Lock Them Up! Populism as Political Vigilantism

• In Event: The Causes and Consequences of the Rise of Populist Sentiments

Abstract

Populists are a diverse crowd. Some lean left, others right; some are openly racist, others fight for inclusion; some are led by charismatic elites, while others form into grassroots movements. Yet there is one thing that virtually all of them share: they are always happy to pick a fight. Aggression is one of the few traits which unifies these sorts of leaders and movements. And they are distinguished not only by the presence of aggression, which any political actor may indulge in betimes, but in its severity and (most critically) its apparent defiance of rational calculation. Populist leaders frequently start fights that most reasonable observers would regard as pointless (at best) or self-injurious (at worst). Things get even stranger when we realize that populist leaders who court these pyrrhic conflicts often seem to be rewarded for it by their supporters, who heap loyalty and praise with ever more fervor.

In this paper, I argue that populists are conflict-prone because they are either driven by or capitalize upon a form of aggression that satisfies a powerful human need, one that can override material self-interest: the need to punish the guilty, or punitive aggression. Punitive aggression is a specific subtype of aggression: the need to harm someone because that person is perceived to have committed an injustice. Populism, defined the belief that one’s social group has been betrayed and ignored by the political class as a whole, presupposes a profound injustice on the part of political leaders. As a result, populist rhetoric will be appealing to those individuals who believe that unpunished injustices are rampant in society, as might occur after a major economic crisis if the alleged perpetrators of the crisis go unpunished.

The importance of punitive aggression contributes to our understanding of populism in two ways. First, it helps explain why such movements arise in the wake of economic crises, even though rational calculations of economic harm and benefit have not been found to effect support for populism, when controlling for other factors. This paper provides an alternative mechanism through which economics influence populist attitudes. Second, it explains why populist leaders are often rewarded for aggressive behavior even when that aggression damages the economic interests of followers (e.g. why farmers continue to support Trump despite the impacts of his trade war). Both theoretical and empirical work suggests that the need to punish is a powerful motivation, often more powerful that material self-interest or even self-preservation. I argue that populists allow their followers to vicariously punish a political elite they believe to be traitors and scoundrels, and this satisfaction of a profound emotional need cements the charismatic bond. In other words, populist outsiders style themselves as political vigilantes, winning support by rectifying injustices perpetrated or abetted by the political elites.

To test this theory, I conducted two survey experiments. The first simulates exposure to an economic crisis using two versions of a video describing the economic troubles of a middle-class family. One of these videos emphasized blame and guilt, while the other minimized these factors (to isolate the influence of threat). The second experiment used a non-political treatment (a violent assault by a group on a mentally disabled man) to more closely isolate the influence of punitive aggression. In both studies, I found that the injustices depicted influenced a generally punitive outlook on politics, while the threatening aspects of the treatment had no effect. This political punitivism, in turn, significantly increased various aspects of populism (hostility toward the political elite, belief in the moral superiority of ordinary people, and Manichean moral thinking).

To demonstrate that populist leaders are rewarded for their aggression, the experiments also included a simulated set of tweets, some of which were aggressive, some aggressive with a moral justification, and others non-aggressive. The justified aggressive tweets were most strongly approved of by those respondents treated with the injustice treatments. These results are consistent with an analysis of a sample of 450 tweets by Donald Trump. Trump, widely considered a populist, is much more likely to be retweeted and favorited when his tweets contain specifically punitive aggressive rhetoric, even when controlling for general aggression and topic area.

Author

• Matthew Rhodes-Purdy, Clemson University