More than ever, modern political leaders across the globe are issuing statements that defy logic, science and history. Yet, instead of facing ridicule, these figures are frequently met with applause from their supporters.

Last week, when Polish foreign minister Radosaw Sikorski claimed that Poland could swiftly defeat Russia in a direct conflict, political commentators across the United States and Europe met his remarks with mild mockery. However, within Poland, social media exploded with enthusiastic endorsement. Rather than facing critical pushback, Sikorski’s exaggerated claim was embraced as gospel by supporters. This perfectly illustrates how readily absurd political rhetoric is now absorbed.

In a 2019 interview, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while discussing India’s air strikes against Pakistan, explained that he advised military officials to launch the attack despite heavy rain and cloud cover. He ‘reasoned’ that clouds would block Pakistani radars. Even though radars operate via radio waves rather than visual sight, his supporters championed the assertion as an example of “military genius.” Modi’s historical claims are often even more surreal, such as his declaration that the birth of Karna in the ancient epic Mahabharata proves that test-tube baby technology was invented in ancient India.

In a live 2021 television QnA, former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan attributed rising sexual violence to women wearing “vulgar” clothes. He argued that “men are not robots” and that “if a woman wears very few clothes, it will have an impact on the men.” When he was criticised by women activists, his supporters (including many women) rallied around him, asserting that his critics were trying to undermine “traditional cultural values.”

In an age of algorithmic outrage, identity politics and collapsing trust in institutions, the most outrageous claims can become expressions of loyalty and powerful instruments of persuasion

Following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in 2021, Khan praised the event, declaring that the Afghan people had “broken the shackles of slavery.” The statement ignored the ensuing human rights crises while framing a complex geopolitical takeover as a glorious anti-imperialist victory. Many of his supporters applauded his ‘bold’ statement.

During the global Covid vaccination drive in 2021, then-Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro warned citizens that taking the Pfizer vaccine could cause people to turn into alligators and make women grow beards. His core evangelical support base accepted this without hesitation.

In the US, Donald Trump remains a master of uttering similar hogwash. During his first presidency, he dismissed global warming threats by claiming that rising sea levels would simply create “more oceanfront properties.” He reduced a complex ecological crisis to a real estate opportunity while ignoring basic coastal geography. His supporters praised his insightfulness.

These are just a handful of examples highlighting a shift in modern political discourse. This move from facing ridicule for spouting outright nonsense to this nonsense enjoying widespread applause is the result of some drastic changes in media ecosystems, societal psychology and the nature of modern political power.

The primary engine driving the acceptance of absurd statements is what the American academic Dan Kahan calls “identity-protective cognition.” According to Kahan, when political identity becomes tightly tied to a group, individuals process information not to evaluate its objective truth but to protect their status within the group. Accepting an absurd claim made by the group’s leader confirms an individual’s loyalty to the group, whereas rejecting the claim means aligning with political opponents.

Research led by the American professor of psychology and neural science Jay Van Bavel suggests that political loyalty in this regard acts as a “cognitive filter.” It overrides basic critical thinking and yields psychological rewards that reinforce one’s sense of belonging to a group, even when a leader’s claim contradicts reality.

Historically, mainstream media often acted as gatekeepers. A ridiculous statement was processed through editorial standards, highlighted for its absurdity and derided on public platforms. Western media used to take apart various leaders for this — for instance, leaders such as Uganda’s dictator Idi Amin, who was reduced to being a joker, and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. Now the same West is struggling to comprehend mouthy far-right leaders in its own backyard.

In Pakistan, Pir Pagara was often treated as a jester for making outlandish political predictions. Cartoonists often showed him with a parrot. Altaf Hussain was another politician who was regularly satirised and ridiculed, even though, to his followers he was a ‘visionary’.  Till the 1990s, such characters were exceptions. Today, they are a norm.

The rise of algorithmic platforms has gradually dismantled the role of gatekeepers. Various studies show that repeated exposure to a statement increases its perceived truthfulness, regardless of how implausible it sounds. Social media algorithms prioritise outrageous content because it drives engagement, causing absurd claims to be repeated millions of times in digital echo chambers.

Studies by psychologists Gordon Pennycook and David Rand on misinformation show that repetition lowers a reader’s analytical guard, transitioning statements from sounding ridiculous to familiar and, eventually, to plausible and true. There are also studies that suggest that politicians, especially contemporary populists, do not utter absurdities by accident. They use them strategically. In their Rand Corporation paper on propaganda techniques, researchers Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews coined the term “firehose of falsehood” to describe this “strategic disorientation.”

The goal of flooding public space with continuous and blatantly absurd claims is not necessarily to convince everyone that a lie is true. It is used to exhaust the public’s capacity for critical thought. When politicians regularly spout absurdities, fact-checkers become overwhelmed.

Academics at the global research network Evidence in Governance and Politics found that politicians, such as Trump, who aggressively dismiss corrections as ‘fake news’ retain public support and attention by sowing doubt about the mainstream media and fact-checkers themselves. Mouthy populist leaders are still roundly satirised, though. But when they routinely cross into surreal territory, satire loses its power.

German-American political theorist Hannah Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism that the ideal subjects of totalitarian rule are people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction no longer exists. When public trust in actual experts and state institutions collapses, expert consensus is no longer seen as a benchmark for truth. Instead, expertise is reframed as an establishment conspiracy. In this environment, an absurd statement from an ‘anti-establishment’ politician is perceived not as ignorance but as ‘bold defiance’ against a ‘corrupt’ system.

The shift from ridiculing absurd political statements to believing them marks a transition from fact-based politics to identity-based politics. When an absurd claim is made, it serves as a flag planted by a leader in the ground. Followers do not process it through a filter asking if it is logically true. Instead, they spend more energy in contemplating which side they belong to if they accept or reject the claim.

Until the dynamics and incentives of social media algorithms change and trust in shared institutions is restored, political absurdity will continue to erode as a punchline. Instead, it will solidify as a rather dangerous instrument of persuasion.

Published in Dawn, EOS, September 27th, 2026