To a large extent, this debate is really meta to a larger debate western civilization has been having since the days of Plato: are leaders made through experience & circumstance, or born to greatness?
A necessary ingredient for a cult leader is the Will to Power. Most competent people just want to live their lives in peace. Power means power over other people. A psychopath has no compunction about the means he uses since his goal of power is all-important.
If they were not competent demagogues, they'd be diagnosed with delusions of grandeur.
Pompous blowhards. Attract "true believers."
Just questioning:
1. Is the fault in the cult members who accept form over substance? So many salespeople sell the same product. How do they do it? Are suckers born every minute?
2. What do the "marks" have in common?
a. Does demographics have something to do with it? Is there anything to a predisposition by collective racial subconscious. Was Jung richtig?
b. Does intelligence have anything to to with it?
c. Religion? "Orange Antichrist?" Is there a correlation with belief in Santa Claus?
I would say it's a intersection of Religion which conditioned their followers to believe what they say and not what is actually happening on top of a dominance hierarchy supposed to be established by God and not to be questioned. This type of Religion is fear based. This also combined with the helplessness and fears of a semi-educated group that can't handle changes or crisis and have reverted to a child like position wanting Daddy, God, or a nice Dictator to save them.
I am not a psychologist, but for men, he's like a coach of a team. In my experience when a team begins to lose, espirit de corps is shot and the coach becomes the enemy.
For those who view him as a coach, yes losing finishes him. But those who view him as God mandated leader view this as War between Good and Evil. The other side winning is Evil triumphing and their own personal failures not the abandonment of their righteous position. They are the ultimate victims both in reality and in their quest to be significant by martyring themselves. Their self esteem is dependent on their obedience to God's chosen.
David McClelland's needs theory counts the need for power as one of the three drives (power, affiliation, and achievement). He does distinguish between those wanting personal power (and dominance) and those seeking institutional power. The cult leaders are often more about personal power and only that type of power.
IMHO Trump is also a material man, and grifting is his plan. (Maybe I should copyright that. Put to 12 bar blues?) The Trump civil fraud blues will come to a conclusion this month in Judge Endoron's courtroom, but he has two other civil trials pending in NY.
The presidency should be the ultimate achievement, but Freudians would say that he's more concerned with his phallic existence, symbolized by Trump Tower. Maybe grifting is an "achievement" but it's the means to the end is his version of "monopoly."
He shares the "accumulation" disease with many other capitalist types.
One of the happiest people I have met is the Dalai Lama. He often begins his talks with that he is just a Buddhist monk with no belongings (i.e. property). Actually, he was a head of state until a few years ago.
Dr. Crummer. In the Pentagon are hundreds of people who have designed plans to slaughter the entire Human species in one huge nuclear eruption. They also have the nuclear tools and it is in their power to accomplish this feat. How would you speak of them? How would they fall into your system of classification? The first step in gaining knowledge is to recognize a thing and attach a name to it. I agree that power is the ability to control the behavior of others, even against their own will. If that is how you are using the term "power" here.
I have a hard time thinking of Trump as a great leader, never mind a great man. He's a charismatic snake-oil salesman -- I don't get the charisma myself, but then I'm not in the market for snake oil either -- and for a perfect storm of reasons he got the opportunity to sell his snake oil to an audience that was primed for it. The priming of that audience is as important to the story as the arrival of the guy who could recognize and exploit it.
So I don't buy your either/or, either that the GOP will revert to some sort of normal once Trump is out of the way, or that because billionaires have prepared the ground, those waiting in the wings can step in and, in effect, dance to the billionaires' tune. For one thing, though the rich and very rich have been diligently pulling strings for close to two centuries (at least), the proliferation of billionaires is a relatively recent phenomenon -- and they're as much an effect of the rot of the GOP as its cause: without the Reagan administration, would the U.S. be so infested with billionaires?
The GOP started going off the rails in the 1960s, when it became a refuge for the mostly anti-democratic white Southern Democrats. It's been getting steadily worse for decades, to the point where its inability and unwillingness to govern at the national level is now obvious to everyone who has at least some affection for the Constitution and the idea of representative government. (Most of the relentlessly red states don't seem to be in such great shape either.) If I were a billionaire or even a filthy rich person (hah!), I'd be horrified by what big money has wrought. The question, of course, for us non-filthy-rich USians is how we dig ourselves out of this mess.
