Competition with Populism: How to Sell Long-term Goals in the Short-term Urgency
The future is uncertain, more than ever. Populism is on the march, and nobody has the next best answer how to handle everything. How did we get here? How can policy advisers and opinion leaders responsibly approach the issue?
Decades ago the future seemed certain. The global economy was growing and baby-boomers had better lives than their parents; a career job provided better financial gains than investing capital [1,2]. Since the 70’s, economic growth has decreased: millennials, compared to their parents when they were at the same age, now — on average — live socioeconomically worse, and the remaining economic growth of the Western societies reach fewer pockets to fill. That’s not all. Manufacturing industries changed locations and technological progress alters skill sets required on the labor market. This leaves a chunk of people unemployed or underemployed [3]. What is next?
The future is challenging. It is in the best interest both societies and governments to look for solutions. Indeed, some governments do focus on improving worker retraining and providing investments. However, these incremental changes in an increasingly disruptive world are just too slow, and too complex. Every change in domestic and international policy has to be tuned with the broader context. For example, how would labor-related regulation impact the attractiveness for foreign investment and domestic market, thus international economic standing? It takes time to weigh, decide and implement; this waiting frustrates people.
Uncertainty makes us feel uncomfortable and we tend to look for the next solution. Especially for the socioeconomically deprived, who — affected by the psychology of scarcity — focus on pressing issues of only short-term [4]. The lack of quick fixes ignites some long-forgotten behavior: in Western Europe and America people shift towards far-right and far-left movements, same trends are also visible in Central and Eastern Europe. People yearn for decisive leadership to meet their short-term ambitions.
Many of us could conveniently check the charts, the numbers, the positive insights of growing economies, and conclude that everything will be fine, but hold your horses for a moment. The current prominence of quick-fix promising populism lies beyond the socioeconomic hardship. It is cultural.
The 70‘s was a turning point not only in economic matters. It brought cultural changes in terms of gender, race, and other cutural fields [5]. The progressive changes started to challenge the traditional order and sparked conservative counter-movements. The forefront of this resistence is — by the most frequent reference — a white male. A man, whose breadwinner status is challenged and whose world is changing from certain and local to uncertain and global. Where did the old days go?
A man who lost his status and privilege may find some things as a perceived threat. This could be globalization, unemployment, or immigration. You name it.
And here the populists seize the limelight. They have emotions, they have solutions, they will change lives overnight. And who knows better? No one. People feel that nobody has the real solution, but hypernormalization — a fake reality that is accepted as real — leads them to blind hope that this populist will make a change.
Norbert Hofer, who ran an “Austria first” presidential campaign in 2016, explained to his opponent — conveniently, a former professor — “You have the haute volée [high society] behind you; I have the people with me.” [4]
Populists do two communicative things right. First, they manage perceptions. They alter the world, conceal complexities and give a simple idea of difficult issues. Second, they address emotions. Cold and measured ideas are of little relevance to the ones, to whom it is more rational to plan in the short-term [5]. They either have it quick, or — at least — will take it if somebody hears them. Being heard is the least of the justice they can get.
And as we have two broadly defined groups of people, the unprivileged with short-term targets, and the privileged opting for the long-term vision, they both lean towards differently framed worldviews.
<…> the biggest websites just tell us what we want to hear, stuff that agrees with the view we already have. As a result, we could be getting entirely different news than people on other sides of the political divide. We might be living in entirely different worlds with respect to the information we have about what’s going on in the world This is a recipe for social tension. And we’re seeing precisely this kind of tension and the damage it can cause. [6]
And here we are all stuck in the fake world terrorized by the idea of it framed by ourselves, our friends, and — most likely — the immediate “real” world around us, our social and socioeconomic bubble.
Do you know what are the issues in the rural area of your country? How do you know? Did you ask them?
See nobody likes their beliefs being challenged.
