Political Leadership: Storytellers (Donald Trump & Theresa May) 1/5

'Stop the steal'

'Grab her by the pussy'

'Build the wall'

'Mexican rapists'

'Rocket man'

'China virus'

'When the looting starts, the shooting starts'

Donald Trump is the most formidable storyteller of a generation. His comments are foul, and remembered by millions. To gloat that he will be judged by history ignores that he is able to shape what we consider as history. That is the power of the storyteller. 

But what is it to be a storyteller? Why is it the most important of our five abilities for any political leader? And what happens if you don't have it?

Storytelling

What is 'storytelling'? 

To be a 'storyteller' is also to be a 'teacher'. It means explaining to the people you govern a) what's going on, b) why it's happening, c) what you're doing in response, and d) why that's the right response. To paraphrase Steve Richards, you 'seek to make sense of what you're doing or what's happening around you'. 

Like being back at school

In 2017, the BBC reported that we spend an average of 4 minutes a week thinking about politics. That's surprising - you'd have thought it'd be lower. But this means we're not trying to understand policy detail or the economic consequences of Law A. We vote our politicians in so they can do that. 

We just need to know that they're doing the right thing. And what's 'right' revolves around the values we hold; what's important to us? Family? Morality? Patriotism? Economic growth? If our politicians show what they're doing supports those values, we'll vote them in. 

Keir Starmer:
The Implausible Patriot

But they can't just make a few Twitter posts or sit in front of a flag every so often. 

They need to seriously and compellingly show that because we share values with them, they are the  only ones who can support us, that they understand why we are who we are (as individuals, as communities, and as a country), and that they know how to improve that. 

Politics, writes Robert Shrimsley, builds on a simple understanding of the world: 'there is always a problem, there is always a community betrayed and there is always a saviour'. 

There is no other story in politics. The only question is which politician will apply it most effectively at the right level and cast themselves most persuasively as the 'saviour'. 

• 'Get Brexit Done' (problem: Brexit; betrayed: brexit-voters; saviour: Johnson)

• 'Drain the swamp' (problem: establishment; betrayed: rural &/or uneducated voters; saviour: Trump)

• 'Weak, weak, weak' (problem: John Major & Tory Party; betrayed: British people; saviour: Blair)

Politicians, then, only secure our vote and stay in power by telling us a convincing narrative about our position in society and why we can trust them with it. That is what it is to tell a story; to teach the population what you're doing and why it's good. 

The Importance of Storytelling

Storytelling is important for three main reasons:

1. Storytelling wins elections

The odds on Donald Trump winning the presidency in mid-2015 were 150/1. He was widely understood as being supremely unqualified to govern a nation. He had few discernible political or management skills. The only one he did have? Storytelling. And he was damn good at it.

Despite being a playboy billionaire, Trump saw a) what was going on: he deeply understood what a large section of discontented, largely non-college educated, largely sub/ex-urban American people felt.

He grasped that they had waited patiently for the American dream for years, yet, as Arline Hochschild puts it, 'Look! You see people cutting in line ahead of you!...Women, immigrants, refugees, public-sector workers...But it's people like you who have made this country great. You feel uneasy.' 

So, Trump, b) created an explanation why this was happening: he directed this latent grievance towards scapegoats, in large part the Mexicans and a vague liberal elite. 

He harnessed his outsider status. And he didn't really need to develop any detail here. In making the right noises, in blowing dog-whistles no other Republican wanted to blow, he naturally attracted millions of drifting voters.

He barely needed to discuss c) what he'd do in response, beyond a few lightning rod aims: wall: yes, abortion: bad, taxes: low, America: Great Again. His mobilised fans, shaken out of political apathy and hoping for restoration of individual prosperity and American pride, attached to these issues hard and fast, no matter how unachievable.

Finally, d) why were these aims he 'right' thing to do? Because, promised Trump, they would work. They were simple, accessible, and held a lure of big, bold American action. They would restore prosperity and pride. And they would get rid of the liberal elite that had obstructed them for so long.

