The Rise of “Toxic Positivity”: How Disgraced Leaders Are Winning Back Power

In a striking political phenomenon across Southeast Asia, leaders once associated with authoritarian regimes or human rights abuses have not merely returned to power—they’ve done so with overwhelming public mandates. The electoral victories of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the Philippines and Prabowo Subianto in Indonesia represent more than simple political comebacks; they signal sophisticated new approaches to rehabilitating controversial legacies.

While disinformation campaigns have frequently been blamed for these electoral outcomes, recent research suggests this explanation is insufficient. According to Professor Nicole Curato of the University of Birmingham, these political revivals are better understood through the lens of “influence operations”—strategic interventions designed to capture attention, mobilize engagement, and steer political behavior by orchestrating emotions, narratives, and platform-specific interactivity.

The findings emerge from extensive comparative fieldwork conducted during the 2022 Philippine and 2024 Indonesian elections. Researchers systematically monitored content across multiple social media platforms including TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, while also conducting interviews and observing campaign rallies.

“Toxic positivity” emerges as a central strategy in both campaigns. In the Philippines, the Marcos campaign emphasized unity and healing, effectively reframing historical abuses under his father’s dictatorship as divisive grievances that citizens should set aside for the sake of national progress. This approach neutralized criticism by casting critics as negative obstacles to a harmonious future.

Indonesia’s recent election revealed a similar but distinct pattern. Prabowo, a former military general with a controversial human rights record, deployed what researchers termed the “gemoy” campaign—a strategy that softened his image through AI-generated imagery, dance trends, and popular culture aesthetics. This approach transformed a once-feared military figure into something approaching a lovable character, particularly among younger voters with no direct memory of Indonesia’s authoritarian past.

These strategies represent a sophisticated evolution beyond simple fake news or historical revisionism. Rather than directly contesting factual accounts of the past, these campaigns altered the emotional context in which voters processed information, creating cultural conditions where questioning certain aspects of candidates’ histories became socially undesirable.

The research holds significant implications for democratic processes worldwide. As Professor Curato and her co-author Ross Tapsell of the Australian National University argue, future electoral campaigns will likely hinge not merely on contesting facts but on shaping the emotional and cultural environment in which citizens decide what can and cannot be politically questioned.

This phenomenon transcends Southeast Asia. Political figures worldwide are increasingly employing similar techniques that leverage emotional resonance over factual debate. The strategic use of social media platforms—each with distinct algorithmic priorities and cultural practices—amplifies these approaches by creating tailored content ecosystems that reinforce emotional rather than critical engagement.

For election observers and democracy advocates, these findings suggest that traditional approaches focused solely on combating misinformation may miss crucial dimensions of contemporary political communication. The emotional architecture of political campaigns, particularly how they frame criticism as socially disruptive, requires equal attention.

As more countries face elections featuring the return of controversial figures, understanding these influence operations becomes essential to preserving meaningful democratic discourse. While factual accuracy remains important, equally significant is maintaining spaces where critical questioning of all candidates—regardless of their message of positivity—remains socially acceptable and valued.

The researchers’ work points to a challenging new frontier in democratic practice: ensuring that appeals to unity and positivity enhance rather than replace substantive political accountability.