#IWD2020: Five ways to up your rhetorical game in the face of right-wing populism
How to turn Us vs. Them narratives on their head
As women’s organisations and movements around the world are preparing their 2020 International Women’s Day engagement, it’s worth reflecting on the implications of today’s right-wing, populist movements for our messaging.
Recent years have seen the rise of ‘populist’ leaders and movements around the world: Alternative für Deutschland, Bolsonaro, Dueterte, Front National, Modi, Orban, Putin, Trump — the list seems endless.
What do they have in common? They are authoritarian, nativist, populist, and socially conservative. They mobilise popular movements and have mainstreamed far-right thinking. And their rise has been disastrous for women, girls and trans people.
I recently ran a workshop with amazing advocates from women’s funds from across Europe and Latin America on strategic communications in this populist moment. I wanted to share five reflections from my research on what’s working in today’s populist context, for any sector, for this International Women’s Day and beyond.
We need to develop and mainstream narratives of belonging, justice, pluralism, and democracy through communications that demonstrate our shared humanity, tell a comprehensive story of a better world and how we get there, surface the voices of the marginalised, and spark a two-way dialogue.
But first, let’s take a look at the dominant narrative of the populist moment, and how it plays out on women and gender.
Us vs. Them is the dominant populist narrative
The nativist populist narrative creates a ‘them’ responsible for all our problems. There are three key ‘others’ in this narrative: Populists punch up at a corrupt elite, whether it be coastal or big city residents, or a shadowy ‘global elite’ that often is thinly veiled anti-Semitism. They punch out at foreign threats, whether it’s migrants, the EU, Western LGBTI groups, global NGOs, who are trying to ‘invade’ and change the culture. They down at another ‘them:’ internal minority groups, feminists, immigrants, people of colour, casting them as people who are also trying to take away what’s fairly yours. And in the middle there’s one ‘real people,’ a pure group — often ethnically pure — that represents the real nation — and one person or party that can stop the others and give the ‘real’ people their due.
Nativist populists are allying — and sharing a narrative with — with far-right and conservative actors
In recent years, the various strains of far-right ideologies have spread, largely thanks to the internet, beyond small extremist groups to influence both individual and political behaviour around the world. We’ve seen key elements of the far-right discourse in the manifestos of mass shooters and the platforms of far-right parties, and it’s increasingly influencing broader politics and policies as authoritarian, right-wing populists — often formally or informally allied with far-right groups — enter the mainstream.
This shared far-right, authoritarian populist worldview is nativist and nationalist, placing a pure ethnic group (usually white) above others (Jews, Muslims, Blacks). It is authoritarian, rejecting core tenets of liberal democracy.
And it’s impossible to understand without a gender analysis. Anti-feminism has become a gateway to the far-right online. According to HOPE not hate, which for the first time in 2019 included the ‘manosphere,’ or online communities concerned with masculinity, in their annual State of Hate report, “sexist, misogynist and anti-feminist views” are “a central pillar of [contemporary far-right] ideology”. Their 2020 report details the “societal mainstreaming of far-right ideas”, including misogyny, and details how the manosphere has crept into the classroom.
In the shared far-right, authoritarian populist worldview, feminism is about promoting misandry (contempt or prejudice of men), and it is the cause of ‘Incels’ — involuntarily celibate men who not able to get the women’s bodies that are their due. Women are to be confined to the home and perform their duties as mothers to the next generation; [white] women are reproductive assets for the state and violence against [white] women is instrumentalised to attack men of colour and immigrants.
The contemporary far-right propagates and mainstreams the extremist white genocide and Great Replacement Theory — the originally-French right-wing conspiracy theory that European culture is being destroyed by immigration and the higher birthrates of non-whites — with different groups portrayed as the threat in different locales (as brilliantly documented by ISD).
And while this ideological narrative is spreading within countries, being taken up by authoritarian populists leveraging its fear-based Us vs. Them message to win elections, it is also being intentionally spread across borders. Authoritarian populists, far-right groups, and traditionally-conservative/fundamentalist actors (including ‘anti-gender’ forces on the religious right) are internationally networked & coordinated, online and offline, and reinforcing this common narrative, albeit with local variations. (And from here on out, I’m just going to call this the populist narrative, with the understanding that it’s far more complex than just populism.)
Countering this current narrative, and effectively reframing the conversation, is critically important. (See my quick explanation of why facts alone won’t win the day.)
A few caveats: while I’ve based these reflections on a synthesis of a good deal of research, and think they hold true, but as with all good communications advice it’s a good idea to treat them as hypotheses for testing in your social context and issue. Moreover, most of the research I’m relying on is from the Anglophone world, mainly the US, UK and Australia, so needs to be adapted to other languages and cultural contexts. I’d love your feedback on how these recommendations translate to your context. And finally, I haven’t seen any specific message testing on women’s issues (though the ILGA-Europe/PIRC guide on framing LGBTI equality has some great insights on gender) — so do let me know if it’s out there.