A lot of people needed that lure. Trump knew that. He was voted in.

2. Storytelling provides legitimacy

 

'May arrived pledging to unite the UK over Brexit and led the most spectacularly divided government, party, and country in modern times', writes Richards.

Brexit was...vast. It combined thirty years of political history and a thousand years of continental history to unravel British pragmatism across a horrible, torturous four years. 

Because of its nature it stretched into every crevice of society, sparing no workplace or dinner table and making the political rather too present for everyone's liking. 

There was only one issue of genuine agreement across the whole process: Theresa May was doing a terrible job of it all. 

Graph showing May's poll ratings 2016-2019

When political leaders tell stories successfully, they generate support for them and their actions. Because there are shared values, voters feel able to back Leader X, and because they understand how what the leader is doing will help them, they're willing to support Policy Y. 

But this requires consistent effort and clever use of language - one cannot make the odd speech and hope it filters through.

Guess which approach May took?

It wasn't that she was bad at political teaching, she just had an utter 'indifference to explanation and persuasion'.

For various reasons, she simply didn't care about explaining her approach to Brexit, whether in triggering Article 50 in February 2017, choosing not to remain in the EEC, or ignoring Parliamentary prerogative.

She was never elected with a majority, which left her permanently vulnerable to general discontent. And instead of cultivating support, her decision of radio silence provided a vacuum for everyone with a voice to undercut her. 

The relatively small Eurosceptic lobby in the Tory Party particularly dominated with its unrelenting criticism of anything less than concrete-hard Brexit. 

And most voters, willing to give May a chance, felt dismissed and ignored. The margin of victory - 4% - was slim in 2016, and many were confused about what to think and who to believe. 

Without a figure of genuine authority at the top providing guidance, Brexit descended into Twitter chaos and Mark Francois. 

Eventually, May's attempts to get a Brexit deal through with little communication, persuasion, or bridge-building ended in farcial defeat. No-one had any good reason to support her. She resigned in May 2019 having achieved nothing of note. 

Theresa May started with little support. She ended with even less. Woe the political leader who cannot create a narrative to legitimise their actions.

3. Storytelling creates a legacy

 

Political leaders can achieve much but leave a weak legacy behind. Gordon Brown's rescue of the world financial system should be widely remembered, but he's instead forgotten, living out retirement in Scotland. 

Those political leaders who are well remembered are those whose storytelling is so compelling that it shapes politics entirely, and enshrines their achievements in collective consciousness. Amorally, Donald Trump remains the gold standard in this area. 

Trump nearly won a second election in much the same way as the first: with an aggressive, seductive depiction of American life. He came close enough, in fact, that he continues to believe he won it. And the story he's created is uniquely placed to sustain such a narrative for years to come, permanently weakening American democracy.

The Trumpian story is a suspicious one. It fears interference from elites. It understands itself and its supporters to be Right, to the exclusion of all others. 

And, as intensely perpetrated through social media as it is, it's able to spread past the natural ebb and flow of ideas in society. 

This means it's insulated from well-meaning but distant individuals who seek to vaccinate all Americans, enforce mask mandates, and develop racial equality. And it can feed on itself too, leaning towards its extremes in ever more violent waves. 

The Trumpian story, therefore, will be around for a long time. And it is too powerful to simply dismiss. It will shape future political history, and public perceptions of a President who achieved very little legislatively, and not much internationally. 

Theresa May, by comparison, is recognised to have achieved little. It's likely that in a few decades historians will come round and credit her with a bit more than we do, but once a few paragraphs are rewritten and historical opinion polls slightly shifted, that will be the extent of the May's impact on British politics. 

She left no story to believe, no worldview that persists among supporters or a faction of her party. Her resignation ended the May era, definitively. But the Trump era continues. That's the power of storytelling.

Theo Hunt, July 2021