Trump, snakes, and the power of fables

Abstract

At a recent rally, Donald Trump resumed a habit he had developed during his election-rallies and read out a song telling the Aesopian fable of The Farmer and the Snake. In this paper, I assume that Trump treats the fable as an argumentative device to support his stance on immigration. This gives me the opportunity to examine the effect fables have as argumentative devices. Fables are slimmed down, semi-abstract narratives, well suited for directing the audience's attention. However, this also makes it easy to use them to manipulate an audience into oversimplifying contexts and dehumanizing human beings.