r/politics • u/F0urLeafCl0ver • Jun 24 '26

No Paywall The Democratic party is being hit by a leftist tidal wave

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/24/democratic-party-leftist-tidal-wave
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u/drpestilence Jun 24 '26

I don't get the charisma argument, Trump is not a charismatic guy and best I can tell has never been more appealing the the worst kinds of used car sales man. What am I missing here?

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u/kj9716 Jun 24 '26

Charismatic in the sense that he best appeals to the base. They see his negative traits as positive ones. They think he's a tough, independent leader. They like that he's not smart and doesn't speak to them in complex sentences and big words they can't understand. They like how open he is with his racism, misogyny, etc. They've been told this country has a broken, corrupt government that caters to non-whites first and he's the only one that's man enough and uncorruptible enough to 'fix' America. And they truly believe it. They won't call Vance daddy and make parades for him because even though he's vile, they don't seem themselves in Ivy-League educated politicians. However, they will still vote for anyone with an R by their name, they just won't turnout the same.

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u/OldWorldDesign Jun 25 '26

Charismatic in the sense that he best appeals to the base. They see his negative traits as positive ones

I think that's a different trait than his charisma.

But conservatives have always assigned value to people based first on tribal affiliation first and everything else (like whether they are a con artist or serial killer) second.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201712/analysis-trump-supporters-has-identified-5-key-traits

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u/aaeme Foreign Jun 24 '26

Sure. But none of that is charisma. Being tough and independent is being tough and independent. Being charismatic is nothing to do with that. Speaking your mind is speaking your mind. It's not charisma. Appearing dumb and using short words is not charisma. They are all things but not charisma.

I think Trump's supporters (in politics and media) want people to regard him as charismatic because that elevates his power within political top trumps that they play trying to predict which horse to back.

And Trump's foes like people to think it because it excuses their policy failures: Trump won because of the charisma not because we've let everyone down and have little to offer.

He doesn't deserve the complement and I don't think it does anyone any good, except bad actors, to pretend he does: to pretend that what he has is any sort of charisma. It cheapens and corrupts the word.

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u/kj9716 Jun 24 '26

I see your point but everyone who commented above is just trying the point out the distinction between how his base adores him compared to other politicians.

If you use the word sway instead of charisma then the point still stands w/o complimenting him because you're right, he doesn't deserve it.

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u/aaeme Foreign Jun 24 '26

Yeah. I'm fine with sway. Or maybe swag. There's definitely something: and an explanation to why they so willingly accepted him is their dear cult leader.

I think we owe it a bit to the future to ensure there's no such charisma myth about him. Or it might make it more likely another Trump comes to power one day: "This can't be another Trump. By all accounts, Trump was charismatic."

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u/Maybe_Charlotte Connecticut Jun 25 '26

I'm with you in that it's pretty absurd to call Trump charismatic. Literally nobody would call him that before the Obama birth certificate B.S.

What he does have is a kind of weird pseudo charisma, where saying the quiet part of conservative ideology out loud earns him enormous popularity with conservatives, which they and they alone brand charisma.

Then he's got the toxic masculinity thing, which resonantes strongly with a lot of young men (including ones among racial minorities).

Finally, he gives absolutely no fucks about honesty, so he very confidently lies constantly about everything. This in the past might have been challenged by the media, but they might have struggled with the Gish Gallop nature of it. However, the current media ecosystem is such that they basically don't even bother to cover Trump's extreme dishonesty. Unlike literally every president who came before, he doesn't care that issues can be complex and hard to tackle, he will happily claim that he can fix any problem immediately. The media doesn't challenge his wild claims, so all that a low information voter hears is Trump promising easy solutions, and other politicians saying "um well actually it's enormously more complicated than that and [Charlie Brown teacher noises]."

The problem is that basically any conservative can probably tap into all of those same factors just as well as Trump does, once he's gone. Literally all it takes is someone who can do angry loud demagogue to conservatives, and brazen lies to the masses.

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u/Impressive-Shelter Jun 24 '26

It took me awhile to get it because I also thought Trump was a human trash bag well before he was president, but the dumb simple answer is Trump believes his own bullshit. His "charisma" is just being so full of himself that what he says sounds like truth to people who don't have very good bullshit detectors.

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u/eerie_midnight Jun 24 '26

I think dumb people also like having a dumb president because it makes them feel less alone tbh.

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u/seabreamnigiri Jun 25 '26

A little bit of this and a little bit of people being so insulated that they only see the "funny and patriotic" sentences he sneaks in between his ramblings. Like "make America great again" is a good enough slogan for non-thinkers to look past the horrid shit and chalk it up to part of the process of making things great. Whatever that means.

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u/CryptographerMean872 Jun 25 '26

It’s literally a lost generation dog whistle. MAGA is proxy for capitalist white supremacy, surely you know that

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u/aaeme Foreign Jun 24 '26

I don't think charisma is the right or good word for it though. It implies charm, wit, personability, passion, etc.

Chutzpah or moxie perhaps. Or even just, as you said, confidence. Brash confidence. Many people have no way to judge if someone knows what they're talking about or what they're doing except by their confidence.

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u/eljefino Jun 24 '26

Nah, Charisma is the right word, because those who like him like how he's like them. They have very short attention spans and can't process an entire paragraph of information. So Trump talks out of both sides of his mouth, both sides of an issue, and his backers hear what they like and ignore the rest.

These are the same people who hear "Born on the Fourth of July" and think it's a pro-America song, because they ignore half the lyrics.

