Science Explains why Trump loves Rallies…because they exert cult-like effects on the human brain

I remember exactly the moment — where I was, what I was wearing, the exact time of day and what the weather was like — when I switched on the TV and found out that Donald Trump had won the 2016 Presidential Election. The subsequent 4 years has been a pretty insane, saddening, infuriating ride for millions of Americans and observers around the globe. I remember a particularly bad couple of days researching familial separations at the US-Mexico border for a manuscript that I was writing at the time. Listening to audio of distressed children almost pushed me down a pretty dark rabbit hole. But I’m a writer, so I kept on writing. I am a great believer that we all have to resist to protect democracy and this was my personal way of engaging in that fight.

It turned out to be a great strategy, because I learned some pretty mind-blowing stuff that really helped me to make sense of the crazy and increasingly David Lynch-esque political events that were pummeling us day in, day out. I now intend to share everything that I have learnt on this blog (starting with the powerful biology behind why alt-right-wingers like Trump love rallies-more of this later)- because it can empower you, too.

Writing a politics textbook in 2019 meant that I was essentially commentating on the Trump Administration in real time whilst engaging with a myriad of multi-disciplinary academic fields to try to explain the right-wing charismatic populist tsunami that we were all witnessing sweeping across the West. It was a pretty mind-blowing, fast-moving, illuminating process.

Reading around the disparate fields of physiology, neurology, psychology, political science, meteorology, sociology, even sport science, I found some incredible answers. Why, for example, did the use of social media propaganda become so extreme that, physiologically, its’ effects required an almost minute-by-minute exposure for users? Why did Russian interference partly base its strategy on the physiological manipulation of its targets? Why did Trump use consulting firms whose approach was based heavily on the neurological manipulation of the electorate? Why did nobody previously comment on the fact that opioids blunt moral processing & empathy, and that this fact might contribute majorly to our understanding of why a strong correlation had been observed between Trumps’ appeal in states with the highest opioid addiction & death rates? I found out the biological drivers behind all of those concepts, amongst many other insights, all of which I plan on sharing on this blog.

I even discovered that sports events, weather & vicarious effects of watching Trump in ‘winner’ rally mode could lead to statistically-significant shifts in the testosterone, loyalty, voting motivation & anger-fueled online engagement of Trump followers. The biological amplification of these variables by propaganda was truly a frightening sight to behold. The effects cross-over with the cult and charismatic worship literature; brain scans identify that fervent followers at a charismatic mass event (e.g. a political rally) experience a neurological transition whereby the cognitive, rational side of their brain involuntarily ‘switches off’ so that emotions are heightened and rational analysis of the data they see before them is literally no longer possible.

So returning to the title of this blog — why, exactly, do right-wing charismatic populists love rallies so much? I found out whilst writing a manuscript for Routledge (an amazing academic publisher by the way, in case anyone is looking for one), that Russian reflexive control (the mind-control techniques that lie behind Russia’s US election interference) focuses in part on the physiological manipulation of voters to achieve their goal. It is an approach mimicked by Western political consultants and military psychological operations organisations, too. Having read about the biology that underpins the approach, I can completely understand why. It is extremely powerful, predictable and, in some ways, frighteningly formulaic.

Populists tend to be politicians who use populism as a kind of sales pitch that propels them quickly from the fringes, into the mainstream of politics. Charisma is usually a bedfellow to populism as it essentially uses charm to engage voters. Propaganda is necessary to make that charm, that emotional relationship, stick with voters as powerfully & quickly as possible. For right-wingers, their base is scientifically-observed to react most strongly to appeals that rest on negative affect (negative emotions such as fear), which is why demonizing opponents and minorities and constructing false threats with propaganda is particularly effective. It is not only powerful, but vastly exploitative.

But the real kicker is this. A charismatic leader already enjoys a strong emotional bond with followers, to the extent that neurologically, each follower will process data from that charismatic leader emotionally, not rationally. So when those loyal followers enter an arena, they are immediately held in charismatic thrall. Immediately, the opportunities for cognitive dissonance, subjectivity & fMRI-studied willingness to discard negative data become profound (note: fMRI studies show us that Democratic voters do all of this, too; it is a human, not a partisan, concept). The event is no longer about politics, but neurological, tribe-strengthening, hormonal sensation-seeking entertainment.

At a Trump rally, the sea of MAGA hats, the chants, the ‘in-jokes’ are all designed to spike oxytocin, a socially-bonding hormone, whilst blistering attacks on opponents ‘lock her up’, etc., are designed to spike fear & anger. Right-wing populists depend on hate figures to vilify, because the more you ramp up fear & anger, the more you spike testosterone & adrenaline. The outcome? These emotions and the hormones that underpin them are, studies show, the most likely to lead to voter motivation & mobilization in an election scenario.