I agree, Susanna. I don't think Trump is a great man. He does have a few talents that have come in handy. His biggest talent is self promotion. He's always the best at everything, you know.
He has the ability to recognize vulnerabilities in others. As the snake oil salesman, he senses people's areas of frustration or vulnerability, and he plays to those areas. He has been using the Big Lie to raise money. He used his business "acumen" to sell Trump University. People learned what a scam that was. Snake oil salesmen couldn't stay in one place for too long before people realized the snake oil didn't perform as claimed and there would be angry customers coming after them.
Donald Trump is loud and obnoxious. He seeks out attention, good or bad. His enablers have used his attention seeking to distract the masses from realizing what crimes they are committing in the background. Overall, Donald Trump is stupid. Others come up with ideas that he signs onto if those ideas are to his benefit. (I would bet a plug nickel that Donald's father paid for him to be graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He can barely read. Rex Tillerson was right on point when he said that Trump was an effing moron. Rick Wilson was also correct when he said that everything Trump touches, dies.)
There is something to consider in the old platitude that the times make the man. Trump, along with many enablers, has been able to take advantage of current circumstances and really shake norms and traditions.
The "Great Man" theory was the prevalent leadership theory through probably the 1980s at least. It is still a convenient crutch for the press today because it is easy and works well in a personality cult environment.
When one looks behind the curtain, however, things look different. Very few of the supposed "great men" are all that great. Their personal lives are often a wreck and they leave carnage behind wherever they go. This can clearly be seen when the propaganda machine of corporate communications is withdrawn from ex-CEOs they often wither away.
An issue we face with a presidential system is that it is designed to feed the "great man" idea. Just look worldwide how many "presidents" are women vs. how many prime ministers or first ministers are women. My choice example is the Swiss Federal Council. It is typically around 50:50 women and men.
For now, for sure, we have to stop a psychopath. Longer term we need to look at moving towards a different model of executive power in this country. If Andrew Jackson was a psychopath, he was far less dangerous than someone in that position today.
The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes, including some of his former allies in the War of 1812, out of Georgia and surrounding states
I slightly disagree. Trump would never have achieved this following or a fraction of the power he now possesses, based solely on his psychopathic "charm," without the complicity of the media. He was an egocentric laughing stock and failing businessman in New York before "The Apprentice." The dumbed-down television public somehow became addicted to the idiocy and began to believe it was "reality." The media again exploited his ridiculous anti-Obama birtherism. But the sheer repetition enabled him to attract and exploit the weak-willed and inflamed their prejudices. As his self-promotional presidential tour took on steam and the right wing media began to champion him, the armies of spineless opportunists piled on. But on his own, I would suggest, it's all bluster and tons of audacity. And as for Nikki Haley, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss her. She has shown she is equally capable of shilling for Bush and Trump.
No doubt Trump got/gets free advertising from the media.
I don't think his cult/marks have the same interests as the oligarchs who sponsor him or the media feasting on advertising he generates. 90% of the marks vote contrary to their economic and physical health. As I said above, probably a combination of media brainwashing, animal magnetism and a predilection from a collective racial subconscious.
Nikki Haley can beat him. Needs to attack his character. His age. His appearance. His odor ("I'm the only one on this stage who was in a position to smell him."). Most effective:
Yup: and if Haley makes it, wait for the media to facilitate her "pivot" for the General! MSNBC will probably dredge up the occasional clip of her more extreme panders to get past the base, but I foresee even the NYT extolling how much more "centrist" or "mainstream" she is in the second half of the year.
Normalizing hoarding as celebrity like CEO pay only suggests that keeping normal consumption of the masses should be denied because they do not deserve basic necessities. This is the path to hive collapse and extinction for the entire society. Getting everyone who can to be a successful hoarder is a public and social disease. A healthy hive is one that all get what they need to thrive. That is a healthy society where only a few insignificant group in the economy can hold great wealth.