- Build a bigger WE: evoke our shared humanity
The populist narrative relies on creating a central identity, an ‘us’ — or in-group — that is under threat from a “them” — the out-group. There’s significant evidence that our brains are hardwired to create an ‘us’ and a ‘them, but instead of just creating a different ‘us’ and a different ‘them’, which can reinforce the sense of threat and fear, we need to tell stories about who we are and what brings us together as humans.
We need to create new, inclusive identities based on our shared humanity.
This can be as simple as simply reminding people that we’re all human, or evoking shared identities that transcend groups, like parenthood or basic human needs like dignity, health, and shelter. One of the winning tested messages in Anat Shenker Osorio’s research on drug pricing in America literally starts out, “Whether it’s routine like strep throat or scary like cancer, illness reminds us that at our core, we’re all human.”
Another way to build a sense of shared humanity is by evoking shared values, particularly intrinsic values. Psychologists have identified, across many cultures, that people are motivated by extrinsic and intrinsic values. Extrinsic values are centred on external approval or rewards; intrinsic values on more inherently rewarding pursuits — think about connections with others, spiritual pursuits, creativity, compassion. What’s really interesting is that research from the Common Cause Foundation has found that by strengthening a set of intrinsic, self-transcendent values we can ‘shift the dial’ across a whole range of other issues too. The recent HeartWired guide has an amazing overview of how the US marriage equality movement changed minds with its focus on love, commitment, and marriage rather than rights and discrimination.
With an appeal to people’s better nature and vision of themselves, you can remind people that they are good people, and you should always respect the journey your audience may need to go on. In this vein, calling people ‘racist’ or ‘sexist’, or insisting that they just don’t have the facts right, will only alienate your audience.
Appeals to national or regional character can sometimes be an effective way to build a shared identity and connection with others in the country. Messages appealing to American generosity have historically performed well at increasing support for foreign assistance. More recent research by British Future on calling out hatred and prejudice in found that one of the best-performing messages was “Britain was at its best when we came together to defeat the fascism and racism of the Nazis in World War Two. We should be proud of this and make sure that these evils never return.” A recent campaign in Minnesota, Greater than Fear, relied on evoking a shared identity of Minnesotans, portraying typically Minnesotan activities such as digging a car out of the snow. And recent academic research has shown that priming American identity can break down negative affective polarisation.
However, we have to take care in the context of nativist populist narratives, and their warped idea of what a ‘real’ citizen of a country looks like. Likewise, it’s possible that emphasising national identities can reinforce the ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ narrative, as Anat Shenker Osorio suggests in her messaging guidance on human rights, where she says that advocates should use “as caring people” in the place of “as [nationality]”. What’s more, values-based appeals to national identity that do not match the historical reality, particularly of oppressed groups, may turn off our base. That said, I believe what may bridge this divide is appealing to who we are as [nationality] at our best, and when we live up to our values as [nationality].
2. Tell a story about a better world
Keeping your focus on a positive vision of the world and talking about solutions instead of problems is one of the key ways to show people that a better world is possible — and it’s more likely to actually motivate supporters to take action. And people are overwhelmed by problems — your cause shouldn’t be yet another problem in their lives.
The case for this has been made far better by others, and I encourage you to hop on over to Thomas Coombes’ recommendations on Hope Based Communications over at Open Global Rights for a deeper discussion of why’s and how-to’s of starting with a positive, hope-based vision.
Now, there are a lot of reasons to be afraid of what’s happening in today’s world! And fear can be a great motivator for our base. And you might be tempted to think, well, it’s working for them… can’t we also convince people with fear?
Nope. While the contemporary populist narratives rely on creating a sense of crisis and threat and harking back to an imagined better time (when women were in the kitchen), amping up fear and threat in this context only reinforces that narrative.
And fear literally backfires for progressive causes. Fear, or messages about death or lack of safety, triggers the lizard brain, the amygdala, and shuts down the pre-frontal cortex, which turns off rational thought. In multiple psychological studies, just making people think about personal safety or triggering thoughts of death, say, with life insurance ads, made people more conservative on policy issues. Likewise, there’s some interesting new research that shows that increasing people’s sense of safety and well-being actually makes them less conservative.
But that’s not to say we should pooh-pooh people’s fears, or be pollyannaish about the future. A more constructive approach may be to acknowledge people’s real world-concerns constructively. A 2017 ODI literature review on public attitudes on migration found that overly positive communications about refugees and migrants are “unlikely to succeed if they do not first engage with people’s genuine real-world concerns . . . a more effective approach may be one that acknowledges genuine difficulties, promotes an open discussion of solutions and initiates clear responses to real concerns.”
