Pros And Cons Of Demagoguery

Demagoguery is described as a tool used by political figures to try and gain appeal. However, Patrica Roberts-Miller describes demagoguery in a more interesting way than just gaining appeal. The baseline of demagoguery is that there are two sides to the argument. One side is the in-group, this is what most people like to belong to because it’s theoretically the good side. The out-group is not where a lot of people want to belong because it’s considered the bad side. Since demagoguery splits politics into these two sides it turns the political argument into something else that isn’t solely about policies. Instead of arguing for policies it shifts the argument towards the representative of the group. The in-group will praise their own representative and will sit on the downfall of the out-group.

This is bias which comes from those within these certain groups. Demagoguery has turned into an argument of who had the better representative as a person, not as a leader. People are more willing to believe a leader who is in the in-group because they are a relatively good person. The leader could have little evidence to back up a claim and people would still defend it. Oftentimes these evidences are found because they are trying to prove a claim rather than disproving it to eliminate bias. Demagoguery works because people don’t know they are the ones being fooled at the time. They are willing to believe in leaders because they are good people. However, sometimes those leaders look back and realize they shouldn’t have made some decisions and they regretted