From How Fascism Works (Jason Stanley, 2020) pp113-5
In the United States, Donald Trump rode to the presidency with a call to expel “criminal aliens.” Since he has taken office, he has continued targeting immigrants. Both he and his administration regularly stoke fear of immigrants by connecting them to criminality. Again and again, we are presented with the specter of “criminal aliens” — and not just in remarks but also in official documents, such as the announcement of a new office in the Department of Homeland Security devoted to helping “victims of crimes committed by criminal aliens.”
The word “criminal” has a literal meaning, of course, but it also has a resonant meaning people who by their nature are insensitive to society’s norms, drawn to violate the law by self-interest or malice. We do not generally use the term to describe those who may have inadvertently broken a law or who may have been compelled to violate a law in a desperate circumstance. Someone who runs to catch a bus is not thereby a runner; someone who commits a crime is not thereby a criminal. The word “criminal” attributes a certain type of character to someone.
Psychologists have studied a practice they call linguistic intergroup bias. It turns out we tend to describe the actions of those we regard as one of “us” quite differently than we describe the actions of those we regard as one of “them.”
If someone we regard as one of “us” does something bad for example, steals a chocolate bar we tend to describe the action concretely. In other words, if my friend Daniel steals a chocolate bar, I will tend to characterize what he did as “stealing a chocolate bar” On the other hand, if someone we regard as one of “them” does the same thing, we tend to describe the action more abstractly, by imputing bad character traits to the person committing it. If Jerome, who is regarded as one of “them,” steals a chocolate bar, he is much more likely to be described as a thief or a criminal. If a white American sees a well-dressed white American handcuffed in the back of a police car, the question that comes to mind might be what happened that led to that particular arrest. If a white American sees a black American handcuffed in the back of a police car, the question that presents itself might instead be how the police got “that criminal.”
The reverse is true of good actions. If someone we regard as one of “us” does a good deed, we will be inclined to explain what happened by attributing it to good character traits of the person in question. Daniel’s giving a child a chocolate bar is described as an instance of “Daniel’s generosity.” Jerome’s giving a child a chocolate bar is described in concrete terms: “That guy just gave that boy a chocolate bar.”
Research on linguistic intergroup bias has shown that an audience can infer from how someone’s actions are being described-abstractly or concretely-whether that person is being categorized as “us” or “them.” For example, experimental subjects make inferences from the way someone describes someone else as to whether that person is likely to share the same political party as the person they are describing, or the same religion.’ To describe someone as a “criminal” is both to mark that person with a terrifying permanent character trait and simultaneously to place the person outside the circle of “us.’ They are criminals. We make mistakes.
Politicians who describe whole categories of persons as “criminals” are imputing to them permanent character traits that are frightening to most people, while simultaneously positioning themselves as our protectors. Such language undermines the democratic process of reasonable decision making, replacing it with fear.
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