Very real political craft of make-believe: Why Trump was believed and Harris wasn't

If there's one algorithm by which we can explain Donald Trump's convincing victory over Kamala Harris, it's believability.

Put simply, more voters believed in Trump, than they believed in Harris. Not just what the two candidates were saying, but also in them as individuals. In the case of the latter, even many Democrats flunked her in the believability test.

As in theatre, so in politics, and in pretty much all else: success lies in the art and craft of make-believe.


As a term, 'make-believe' has a bias hardwired into it, making it sound like it's only about concocting things and making people be convinced they exist. But believability is truth-agnostic - convincing a person that something is true is as applicable to facts as much as lies.

Whether it be apportioning blame for a lagging economy, or whether the economy itself is actually lagging, or setting up a picture of a country overrun by job-snatching illegal immigrants - Mexicans or Bangladeshis - or positive scenarios like ending wars, and bringing about a 'golden age' or 'achhe din', effort must be made to make what is being told or promised believable.

Galileo's inability to convince the Catholic Church of the reality of the Sun revolving around Earth not only forced him to spend the latter part of his life under house arrest but also failed to dismantle the myth of geocentricity as 'truth'.

Harris' failure to make most Americans, Democrats included, believe in her was also caused by the general tone of her campaign: 'You would be wrong (read: stupid) not to trust me and trust Trump.'

Participatory politics doesn't do well with such condescension; it needs effort to make people believe. 19th c. poet-philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the term 'willing suspension of disbelief'. In his context of speculative fiction, this meant making the impossible believable by artful means in the artist's toolkit.

In the real world where both facts and fiction packaged as facts abound, believability is key. Trump was believed, Harris failed to suspend disbelief.