The election of Donald Trump as President in 2016 came as a surprise to some, who discounted the central message of his campaign that he would “Make America Great Again.” How can the concept of narrative reasoning help explain the choices made by a polarized electorate?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers center on narrative probability and fidelity, with more emphasis on fidelity.
Different audiences with different values and experiences evaluated the narrative differently
based. Supporters found his narrative to be coherent (it provided a coherent story that described
the current situation and was not internally contradicting), and also found it to have fidelity
(reflect how they understand the world to work, i.e. immigrants “taking our jobs”; America’s
priorities being “wrong” and putting other priorities in the world ahead of the nation; his
characters (do-nothing/ineffective politicians) and scene (Washington, DC as a “swamp” in need
of draining) reflected beliefs already held by a portion of the electorate. Non-supporters may
have accepted the coherence of his narrative (or perhaps did not), but also did not find the story
to resonate with their understanding of what America is or should be as a nation.