The Daily Dose: Low-Energy Hitler

Might Trump fit the profile of a charismatic leader?

Last week, Florida representative Greg Steub unveiled the Make Autorail Great Again Act. The bill would deny federal funding to the Washington, DC Metro unless the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) “is renamed WMAGA and the Metrorail becomes the TRUMP TRAIN.”

However ludicrous it may seem—and it is certainly that—the move revealed something fundamental about Trump and the kind of system he is trying to build.

A few days ago, we examined the question of Trump's legitimacy—or, rather, his lack thereof. In short, if you are a ruler and wish to gain the obedience of others, coercion and rewards will only get you so far; the minute you cease using force or run out of money to buy people off, they will stop obeying you.

The solution is to establish some form of legitimacy, or the belief among your followers that you have the right to rule. Originally conceived by the German sociologist Max Weber, legitimacy is a more effective means of securing compliance since your followers will obey you without having to be compelled or induced.

Weber identified three types of legitimate authority. Leaders who hold traditional authority derive their right to rule from age-old custom—the paradigmatic example being the tribal chief.

Charismatic leaders such as Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin, on the other hand, rule by virtue of their subjects’ belief in their extraordinary and superhuman qualities.

Today, however, few leaders rely on traditional or charismatic authority. Instead, a different kind of legitimate authority prevails—what Weber called rational-legal authority. Under this arrangement, leaders must abide by a set of rules enshrined in a constitution and code of laws. These rules determine how the leader is chosen—typically through free and fair elections—and how they must govern once in office.

Rational-legal authority has served as the basis of America’s constitutional order since the republic’s founding. If presidents and other officeholders want to maintain legitimacy, they must follow the rules. If they break the rules, they lose their legitimacy.

Enter Donald Trump. In his short time in office, he has broken so many rules with such severity that, by any estimation, he has forfeited any claim to legitimacy.

But has he really? One could reasonably argue that he has not lost his legitimacy but rather acquired a different kind: charismatic legitimacy.

Take a look at Weber’s description of the charismatic leader and tell me if you do not see in it at least a smidgen of Trump. Charisma, he explains, is a

certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader.

Sound familiar? It should, because it is exactly how Trump insists that he be treated.

But just because he wants to be a charismatic leader does not mean that he is a charismatic leader. Legitimacy, in Weber’s characterization, refers not to how rulers see themselves but how others see them.

This explains why genuine charismatic rulers do not come along very often; it is relatively rare that a leader is able to convince a lot of people that they are superhuman or divinely-ordained.

Clearly, some have bought into Trump's charismatic persona. But we are talking about a relative handful of religious yahoos who believe that Trump was installed by God to bring about the rapture. While not small in number, they do not make up a very large share of the population. Even most of Trump's voters would not buy into this nonsense.

If few are convinced of his supernatural qualities, there is a good reason for that. As Weber reminds us, charismatic leaders tend to emerge in times of “psychic, physical, economic, ethical, religious, [or] political distress.” Only in situations of profound crisis are people desperate enough to become receptive to charismatic appeals.

This certainly tracks with the historical record. Hitler rose to power during the Great Depression, which itself came on the heels of the economic and social upheaval of the Interwar years. Lenin and Stalin achieved mastery over the Russian empire in an environment of wrenching war and deprivation. These are the conditions in which charismatic messages find resonance among a large chunk of society.

Needless to say, this is not the kind of situation in which America finds itself today. Both of Trump's election victories took place amidst robust economic growth and political stability. Given the circumstances, it is easy to see why relatively few people were willing to drink the Kool-Aid. Vote for the guy? Sure. Place your hand on his body as if you are touching Jesus himself? Maybe not.

Thus, while Trump might want charismatic legitimacy, he does not actually have it. In fact, he does not hold any form of legitimacy at all. He must instead rely on cruder means of wielding power, two of which, in particular, he seems to prefer: bullshit and coercion.

Bullshit can work for a little while. But at a certain point, you can no longer keep pissing on people and telling them its rain.

That leaves him with coercion, and it is this, I suspect, that he will increasingly depend on in the coming years. To be sure, he will manage to wreak quite a bit of havoc this way. But it will not be enough to overpower American civil society.

The emperor has no clothes, and his sagging, crenulated butt is flapping in the breeze. The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can kick his ass to the curb.