3. Be explicit about how we get there, and the journey from here to there
Part of the appeal of populists today is that they are tapping into a real sense of dis-ease and dissatisfaction with the way things are working, and genuine desire to understand how we got in this mess, who is responsible, and how we get out. And while their story isn’t ours, we can learn from them the importance of a narrative that also tells a story of where we are now, how we got here, who is responsible, and how we get to a better future.
Sometimes, just working from values or frames, or trying to change the narrative, is not enough, because people hold inaccurate views of how things work, or don’t really understand how they work. The Topos Partnership wisely calls for advocates not to overcorrect to exclusively values-based advocacy in situations when explanation-based advocacy may still, or also, be needed. That’s to say, we may also need to show systems and include effective explanations of how the world works as part of our communications. For example, in relation to the recent coronavirus outbreak, there’s a clear need for public communications that explain how the virus is transmitted, the timeline for a vaccine, and what national health services can, and can’t, do. Likewise, when talking about the economy, it can be useful to provide explanations that show that the economy doesn’t just make its own rules, but was developed by people and can be changed.
When it comes to messaging about who is responsible for the problems we face, we need to be careful. Naming responsibility is often important to getting people to effective solutions, and while campaigners are fond of having a ‘baddie’ or ‘villain’ because this can perform well in the short run, we need think more carefully about how to avoid reinforcement of the populist’s narrative of Us v. Them in the long run — and the contributions of our messaging to harmful political polarisation. One way around this is to name who is responsible by what they do, not who they are — talk about certain politicians or wealthy special interests who rig the rules, not just powerful elites or ‘the rich’, which can reinforce right-wing populist narratives and reinforce us vs. Them. Research from Anat Shenker-Osorio and Demos on the Race-Class Narrative in the US also found that messages that explicitly surface efforts by politicians to divide the public, and discussing race overtly in the context of the economy, perform better not only with both the progressive base and persuadable middle, but can even reach the opposition.
4. Humanise first when facing dehumanisation and dangerous speech
Efforts to avoid victimisation and portray marginalised groups as agents of their own lives within social change narratives are not new. Many in the international development community have been working for years to shift the dominant narrative of assistance from pity to empathy and independence.
But on some key issues today, such as migration, women’s rights, and racial justice, the public discourse has — under the influence of far-right ideologues and politicians — moved into full-scale dehumanisation and dangerous speech. Dehumanization is the psychological process by which we perceive other people as less than human — and dangerous speech is “hate speech that, under the right conditions, can influence people to accept, condone and commit violence against members of a group”. This is speech in which women in burkas become “letterboxes”, or asylum seekers “animals”, or Democrats “not even people,” or feminists become ‘feminazis.’
In these extreme circumstances, we may need to take a step back and re-humanise, by showing the full humanity of those affected by policies, telling stories with those affected as protagonists of their own lives, who are fully human, in their full complexity. And what’s really exciting about this, to me, is that it has the potential to place the lived realities of people, particularly the most marginalised, at the centre of our narratives in ways we haven’t in the past, allowing their voices and experiences to shine through.
Anat Shenker-Osorio has a great overview of an Australian campaign that put humanisation at its core on her podcast (listen especially at 13min), and there’s another great example of this storytelling in practice on the Asylum Seekers’ Resource Centre’s Story Beside You video.
5. Communications at its most effective is two-way
If we want to win in this context, we’re going to have to get better at listening and having genuine conversations. Populists are tapping into some people’s anger about not feeling heard, and many of the marginalised groups they are targeting have never been heard. How can we contribute to creating effective conversations that change minds?
Two recent guides, More than Words and Be The Narrative, have brilliantly made the case for strategies built on listening, conversation, connection, authenticity, and going beyond words to paying attention to priming, pre-suasion, visuals, emotional connection, unspoken cues (are we in a fight?).
One prime example of this approach is deep canvassing. A scientific study published in 2016 showed that one 10-minute conversation with a pro-transgender canvasser can influence opinions — and the key was that instead of spewing facts, the canvasser asked the person to reflect on their personal experience of prejudice, and how it made them feel. Not only did these conversations change minds on transgender rights in the moment, the effect lasted for at least 3 months.
This type of deep canvassing and sharing of lived experiences was used extensively in the two recent and amazingly successful Irish campaigns for marriage equality and abortion rights. These campaigns put values-based personal stories at the centre of their strategies, and relied not only on deep canvassing but encouraging supporters to have conversations with family and friends, which has been widely cited as one of the key elements of their success. People’s Action in the US is seeing success with their randomised control trials of deep canvassing on anti-immigrant prejudice.
Conclusion
The challenges we face in communicating in this populist moment are enormous, but new research and insights can help us do a better job reaching our targeted audiences. But by evoking our shared humanity, remaining positive, humanising marginalised groups and putting their stories front and centre, telling stories of how change happens, and engaging in genuine conversation, we can get our messages out and win campaigns.