I keep wondering when the credit economy (suppressing the symptom?) is going to trigger some kind of collapse. It seems to me that there is a fundamental distortion in (especially American) culture that the concept of "basic necessities" includes $1,000-dollar shoes (I have no idea exactly) and mattresses and TV screens like small movie theaters and $80,000 cars fer cripes sakes! Now that the interest-rate thumbscrew has cranked down, I just don't get the supposedly fabulous consumer confidence reports.
Seriously, it's probably my favorite Report ever, because I have known exactly this for the last ten years. Dear goddess, I wish I had known it when I was young! AND, I too have tried to educate everyone I know, especially young women.
Take that 1.2% times our population and you get roughly 4,080,000; some are older and more mellowed, but the rest are creating hell on earth. They hurt people that are getting between them and what they want. Four million of them! It. Is. That. Simple.
Of course they make great CEOs, corporations are going to pick the best hatchet-person they can find. For-get-about-it---it's just business.
So glad you went there with religion, also spot-on. Followers, just like Trump cultists, are into thinking they're "persecuted" for their awful beliefs; they need a magical person on their side. Nothing wrong with wanting a higher order to things, but people have followed some really absurd paths and prophets. You've read the history, and so have I. Just say no to blind faith.
As to how such leaders got to the heights, Virgil nailed it: "audentis fortuna iuvat"---fortune favors the bold. No talent, no compassion, no real intellect, and above all, no humanity required. Are psychopaths human? My wish: research how they are created, how we can help them, and then use it to benefit the world.
You said a mouthful Thom! We must not forget the cult members who are attracted to the psychopathic personality. 1 to 2% in my opinion, is low, more like 25 to 99% of the Republicans, like in prisons that are psychopaths. I haven't met a dictator lover yet who was not a psychopath.
Psychopaths are raised in the womb and in the first 7 years of their lives. If a fetus is under too much stress or a baby and toddler and young child, they do not care about other people's feelings if they have been abused or neglected themselves. That is why it is important for all the parents to play with their children. The purpose of life is to play learn and teach. Sadly, I don't see many American parents playing with their children. An angry child is like an abused puppy. They are scarred for life!
The root of all evil is a lack of a conscience. One must care whether one is right or wrong in order to be intelligent. Psychopaths don't care about others, and neither do psychopath lovers!
This is a good topic to discuss. Tolstoy thought the French Revolution created Napoleon, and one may argue that if Hitler had not come along somebody else would have picked up Germany's anger and economic chaos to become dictator. But the specifics--both were bloodthirsty tyrants who led their countries into disastrous invasions of Russia--may well have been different. Trump does seem to have benefited from his sick personality lining up with a long succession of negative trends, though clearly even up to 2020 nobody expected it would get this bad, or stay that way. It is depressing to see how easily some people can be let though, especially when Americans sometimes still claim their country is exceptional in its morality. That should have been disproved by the Red Scares and internment camps of the 20th century, and the "enhanced interrogation" and secret prisons of the 21st. Here Trump is merely using what is already present. But perhaps as a nation we'll learn from what he is, and then maybe America will be "great" again.
It makes so much sense this ingredient of psychopathy is necessary to create these monsters, Hitler, Putin, Trump.
By themselves , without their crazy ,
they never would have come to the surface or stayed for long . But people like Reagan certainly made Trumps crazy more palatable .
This by being bold enough and deluded enough to think what he was doing was acceptable .
Of course the path also cleared by like minded , power hungry , corporations and the Heritage Foundation littered with people needing an outlet for their own psychopathy.
The Supreme Court became enamored, ( Donald Trumps picks) of their own power , and had no problem overturning established law to establish their own power which by no stretch at all , was power hungry corruption to please their far right psychopathic benefactors as we’ve seen clearly.
The cult of Scientology's "leader/Hubbard " died. The new Leader is a sociopath named David Miscaviage. But the cult is lowly dying...except for some who give them millions of dollars for no known reason..Sadly this cult; like many, are tax deductible. So the donors can claim these financial monies on their taxes....Again; tax the rich-more!
Scientology is an outlier in that it is known that Hubbard was a follower of outright black magician Alistair Crowley before coming to America. In other words, the cult was engendered from knowing, willful affiliation with "the Dark Side." Going out on my own limb, I worry about the weird slant of Trump's eyes.
