How the Internet Normalized Donald Trump and Impacted American Politics | Big Think

So in Europe, we’re fascinated with your election – Hillary and Trump. Goodness. And everybody that you talk to says, “Well, how is Trump being so successful? Why on earth are people tolerating sexist, racist, hate speech?” And there’s a good answer for it. I wrote a piece recently for Time, and I discussed why Trump is having the sort of success that he’s having at the moment. And it comes down to one thing. Trump is a troll that has jumped off the internet and into the real world.

And the reason that so many people are tolerant of his extreme statements, this name calling, this horrible, nasty, even sadistic behavior, is because the online environment has normalized this type of behavior. In cyberpsychology, we point out that what happens in the cyber world impacts on the real world. What happens in the real world impacts on the cyber world. And this is certainly true in terms of Trump’s behavior.

There’s a great study titled "Trolls Just Want to Have Fun," and you should read it because it talks about the dark tetrad of personality. The study found that people who say that they like to troll actually score high on an index that measures Machiavellianism, an index that measures psychopathic traits, an index that measures narcissistic traits, and sadism. And the study found that trolling was a manifestation of everyday sadism.

And election aside, I know it’s important, but I’m more concerned about a bigger issue. The issue is that people like me spend our time trying to teach kids to be nice to each other online. But it’s very hard for us to win that battle when politicians use cruelty and sadism as a strategy and appear to gain ground because of it.

So cyberspace is an environment. It’s somewhere where you go. It’s an immersive environment – chat room, forum, it’s a place. And what happens there is that behavior can become normalized. So as human beings, we’re social creatures, and we learn from others. So if it appears that everybody is doing something, it can seem that it’s okay.

And it’s become very difficult, with the pervasive penetration and accessibility of the internet, to draw the line between something that’s an evolving behavior and that’s become almost a social norm. And sadly, online trolling has become almost a social norm. The problem is when that behavior cyber migrates into the real world. And Trump and the way he behaves is a classic example of cyber migration.