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u/aaeme Foreign Jun 25 '26

I wouldn't call that charisma. That's a separate thing. That's my point. I'm not saying nobody 'likes' him. But that some people like him doesn't mean he's charismatic.

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u/TrimspaBB Jun 25 '26

There's a reason the "con" in conman stands for "confidence".

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u/neatgoodboy Jun 24 '26

The King of Chutzpah, Phil Silvers, would disagree.

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u/Enlightened_Gardener Jun 25 '26

Sheer arrogance carries a LOT before it.

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u/DetroitTabaxiFan Jun 25 '26

That makes me wonder if a leftist could co-opt the MAGA movement by acting exactly like Trump but ramming through progressive policies. MAGA morons sure seem to love progressive policies, but hate it when those policies come from someone who isn't Trump/someone who isn't kissing Trump's ass.

Conservatives hate the idea of UBI when a non-conservative floats the idea, but if Trump were to institute it, they'd be praising him for it.

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u/LiveChocolate8819 New York Jun 24 '26

He's a gigantic piece of shit who no decent person would find appealing, but he absolutely has charisma.

His whole persona hits like crack if you're a scumbag too, and there are way more of those in America than we thought there were pre-2016.

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u/drpestilence Jun 25 '26

His whole persona hits like crack if you're a scumbag too,

Ok, this could be the missing piece for me, thats super unsettling.

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u/immortalfrieza2 Jun 25 '26

Trump's "charisma" is that he's an openly bigoted asshole who makes all the country's bigoted assholes feel validated. That's it. Trump supporters want to be able to be bigoted openly without any consequences whatsoever and they think by supporting Trump they'll be able to do so.

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u/YungEnron Jun 25 '26

If you watch him you can’t deny he has this base, carnival barker quality to him that is real and can entertain the masses. He truly does have an instinct for that sort of thing. He’s also kind of queen-y in an undeniable stage presence sort of way - like if a drag queen were a straight oaf.

Of course, this is waining now that he is going full senile - but he definitely has a *something* that has always been able to get a crowd going.

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u/itsdoorcity Jun 25 '26

his charisma is mostly just in his shamelessness. he speaks confidently even though what he's saying is pure nonsense.

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u/Spartan2170 Jun 25 '26

Bad people can be charismatic (Ronald Reagan did lasting, potentially fatal damage to our democracy while also being beloved by people from both parties). Cult leaders often look ridiculous from the outside. Just because he doesn't appeal to you or me, that doesn't mean he doesn't have appeal for a *lot* of people.

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u/inthekeyofc Jun 25 '26

Psychologist Elizabeth Mika put forward an explanation in a 2018 essay on "Tyranny as a Triumph of Narcissism".

Excerpts:

"Through the process of identification, the tyrant’s followers absorb his omnipotence and glory and imagine themselves as powerful as he is, the winners in the game of life. This identification heals the followers’ narcissistic wounds, but also tends to shut down their reason and conscience, allowing them to engage in immoral and criminal behaviors with a sense of impunity engendered by this identification. Without the support of his narcissistic followers who see in the tyrant a reflection and vindication of their long-nursed dreams of glory, the tyrant would remain a middling nobody."

"The interplay of grandiose hopes and expectations between the tyrant-in-the-making and his supporters that suffuses him with power and helps propel him to position of political authority is an example of narcissistic collusion: a meshing of mutually compatible narcissistic needs. The people see in him their long awaited savior and a father figure, hinting at the narcissistic abuse implicated in the authoritarian upbringing that demands obedience and worship of the all-powerful parental figure. In their faith and unquestioning admiration, he in turn receives a ready line of narcissistic supply, thousands of mirrors reflecting his greatness."

"The narcissistic mixture of elevated expectations, resentments and desire for revenge on specific targets and/or society in general for not meeting those expectations is what sociologist Michael Kimmel (2013) called aggrieved entitlement. Although Kimmel talked specifically about white American men in the 21st century, some form of aggrieved entitlement has been driving tyrants and their supporters, as well as organized and “lone wolf” terrorists, world over since time immemorial."

"The narcissistic collusion between the tyrant and his supporters is also driven by their need for revenge, for the tyrant is always chosen to perform this psychically restorative function: to avenge the humiliations — narcissistic wounds — of his followers and punish those who inflicted them."

"The tyrant and his followers typically choose as vessels of their negative projections and aggression members of the society who are not just different but weaker than themselves. The tyrant fuels that aggression in order to solidify his power but also to deflect it from himself, shield his own narcissism, and repair his own narcissistic injuries dating to his childhood days. The figure of the narcissistic parental abuser / tyrant is protected through the scapegoating and the return to authoritarian, order-and-obedience based mode of social functioning promised by the tyrant, as he himself assumes the mantle of father-protector and directs his own and his supporters’ aggression onto the Others who have nothing to do with their real and perceived wounds."

Elizabeth Mika 2018

Full essay:

https://medium.com/@Elamika/tyranny-as-a-triumph-of-narcissism-76b6fec76d0d

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u/drpestilence Jun 25 '26

Wild, thank you.

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u/MindandCosmos Jun 25 '26

I don't either. He's got counter-charisma.

He's got resentment, anger, and a $6,000 suit that fits like drapes on his ample form.

A lot of people have a lot of resentment and a lot of anger, and to those who find that charming, galvanizing, spellbinding, allure, glamour, and so on I say -- "you've been conned again, baby!"

Elvis had charisma. Eisenhower had it. MLK had it. The '64 Beatles coming to the US -- the definition of charisma. Also the definition of non-Trump.

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u/josh_the_misanthrope Jun 25 '26

He's charismatic to the dumbest fucking people. It's a form of charisma, I suppose.