At a recent rally, Donald Trump resumed a habit he had developed during his election-rallies and read out the lyrics to a song. It tells the Aesopian fable of The Farmer and the Snake: A half frozen snake is taken in by a kind-hearted person but bites them the moment it is revived. Trump tells the fable to make a point about Islamic immigrants and undocumented immigrants from Southern and Central America: He claims the immigrants will cause problems and much stricter immigration-policies are needed. I assume that Trump treats the fable as an argumentative device for supporting his stance on immigration. He uses it as a source-analogue both for the conclusion that immigrants will cause problems and for changing the frame in which immigrants and those willing to let them enter are seen. This gives me opportunity to examine the effect fables have as argumentative devices. Fables are a popular and effective choice for political argumentation. They are slimmed down, semi-abstract narratives, well suited for directing the audience's attention to a few properties of an otherwise complex situation. However, this also makes it easy to use them for manipulating an audience into oversimplifying complex contexts and stereotyping human beings.

中文翻译：

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特朗普、蛇和寓言的力量

在最近的一次集会上，唐纳德·特朗普恢复了他在竞选集会上养成的习惯，并朗读了一首歌的歌词。它讲述了农夫与蛇的伊索寓言：一条半冻的蛇被一个好心人带走，但在它复活的那一刻咬住了他们。特朗普讲述这个寓言是为了说明来自南美洲和中美洲的伊斯兰移民和无证移民：他声称移民会造成问题，需要更严格的移民政策。我认为特朗普将这个寓言视为支持他在移民问题上立场的辩论工具。他将其用作来源类比，既可以得出移民会造成问题的结论，也可以改变移民和愿意让他们进入的人的框架。这让我有机会检验寓言作为辩论手段的效果。寓言是政治论证的流行且有效的选择。它们是精简的、半抽象的叙述，非常适合将观众的注意力引导到其他复杂情况的一些属性上。然而，这也使得它们很容易被用来操纵观众进入过于简单的复杂环境和刻板印象人类。