"Is leadership ability most dependent on traits (temperament, intellect, personality) or skills (experience, training, knowledge)?" - Thom
In Trump's case, it seems to be a paucity of all those traits and skills, implying they're on the good side of the ledger. He certainly owns plenty on the negative side: bad temperament, poor intellect, and a terrible personality. Yet, "his" people adore him, anyway.
As far as his experience, training, and knowledge goes, whatever skill set he possesses he learned on the dark side of doing business as a crooked, so-called billionaire in New York, playing by mob rules, screwing over banks, investors, contractors, workers, and taxpayers. Yet, his blind followers are so damn proud of all his many "accomplishments" as a (cough, cough) successful business owner.
In a "poor me" victim mentality, Trump is always the larger-than-life hero, getting over on the man — something his goonies are too weak or scared to do. So, the morally bankrupt descendant of a Drumpf immigrant didn't poison the blood of Americans; he poisoned their minds.
This wannabe dictator's superpower is the adulation of millions of fools, suffering badly from the Dunning-Kruger effect, who willingly give him their power. Despite, or because of, his paucity of honorable traits and skills, a sorry-ass Drumpf has finally ascended to the heights of America by lying to everybody about everything all the time.
But his improbable rise would not have happened had more sane people resisted; instead, by the droves, those lacking critical thinking skills and foresight devoured the red meat tossed at them like a pack of hungry wolves. Then, predictably, "his people" viciously turned on the rest of us who disagree, hopelessly dividing citizens ideologically and emotionally from each other, more than since the Civil War.
Besides the traits or skills, or the lack thereof, it's blind luck that has a lot to do with an influential leader's rise to power. Who would have thought at the time that the "Apprentice" would set Trump up as a god-like political figure in the future in the sick minds of so many white, racist good 'ol boys and girls all in on their hatred and violence and lies.
The great poisoning of America won't subside soon or so easily, even when Trump is finally, mercifully removed from the scene, either by our justice system or by nature. Thanks to the pervasive MAGA mindset written in stone like the internet version of Moses's tablets, we'll probably be stuck with the imminent threat of authoritarianism for a long, long time. Maintaining democracy is a constant vigil and a constant struggle — always was, always will be.
I have wondered about this subject of power for years and have NO doubt something or someone will arrive. Upheavals like we are experiencing now, leave a void which brings fear and apathy to so many people. How much can we endure?
The people who want power are not who we need obviously. Trump is not this person but he maybe the 'catalyst.'
Yes, all the things you mention and so many more would be easy arguments to make against him. Except she and all the others are afraid to alienate his base. So their only accusations are on style and not substance. It may be easy for me to say, but in my mind they're all spineless opportunists. Christie is another case altogether. But I think you probably get my point.
Carlyle's quote is interesting in that the writing down of history, and certainly the publishing of history, is done mainly by those who are in awe of "the great men."
It's an interesting, and alluring argument, Thom. My only gloss is historical: Nazism was quelled in 1945 by the loss of a world war, not by a judicial decree; and, even with the demise of Hitler, Nazism (in one form or another) has continued to incubate and re-emerge where conditions are favorable.
I'd like nothing better than to see Trump kicked off the ballot and his criminal, psychopathic ass in prison; and I agree there's no psychotalented Trump 2.0 in the wings. But the fervor of discontent and resentment that he has so expertly stoked and exploited seems real and massive enough to START a war if the MAGA King is dealt with harshly by the System he has taught them to distrust and hate.
I'm not arguing that should cow us, just that we should be prepared for the worst if things go down that road.
A necessary ingredient for a cult leader is the Will to Power. Most competent people just want to live their lives in peace. Power means power over other people. A psychopath has no compunction about the means he uses since his goal of power is all-important.
If they were not competent demagogues, they'd be diagnosed with delusions of grandeur.
Pompous blowhards. Attract "true believers."
Just questioning:
1. Is the fault in the cult members who accept form over substance? So many salespeople sell the same product. How do they do it? Are suckers born every minute?
2. What do the "marks" have in common?
a. Does demographics have something to do with it? Is there anything to a predisposition by collective racial subconscious. Was Jung richtig?
b. Does intelligence have anything to to with it?
c. Religion? "Orange Antichrist?" Is there a correlation with belief in Santa Claus?
d. Is it stronger based on geography? Rural?
