What’s Logically Wrong with Populism?

What’s wrong with populism from a logical point of view? You might be tempted to think that what’s wrong with it is simply that it’s illogical. You can’t trust someone who uses bad logic. That claim has some truth in it, but it needs qualification. For one, being logical isn’t really an attribute of people. Some individuals make better use of logic than others—some are trained in logical thinking, others are not; some care about it, while others don’t find much use for it in their lives. I’m okay with any of the above. Young children, for example, aren’t that good at using logic, but that doesn’t stop us from loving and interacting with them. My main point is that being logical or not isn’t a fundamental trait, like being tall or having brown eyes.

In populism, however, logic can be a barrier to effective rhetoric. The populist world champion at the moment is Trump, and it’s undeniable that he manages to convince a lot of people—but of what? What does he convince people of? Not of facts or truths, because so much of what he says isn’t true. Yet, he seems to believe whatever he says, and so do many of his followers. But why?

Here’s my hypothesis: populism exploits incoherence to obfuscate truth. And it’s not the incoherence itself that is so damaging, but how it renders matters of truth irrelevant. I mentioned above that much of what Trump says is false, but, frankly, I don’t even know. The point is that it doesn’t matter whether each of his statements is true or not, because the whole is incoherent.

I spend a lot of time illustrating in *Logic in the Wild* that truth and logic are independent. Some arguments are logical but have only false content, while others are illogical and contain only true content. This brings me to the crucial point: it’s possible to speak only truths in an illogical manner. So what’s wrong with populism? The fact that it violates logic is part of it, but that’s not the main danger. The real issue is that by persistently exploiting bad logic and rhetorical tricks, populism makes truth impotent. What’s left are passions, and human passions, unchecked by logic or truth, can be frightening.