who find themselves ever so anxious about their entitlements being eroded. And that is why statements like the next work: “Our crime charge’s going via the roof.” Who cares whether or not the FBI’s studies present a constant decline in crime ranges since 2020, his final presidential yr? Add to it a provocative declare about Kamala Harris, “She desires to launch all of the prisoners which can be in detention, and a few of these guys are actually unhealthy. That simply got here out immediately” and you’ve got efficiently created a way of impending doom.
Trump, The Rescuer
Trump is counting on sincere Individuals to imagine that their entitlements are being eaten away by outsiders. Thus, he makes exaggerated claims like, “You could have thousands and thousands of individuals coming in a month” and “I imagine it is over 20 million folks got here into our nation” about unlawful immigrants. He desires folks to imagine that they’re residing below extraordinary circumstances by saying, “I believe now we have the worst inflation we have had in 100 years. They are saying it is 48 years, I do not imagine it”. Shrinking entitlements being additional nibbled on by outsiders-which one among us, narcissist or not, would discover that fascinating?
Individuals must despair for the narcissist to, then, brandishing his exaggerated perception in self, are available in for the rescue. Trump desires folks to imagine that he, and solely he, can remedy these crises. Simply the best way solely he may “remedy” the Iran and China crises for the US. “Iran was broke as a result of I informed China, ‘Should you purchase from Iran…’ Oil, it is all in regards to the oil, that is the place the cash is. ‘…Should you purchase oil from Iran, you are not going to do any enterprise with the US.’ And I meant it, and so they stated, ‘We’ll move,’ and so they did not purchase oil.” America will be made nice once more solely when it’s unequivocally established that it’s in ruins. And it may be made nice once more solely by Trump.
Trump’s dialog with Musk, due to this fact, must be seen not as a “rambling” one which has considerably undermined his presidential prospects however as a examined technique aimed toward his constituents and swing voters. Whether or not it is going to fetch him a repeat of the 2016 end result stays to be seen.
Until then, let’s get misplaced within the meandering world of storytelling.
(Nishtha Gautam is a Delhi-based writer and educational.)
Disclaimer: These are the non-public opinions of the writer