I would say it's a intersection of Religion which conditioned their followers to believe what they say and not what is actually happening on top of a dominance hierarchy supposed to be established by God and not to be questioned. This type of Religion is fear based. This also combined with the helplessness and fears of a semi-educated group that can't handle changes or crisis and have reverted to a child like position wanting Daddy, God, or a nice Dictator to save them.
So if religious leaders out him as an Orange Antichrist, would he remain their daddy? https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-would-jesus-do-not-what-the-maga-right-is-doing
I am not a psychologist, but for men, he's like a coach of a team. In my experience when a team begins to lose, espirit de corps is shot and the coach becomes the enemy.
For those who view him as a coach, yes losing finishes him. But those who view him as God mandated leader view this as War between Good and Evil. The other side winning is Evil triumphing and their own personal failures not the abandonment of their righteous position. They are the ultimate victims both in reality and in their quest to be significant by martyring themselves. Their self esteem is dependent on their obedience to God's chosen.
The "losing team" context certainly fits with the paramount importance of continuing to claim that he actually won.
The basics are pretty familiar: When someone is selling what the crowd desperately wants to buy, you've got a sale. ;-)
David McClelland's needs theory counts the need for power as one of the three drives (power, affiliation, and achievement). He does distinguish between those wanting personal power (and dominance) and those seeking institutional power. The cult leaders are often more about personal power and only that type of power.
IMHO Trump is also a material man, and grifting is his plan. (Maybe I should copyright that. Put to 12 bar blues?) The Trump civil fraud blues will come to a conclusion this month in Judge Endoron's courtroom, but he has two other civil trials pending in NY.
The presidency should be the ultimate achievement, but Freudians would say that he's more concerned with his phallic existence, symbolized by Trump Tower. Maybe grifting is an "achievement" but it's the means to the end is his version of "monopoly."
He shares the "accumulation" disease with many other capitalist types.
One of the happiest people I have met is the Dalai Lama. He often begins his talks with that he is just a Buddhist monk with no belongings (i.e. property). Actually, he was a head of state until a few years ago.
Dr. Crummer. In the Pentagon are hundreds of people who have designed plans to slaughter the entire Human species in one huge nuclear eruption. They also have the nuclear tools and it is in their power to accomplish this feat. How would you speak of them? How would they fall into your system of classification? The first step in gaining knowledge is to recognize a thing and attach a name to it. I agree that power is the ability to control the behavior of others, even against their own will. If that is how you are using the term "power" here.
I have a hard time thinking of Trump as a great leader, never mind a great man. He's a charismatic snake-oil salesman -- I don't get the charisma myself, but then I'm not in the market for snake oil either -- and for a perfect storm of reasons he got the opportunity to sell his snake oil to an audience that was primed for it. The priming of that audience is as important to the story as the arrival of the guy who could recognize and exploit it.
So I don't buy your either/or, either that the GOP will revert to some sort of normal once Trump is out of the way, or that because billionaires have prepared the ground, those waiting in the wings can step in and, in effect, dance to the billionaires' tune. For one thing, though the rich and very rich have been diligently pulling strings for close to two centuries (at least), the proliferation of billionaires is a relatively recent phenomenon -- and they're as much an effect of the rot of the GOP as its cause: without the Reagan administration, would the U.S. be so infested with billionaires?
The GOP started going off the rails in the 1960s, when it became a refuge for the mostly anti-democratic white Southern Democrats. It's been getting steadily worse for decades, to the point where its inability and unwillingness to govern at the national level is now obvious to everyone who has at least some affection for the Constitution and the idea of representative government. (Most of the relentlessly red states don't seem to be in such great shape either.) If I were a billionaire or even a filthy rich person (hah!), I'd be horrified by what big money has wrought. The question, of course, for us non-filthy-rich USians is how we dig ourselves out of this mess.
I agree, Susanna. I don't think Trump is a great man. He does have a few talents that have come in handy. His biggest talent is self promotion. He's always the best at everything, you know.
