Joe Humphreys: Stories win elections. So why are some politicians so bad at telling them?

“Campaign in poetry, govern in prose,” is a famous phrase attributed to former New York governor Mario Cuomo. But anyone who thinks they are going to win an election quoting Seamus Heaney or Emily Dickinson needs their head examined.Stories win elections. Effective politicians know how to spin a yarn, and the most gripping stories tend to be those with obvious goodies and baddies – or, in practical terms, heroes and scapegoats.Edmund Fawcett, the author of separate books on Conservatism and Liberalism, has written about the “five seductive themes” the hard right calls upon in Europe and the US to sell its message to the electorate. These can be woven into a single narrative roughly as follows: (1) The nation is in decline; (2) elites are to blame; (3) liberals and other godless individualists will burn in hell; (4) embrace your victimhood; and (5) follow [X – insert authoritarian leader here] who shall restore the natural order of things.You have to hand it to Donald Trump, who successfully campaigned for the US presidency on fantastical visions of “draining the swamp” and unfounded claims of immigrants eating cats and dogs. It was pure fiction but compelling storytelling nonetheless. As the midterms approach, he is doubling down on the grand narrative, warning – without evidence – of “rigged” elections under the opposition.READ MOREWhat’s the lesson for more centrist, progressive or leftish politicians? Should they go high, while their rivals go low? Is there a story they can communicate to the public to convince them they are travelling together on a righteous path?A new book from German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk addresses this question from a European perspective. A succession of authors, ranging from British shock-columnist Douglas Murray to French novelist and former Irish resident Michel Houellebecq, “have acted as speakers at Europe’s open grave, with some describing the deceased as a suicide,” Sloterdijk points out.But reports of Europe’s death go back a long way. Hearing of the execution of the queen of France in 1793 during the French Revolution that heralded a new political era on the Continent, Dubliner Edmund Burke – the “founder of modern conservatism” – wrote: “But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.”Sloterdijk wryly adds: “One might say, almost definitionally that the Europe that we speak of and straight away recognise came into being at the moment when it began to displease itself.”In The Continent Without Qualities: Bookmarks in the Book of Europe, the German academic – a veteran of highbrow TV debates in his homeland – rejects lazy narratives about the Continent’s fall. But he is more realistic than optimistic about the future. In a nod to Homer’s Odyssey, an ancient work very much in vogue, Sloterdijk writes: “The ships of the Europeans have taken flight back to their own waters, but their pursuers are chasing them all the way home.”[ Politics is all about managing the present. What people need is a story of the futureOpens in new window ]Europe should acknowledge its great achievements, he suggests. These include its tradition of Christian learning, and its record of pure reasoning that gave rise to the Enlightenment, modern science and human rights but also contributed to imperialism, colonialism and globalisation.Calling for more self-confidence among Europeans, Sloterdijk believes the Continent can thrive. If, that is, it avoids the trap of seeking cheap targets – or convenient “baddies” – when problems arise. As he puts it, “enlightened Europe will survive as long as creative passions keep those of ressentiment in check”.This kind of even-handed storytelling contrasts with the type of mythmaking Trump trades in. On the July 4th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the US president said with a straight face: “For two-and-a-half centuries, our American republic has stood as the crowning achievement of human history.” The crowning achievement, seriously?The ancient Greeks were the first to identify hubris in politics. They used the word to mean excessive pride, or a loss of contact with reality. Greek mythology is full of hubristic kings who are punished for transgressing against the gods, or for reaching beyond proper limits.Donald Trump, US president and a compelling storyteller. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty The French-Algerian philosopher Albert Camus reminds us that such hubris long predates Trump. In Helen’s Exile, an Odyssey-themed essay written after the second World War, Camus contrasts the lessons the ancient Greeks taught about humility and moderation with the modern fashion for ideological certainty.“The Greeks, who for centuries questioned themselves as to what is just, could understand nothing of our idea of justice. For them equity implied a limit whereas our whole continent is convulsed in its search for justice that must be total,” Camus writes.[ Four stories that Albert Camus might choose to tell if he were alive todayOpens in new window ]He quotes a line attributed to the philosopher Heraclitus: “Presumption, regression of progress.” And here perhaps we can find a theme on which to base a saleable political story for progressive politics. Overconfidence is our enemy. Honesty about our limitations is the way to a brighter future. This conclusion might not be as seductive as a hard-right fairytale but it has the advantage of being true.“We turn our backs on nature,” writes Camus. “Nature is still there, however ... Until the atom, too, catches fire and history ends in the triumph of reason and the agony of the species. But the Greeks never said that the limit could not be overstepped. They said it existed and that whoever dared to exceed it was mercilessly struck down. Nothing in present history can contradict them.”