Demagoguery

History and effect of Demagoguery propaganda

The Greek word demagogos meant a leader of the people and was not at first an insult. It became one in Athens in the late fifth century BCE, when speakers who rose through the Assembly rather than through family standing were attacked by writers such as Thucydides and Aristophanes. The word has been used against leaders on every side since, which is why this page defines the technique by method and not by label. Patricia Roberts-Miller, in Demagoguery and Democracy (Patrick Hill Press, 2017) and Rhetoric and Demagoguery (Southern Illinois University Press, 2019), locates demagoguery in a kind of discourse, not in a type of person. She defines it as "a discourse that promises stability, certainty, and escape from the responsibilities of rhetoric", one that frames policy around how and how much to punish an out-group, not whether to. She also says it is not marked by emotionalism or populism, and that it can appear in elite and apparently rational speech.

How Demagoguery propaganda works

Four moves recur, and each can be checked against the text of a speech.

Why Demagoguery propaganda works

Fear and resentment narrow attention to a threat and a culprit (Fear messaging, Moral outrage). Group membership makes the leader's side the side one belongs to (Social identity), and people see members of the other group as more alike and more culpable than members of their own (Out-group homogeneity). A simple story of wronged us and guilty them is easier to hold than a policy trade-off. The test used here is the same for every speaker: what the text asks the audience to feel, whom it blames, and whether any answer other than agreement is allowed.

Demagoguery propaganda examples across eras and sides

• Athens, 427 BCE (Cleon). After the revolt of Mytilene, the Athenian Assembly voted to put the city's men to death. The next day it reconsidered. Thucydides describes Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, as "the most violent man at Athens, and at that time by far the most powerful with the commons" (Crawley translation, Book 3). Cleon opened by saying "I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire" and told the Assembly "your empire is a despotism and your subjects disaffected conspirators". The vote on the opposing motion, from Diodotus, was nearly equal, and it carried. The Constitution of Athens ascribed to Aristotle says Cleon "was the first to use unseemly shouting and coarse abuse on the Bema" and to harangue the people "with his cloak girt up short about him" (Kenyon translation). Most accounts of Cleon are unfriendly: Aristophanes mocked him in The Knights (424 BCE). His speech also argued a policy, deterring revolt in the empire, which is the strongest case for treating him as a forceful speaker and not only a demagogue.
• United States, 1934 (Huey Long). In a radio address on 23 February 1934 Senator Huey Long of Louisiana set out "Share Our Wealth": a guarantee of about $5,000 per family and a cap on any one fortune, with the motto "every man a king". In a 1935 circular he blamed "the organized 600 families who control the wealth of America". The proposals were specific and were argued as policy, which is the main reason his rhetoric is contested. The demagogue label comes from his critics, including President Franklin Roosevelt, and from his methods in Louisiana, where he was impeached by the state House in 1929 and, when a legislator doubted he knew the state constitution, said, "I'm the Constitution around here now" (Wikipedia, citing Kane, Brinkley and others). He was shot in the State Capitol on 8 September 1935 and died on 10 September.
• United States, 1950 to 1954 (Joseph McCarthy). At Wheeling, West Virginia, on 9 February 1950, Senator McCarthy said, in the text of the speech, "I have here in my hand a list of 205" people in the State Department known as Communist Party members. Two days later his telegram to President Truman said he had the names of 57. On 20 February he presented 81 numbered "cases". He said "the bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouths are the ones who have been most traitorous" and called the contest "a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity". Soviet espionage in the US government in the 1940s is documented; the numbers and the method are what this page scores, not the existence of spying. On 9 June 1954, in the Army hearings, lawyer Joseph Welch said to him, "Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?" On 2 December 1954 the Senate censured him, 67 to 22, for "abuse" of two Senate committees. See McCarthy's numbers: 205, 57, 81 and the move from 'card-carrying Communists' to 'security risks' (1950-54).

How to spot Demagoguery propaganda

• Does each issue come back to who is loyal and who is a traitor, or can the policy be discussed on its merits?
• Does the speaker say that only he or she speaks for "the people", and are critics described as outside "the people"?
• What would count as a way out? If no answer to the speaker's question is permitted except yes, it is a test and not a debate.