He has the ability to recognize vulnerabilities in others. As the snake oil salesman, he senses people's areas of frustration or vulnerability, and he plays to those areas. He has been using the Big Lie to raise money. He used his business "acumen" to sell Trump University. People learned what a scam that was. Snake oil salesmen couldn't stay in one place for too long before people realized the snake oil didn't perform as claimed and there would be angry customers coming after them.
Donald Trump is loud and obnoxious. He seeks out attention, good or bad. His enablers have used his attention seeking to distract the masses from realizing what crimes they are committing in the background. Overall, Donald Trump is stupid. Others come up with ideas that he signs onto if those ideas are to his benefit. (I would bet a plug nickel that Donald's father paid for him to be graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He can barely read. Rex Tillerson was right on point when he said that Trump was an effing moron. Rick Wilson was also correct when he said that everything Trump touches, dies.)
There is something to consider in the old platitude that the times make the man. Trump, along with many enablers, has been able to take advantage of current circumstances and really shake norms and traditions.
Thom--You nailed the topic here!
The "Great Man" theory was the prevalent leadership theory through probably the 1980s at least. It is still a convenient crutch for the press today because it is easy and works well in a personality cult environment.
When one looks behind the curtain, however, things look different. Very few of the supposed "great men" are all that great. Their personal lives are often a wreck and they leave carnage behind wherever they go. This can clearly be seen when the propaganda machine of corporate communications is withdrawn from ex-CEOs they often wither away.
An issue we face with a presidential system is that it is designed to feed the "great man" idea. Just look worldwide how many "presidents" are women vs. how many prime ministers or first ministers are women. My choice example is the Swiss Federal Council. It is typically around 50:50 women and men.
For now, for sure, we have to stop a psychopath. Longer term we need to look at moving towards a different model of executive power in this country. If Andrew Jackson was a psychopath, he was far less dangerous than someone in that position today.
The Cherokee wouldn't agree with that.
The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes, including some of his former allies in the War of 1812, out of Georgia and surrounding states
I slightly disagree. Trump would never have achieved this following or a fraction of the power he now possesses, based solely on his psychopathic "charm," without the complicity of the media. He was an egocentric laughing stock and failing businessman in New York before "The Apprentice." The dumbed-down television public somehow became addicted to the idiocy and began to believe it was "reality." The media again exploited his ridiculous anti-Obama birtherism. But the sheer repetition enabled him to attract and exploit the weak-willed and inflamed their prejudices. As his self-promotional presidential tour took on steam and the right wing media began to champion him, the armies of spineless opportunists piled on. But on his own, I would suggest, it's all bluster and tons of audacity. And as for Nikki Haley, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss her. She has shown she is equally capable of shilling for Bush and Trump.
No doubt Trump got/gets free advertising from the media.
I don't think his cult/marks have the same interests as the oligarchs who sponsor him or the media feasting on advertising he generates. 90% of the marks vote contrary to their economic and physical health. As I said above, probably a combination of media brainwashing, animal magnetism and a predilection from a collective racial subconscious.
Nikki Haley can beat him. Needs to attack his character. His age. His appearance. His odor ("I'm the only one on this stage who was in a position to smell him."). Most effective:
1. Trump hates dogs. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/opinion/trump-military-dog.html
2. Trump family charity stole from kids with cancer and disabled war veterans. https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2019/donald-j-trump-pays-court-ordered-2-million-illegally-using-trump-foundation
She can point out that he has been the poster boy for employer sanctions for hiring illegals.
that he had to pay $25 million to Trump University marks.
that he misled his donors that he had a "defense fund."
that he committed assault of at least one woman -- and has more trials coming up.
Only use that he increased the deficit. that he is in bed with Saudi Arabia, that he created the inflation when questioned.
Yup: and if Haley makes it, wait for the media to facilitate her "pivot" for the General! MSNBC will probably dredge up the occasional clip of her more extreme panders to get past the base, but I foresee even the NYT extolling how much more "centrist" or "mainstream" she is in the second half of the year.
Normalizing hoarding as celebrity like CEO pay only suggests that keeping normal consumption of the masses should be denied because they do not deserve basic necessities. This is the path to hive collapse and extinction for the entire society. Getting everyone who can to be a successful hoarder is a public and social disease. A healthy hive is one that all get what they need to thrive. That is a healthy society where only a few insignificant group in the economy can hold great wealth.
