Captured By Chaos

Why are people who claim to value stability attracted to chaotic figures like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson?

With indictment of Donald Trump and the resignation of Boris Johnson from parliament in the United Kingdom over the past few days it seems like a good time to reflect on what is one of the key political questions of recent years – why do those who claim to value stability find themselves attracted to such personally chaotic figures like these two men?

In a philosophical understanding of conservatism this chaos should be an anathema. Conservatism is traditionally understood as seeking prudence, moderation and the security of institutions. Yet as Samuel Earle wrote recently in The New Statesman, conservatism can be highly radical if that radicalism is in aid of what it sees as a “restorative” project. It is clearly the case with both the modern Republican Party and the Conservative Party that there is a desire to set fire to institutions in order to reconfigure the world as the way it used to be (or how they perceive it to be).

Yet I think there is be something else going on with the attraction to politicians like Trump and Johnson – a deeper and more complex psychological impulse. Those who crave a stable order may do so because they are personally disorderly themselves. This is not to be pejorative or patronising, we all desire order in some form or other, yet there are those who for a variety of reasons, often outside their control, are unable to establish order in their personal lives. Human beings are also not wired for our current pace of change.

Faced with such a rapidly changing world, those who most need a keen sense of order descend into an emotional turbulence which projects outwards into their political behaviour. Through this, Trump and Johnson can be seen as avatars for these people’s own internal disorder. Their chaotic personalities provide a public expression of what those attracted to them feel. There’s an emotional kinship that has forged a deep bond of trust. Even if through their personalities these political figures only create more disorder in their societies.

The cliché may be that all politics is local, but a more accurate phrase might be that all politics is psychological. Even those of us who may consider ourselves well-read, rational actors, who may spend time in deep contemplation of the pros and cons of specific policies are still slaves to our impulses. And how we choose to engage with politics is still driven from deep within the murk of our animal spirits and inscrutable id. We may just be better at pretending otherwise.

Prior to the emergence of Trump and Johnson we were accustomed to politicians who were better at pretending. Or, maybe to be kinder, were in greater control of themselves. This self-control gave us a greater sense of public ease. Even if – as I have written about in relation to the ideology of Fusionism – the policies these politicians advanced were highly incompatible with one another, and forged our current era of social dissonance and cognitive insecurity.

Trump and Johnson might therefore be seen as more honest political actors, honest in the sense they so obviously don’t know what they are doing. Both, of course, are incessant and habitual liars. But, perversely, this is an honesty of personality. Trump especially is completely incapable of hiding that he is only concerned with pursuing his own personal advantage. In doing so he is signalling to many – in an extreme way – that politics is just a game of self-interest. Which could be interpreted by some as a need to look after oneself.

It is not only through cynicism that this has found fertile ground. In an era of heightened insecurity – material, cultural, emotional – Trump and Johnson have offered a visceral appeal that mirrors the psychological turbulence that many people are experiencing. They transmit a frequency that resonates on a deep internal bandwidth. To some of us this is piercing static, but to others it is a clear signal in perfect tune with their own emotions.