Add rousing music, imagery, chants & video footage and the dangers can be extreme; when the curtains close and the lights go down, rally attendees are left pumped up, primed for action, full of hatred. The clear statistical link between hate crimes and this kind of hate-speech have been consistently scientifically proven.

And I’ve saved my favorite biological insight for last; studies show that excitation transfer, or biological transfer of emotion across a crowd, is a very real concept. Have you ever been to a Springsteen concert? It’s evening, the sky is dark, the whole arena is singing along together. Lighters are held in the air. The effect is moving, profound and powerful. It can leave you walking on air, it will give you goosebumps, lift you to a feeling of bliss (disclaimer; it won’t work if you dislike the person holding the rally or concert but if you are already slightly swayed, or a fervent follower, you can experience exactly these effects).

Now, the music, the lights, the neurotransmitters rising are all partly why that Springsteen concert will truly move you (it literally ‘moves’ hormones & neurotransmitters within you to alter brain chemistry). But excitation transfer means that you are also literally ‘catching’ — we could also say ‘moving’ or being ‘moved by’ — the emotions of others, amplifying each other’s heady hormonal responses hugely across the crowd. For a positive, hope-imbued event like a Springsteen concert, the effects are a huge amplification of hormones and neurotransmitters that make you happy, contented, chilled.

But if you are a right-wing populist whose appeal needs to cater to negative affect responses, where you need to maximize charismatic appeal, where you need to charm and stoke anger & hate to solidify your votes….then the natural biological outcome is a hugely amplified transfer of negative, testosterone, cortisol and adrenaline spiking emotion that is also a major motivator in violent, aggressive or other negative action. Numerous studies consistently show a link between hate speech and hate acts for exactly this reason. If you study the data pertaining to violence at alt-right events, you’ll also see that it remains (unsurprisingly) consistently high.

Add the subsequent sharing of that right-wing rally footage of social media where it can be constantly played back, shared and discussed, and the dangers (& loyalty effect) are compounded. Add alcohol or drug ingestion when that content is viewed and the hormonal effects are amplified further. Jacked up on consistent levels of hate-fueled propaganda, that kind of experience can become truly weaponized. This is exactly why right-wing populists tend to love rallies and rely on charisma, and why they are so often associated with violent outcomes. It serves a political purpose as quickly and as powerfully as possible.

This is also, interestingly, why left-leaning, Democratic rallies are usually peaceful. Scientific studies show us that whilst right-wing voters tend to display a higher lust-disgust, hate & anger response than their left-wing counterparts (hence Trumps’ ‘playing to the base’ aggressive content), left-wing voters tend to neurologically respond far more powerfully to hope-fueled appeals. In a rally scenario with a charismatic, non-populist, democratic politician, this translates to a physiological uptick in dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin, leading to a powerful amplifying excitatory transfer effect.

The result is rally-goers who leave more hopeful, happier and more chilled out than when they arrived.

Interestingly, positive content does not tend to mobilize voters as powerfully as fear & anger, and leads to far fewer re-shares on social media (outrage fuels re-sharing, as a rule), so a right-wing populist will reject it (also why we tend to see overwhelmingly negative political content on Facebook and Twitter). Over time, the effects of fear & anger spiking content also become blunted so appeals & propaganda have to become far more sensationalized to retain an effect on followers; Trump’s rhetoric is now, pre-2020 Presidential election, the most extreme it has ever been.

To stay hopeful means channeling your frustration and anger into action. Biologically speaking, when you have a goal and you choose to actively pursue it (e.g. demonstrating, campaigning, volunteering), you increase your own testosterone levels (which makes you feel stronger, & more optimistic). One effective and timely outcome of this kind of strategy is that it makes you (biologically speaking) less of a target for voter suppression techniques. You’re probably being targeted for voter suppression right now — the flooding of your social media feed with power grabbing, authoritarian, dominant, hope-sapping content isn’t ‘just happening’. It is a strategic act of dominance designed to drive down testosterone, drive up stress hormones, increase feelings of hopelessness and elicit inertia. The end result? Well, inertia is the end result. You are less likely to physically get up, get out and vote.

Do not fall for it.

Hope really is an act of political resistance-and biology drives politics far more than you think. I’ll be commenting on specific events around the election, relating theory to events in real-time, so please do bookmark this blog if you’d like to find out more.