I keep wondering when the credit economy (suppressing the symptom?) is going to trigger some kind of collapse. It seems to me that there is a fundamental distortion in (especially American) culture that the concept of "basic necessities" includes $1,000-dollar shoes (I have no idea exactly) and mattresses and TV screens like small movie theaters and $80,000 cars fer cripes sakes! Now that the interest-rate thumbscrew has cranked down, I just don't get the supposedly fabulous consumer confidence reports.
This is my favorite Report of 2024, Thom!
Seriously, it's probably my favorite Report ever, because I have known exactly this for the last ten years. Dear goddess, I wish I had known it when I was young! AND, I too have tried to educate everyone I know, especially young women.
Take that 1.2% times our population and you get roughly 4,080,000; some are older and more mellowed, but the rest are creating hell on earth. They hurt people that are getting between them and what they want. Four million of them! It. Is. That. Simple.
Of course they make great CEOs, corporations are going to pick the best hatchet-person they can find. For-get-about-it---it's just business.
So glad you went there with religion, also spot-on. Followers, just like Trump cultists, are into thinking they're "persecuted" for their awful beliefs; they need a magical person on their side. Nothing wrong with wanting a higher order to things, but people have followed some really absurd paths and prophets. You've read the history, and so have I. Just say no to blind faith.
As to how such leaders got to the heights, Virgil nailed it: "audentis fortuna iuvat"---fortune favors the bold. No talent, no compassion, no real intellect, and above all, no humanity required. Are psychopaths human? My wish: research how they are created, how we can help them, and then use it to benefit the world.
I wanted to respond with something trenchant and enhancing, but all that comes up is "Dittodittoditto" and "Amen" and "Metoometoo!" Happy New Year!
Always a comfort to know others are tuned-in on these subjects. Happy New & Important Year to you, Mmerose!
You said a mouthful Thom! We must not forget the cult members who are attracted to the psychopathic personality. 1 to 2% in my opinion, is low, more like 25 to 99% of the Republicans, like in prisons that are psychopaths. I haven't met a dictator lover yet who was not a psychopath.
Psychopaths are raised in the womb and in the first 7 years of their lives. If a fetus is under too much stress or a baby and toddler and young child, they do not care about other people's feelings if they have been abused or neglected themselves. That is why it is important for all the parents to play with their children. The purpose of life is to play learn and teach. Sadly, I don't see many American parents playing with their children. An angry child is like an abused puppy. They are scarred for life!
The root of all evil is a lack of a conscience. One must care whether one is right or wrong in order to be intelligent. Psychopaths don't care about others, and neither do psychopath lovers!
I am 79 years old and it has taken me a lifetime to see and understand what you so clearly explain in your articles. Thank you.
This is a good topic to discuss. Tolstoy thought the French Revolution created Napoleon, and one may argue that if Hitler had not come along somebody else would have picked up Germany's anger and economic chaos to become dictator. But the specifics--both were bloodthirsty tyrants who led their countries into disastrous invasions of Russia--may well have been different. Trump does seem to have benefited from his sick personality lining up with a long succession of negative trends, though clearly even up to 2020 nobody expected it would get this bad, or stay that way. It is depressing to see how easily some people can be let though, especially when Americans sometimes still claim their country is exceptional in its morality. That should have been disproved by the Red Scares and internment camps of the 20th century, and the "enhanced interrogation" and secret prisons of the 21st. Here Trump is merely using what is already present. But perhaps as a nation we'll learn from what he is, and then maybe America will be "great" again.
It makes so much sense this ingredient of psychopathy is necessary to create these monsters, Hitler, Putin, Trump.
By themselves , without their crazy ,
they never would have come to the surface or stayed for long . But people like Reagan certainly made Trumps crazy more palatable .
This by being bold enough and deluded enough to think what he was doing was acceptable .
Of course the path also cleared by like minded , power hungry , corporations and the Heritage Foundation littered with people needing an outlet for their own psychopathy.
The Supreme Court became enamored, ( Donald Trumps picks) of their own power , and had no problem overturning established law to establish their own power which by no stretch at all , was power hungry corruption to please their far right psychopathic benefactors as we’ve seen clearly.