However, the way policy advisers communicate should be challenged. Sure, you can be like an elitist Roy Jenkins, British MP (labor), who followed his agenda in the 60’s. He got rid of the laws against homosexuality, abortion, and divorce. He oversaw the end of the death penalty too! Documentary maker, Adam Curtiss, directed a glimpse into his publicly hated achievements [8]. Although he has changed the society for better, he had to pay the price. No policy adviser or think-tank would opt to shine only once or so. The possible solution is in sensitive communication framing.
The traditional remedy for bad information, according to freedom-of-information advocates, is simply to put out good information, which in a marketplace of ideas will rise to the top. This solution, unfortunately, works much less well in a social-media world of trolls and bots. [9]
The world without gatekeepers.
How to reach a broader audience and sell your idea?
First, make people feel heard. Did you notice how some people repeat the statement repeatedly? My former professors Mr. A. Lempereur and Mrs. M. Fitzduff at Brandeis University shared an insight, that these are the people who feel that they are not heard. Make their point heard and relevant.
Second, don’t forget that the issues you are tackling — most likely — are difficult. Here it is better to frame complex ideas in a simple manner. But don’t hide the fact that the issue is complex. It may be deceptive and counterproductive to promise an easy fix.
Third, communicate often and show progress or obstacles if there is any. It is advisable to keep the momentum of helping to follow the process and adding some transparency and urgency to the whole matter. Have a clear action plan, and follow it. Make the plan public! Just check how the Singaporean People’s Action Party — after suffering worst ever election results in 2011 — diagnosed two major population’s issues (public transport and housing) that triggered the discontent and got their hands dirty in delivering at least some actual change.
Finally, there is always a gap for mistakes and misunderstandings. Therefore, policy communication (as well as policy intervention design) should be based on design thinking. Observation of the audience helps to find ideas for communication, the ways of storytelling and the language audience would favor. Afterwards, several ideas and ways of communication are framed and tested, say with A/B testing. The process should not cease being incremented. Maybe it should occasionally be disrupted. However, policy design and communication are two fields of constant learning and experimentation. No one can always be right.
To conclude, communication should show a real and emphatic understanding of all the issues: the ones that policy advisers identify and those that the public experiences. They should be constantly fed with easy-to-understand information, which would reinforce the sense of urgency and action. All the ideas must be marketed.
To win an argument, Roman orators taught, first win the goodwill of your audience [10]
[1]: De Graaf, Reinier (2007). https://vimeo.com/208678888
[2]: Cannon Gibney, Brucce (2017). How the Baby Boomers Destroyed Everything, Boston Globe: https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2017/02/26/how-baby-boomers-destroyed-everything/lVB9eG5mATw3wxo6XmDZFL/story.html
[3]: Chira, Susan (2017). Men Don’t Want to be Nurses. Their Wives Agree. The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/opinion/sunday/men-dont-want-to-be-nurses-their-wives-agree.html?_r=0
[4]: Bregman, Rutger (2016). Why Do the Poor People Make Such Poor Decisions, the Correspondent: https://thecorrespondent.com/4664/why-do-the-poor-make-such-poor-decisions/179307480-39a74caf
[5]: Thompson, Darek (2013). Your Brain on Poverty: Why Poor People Seem to Make Bad Decisions. Your Brain on Poverty: Why Poor People Seem to Make Bad Decisions. The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/your-brain-on-poverty-why-poor-people-seem-to-make-bad-decisions/281780/
[6]: Zakaria, Fareed (2016). Populism on the March: Why the West is in Trouble?, Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-10-17/populism-march
[7]: Cook, Gareth (2017). You do not Think Alone, the Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/you-do-not-think-alone/
[8]: Curtiss, Adam (2010?). On Richard Nixon, Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Uv94zji7k
[9]: Fukuyama, Francis (2017). The Emergence of the post Fact World, Project Syndicate: https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/the-emergence-of-a-post-fact-world-by-francis-fukuyama-2017-01
[10]: The Economist (2017). The Rise of the Herbal Tea Party: Scolding Trump Voters will not Carry the Democrats Back to Power: https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21715732-scolding-trump-voters-will-not-carry-democrats-back-power-rise-herbal-tea
