More plainly, it is easier to lay down a path for people to follow than it is to allow them to find their own. It is easier to help people rationalise than it is to ask them to infer. It is far more effective to create, modify or reinforce particular narratives that fit particular world-views, and then give people reasons as to why they may be true, than it is to provide evidence and ask people to come to their own conclusions. Now, if you are a politician or a political advisor, knowing this sort of thing can give you a powerful tool.
Indeed, the process of creating a coherent narrative has been shown to be more convincing to people than facts, even when the facts behind the narrative are shown to be wrong (understood as the perseverance of social theories and involved in the Backfire Effect).
The more we hear this, the more familiar and ingrained the narrative. If we hear the words “refugee” and “welfare” together, we cannot help but weave a narrative that makes some sort of coherent story (what Kahneman calls associative coherence). Your brain also helps to make sense of situations in which it has minimal data to work with by creating associations between pieces of information. Is global warming too difficult to understand? Your brain makes a substitution for you: what do you think of environmentalists? It then transfers that (often emotional) impression, positive or negative, to the issue of global warming and presents a conclusion to you in sync with your existing views. There are many ways in which our brains help us to do this. We are also more inclined to accept these conclusions, intuitively leaping to them when they are presented, and to offer resistance to conclusions that require us to change or seriously examine existing beliefs. We tend to prefer conclusions that fit our existing world-view, and that don’t require us to change a pleasant and familiar narrative.
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