The cult of Scientology's "leader/Hubbard " died. The new Leader is a sociopath named David Miscaviage. But the cult is lowly dying...except for some who give them millions of dollars for no known reason..Sadly this cult; like many, are tax deductible. So the donors can claim these financial monies on their taxes....Again; tax the rich-more!
Scientology is an outlier in that it is known that Hubbard was a follower of outright black magician Alistair Crowley before coming to America. In other words, the cult was engendered from knowing, willful affiliation with "the Dark Side." Going out on my own limb, I worry about the weird slant of Trump's eyes.
"Is leadership ability most dependent on traits (temperament, intellect, personality) or skills (experience, training, knowledge)?" - Thom
In Trump's case, it seems to be a paucity of all those traits and skills, implying they're on the good side of the ledger. He certainly owns plenty on the negative side: bad temperament, poor intellect, and a terrible personality. Yet, "his" people adore him, anyway.
As far as his experience, training, and knowledge goes, whatever skill set he possesses he learned on the dark side of doing business as a crooked, so-called billionaire in New York, playing by mob rules, screwing over banks, investors, contractors, workers, and taxpayers. Yet, his blind followers are so damn proud of all his many "accomplishments" as a (cough, cough) successful business owner.
In a "poor me" victim mentality, Trump is always the larger-than-life hero, getting over on the man — something his goonies are too weak or scared to do. So, the morally bankrupt descendant of a Drumpf immigrant didn't poison the blood of Americans; he poisoned their minds.
This wannabe dictator's superpower is the adulation of millions of fools, suffering badly from the Dunning-Kruger effect, who willingly give him their power. Despite, or because of, his paucity of honorable traits and skills, a sorry-ass Drumpf has finally ascended to the heights of America by lying to everybody about everything all the time.
But his improbable rise would not have happened had more sane people resisted; instead, by the droves, those lacking critical thinking skills and foresight devoured the red meat tossed at them like a pack of hungry wolves. Then, predictably, "his people" viciously turned on the rest of us who disagree, hopelessly dividing citizens ideologically and emotionally from each other, more than since the Civil War.
Besides the traits or skills, or the lack thereof, it's blind luck that has a lot to do with an influential leader's rise to power. Who would have thought at the time that the "Apprentice" would set Trump up as a god-like political figure in the future in the sick minds of so many white, racist good 'ol boys and girls all in on their hatred and violence and lies.
The great poisoning of America won't subside soon or so easily, even when Trump is finally, mercifully removed from the scene, either by our justice system or by nature. Thanks to the pervasive MAGA mindset written in stone like the internet version of Moses's tablets, we'll probably be stuck with the imminent threat of authoritarianism for a long, long time. Maintaining democracy is a constant vigil and a constant struggle — always was, always will be.
I have wondered about this subject of power for years and have NO doubt something or someone will arrive. Upheavals like we are experiencing now, leave a void which brings fear and apathy to so many people. How much can we endure?
The people who want power are not who we need obviously. Trump is not this person but he maybe the 'catalyst.'
Yes, all the things you mention and so many more would be easy arguments to make against him. Except she and all the others are afraid to alienate his base. So their only accusations are on style and not substance. It may be easy for me to say, but in my mind they're all spineless opportunists. Christie is another case altogether. But I think you probably get my point.
Carlyle's quote is interesting in that the writing down of history, and certainly the publishing of history, is done mainly by those who are in awe of "the great men."
It's an interesting, and alluring argument, Thom. My only gloss is historical: Nazism was quelled in 1945 by the loss of a world war, not by a judicial decree; and, even with the demise of Hitler, Nazism (in one form or another) has continued to incubate and re-emerge where conditions are favorable.
I'd like nothing better than to see Trump kicked off the ballot and his criminal, psychopathic ass in prison; and I agree there's no psychotalented Trump 2.0 in the wings. But the fervor of discontent and resentment that he has so expertly stoked and exploited seems real and massive enough to START a war if the MAGA King is dealt with harshly by the System he has taught them to distrust and hate.
I'm not arguing that should cow us, just that we should be prepared for the worst if things go down that road.