(Thread)
Here's where the Cult of Leadership collides with reality: The Leader isn't actually all powerful.
Max Weber talks about 3 sources of authority:
🔹Traditional (monarchies)
🔹Rule of Law (democracy) and
🔹Charismatic Leader (cult of personality/ fascism/Strongman)
Here's where the Cult of Leadership collides with reality: The Leader isn't actually all powerful.
Max Weber talks about 3 sources of authority:
🔹Traditional (monarchies)
🔹Rule of Law (democracy) and
🔹Charismatic Leader (cult of personality/ fascism/Strongman)
1/ Someone like @IngrahamAngle prefers a Cult of Leadership. A person like Laura sees advantages:
🔹There's no gridlock. Whatever the leader wants happens.
🔹There's no need to compromise, so the leader can achieves "purity."
🔹People feel safe under a Strongman's protection.
🔹There's no gridlock. Whatever the leader wants happens.
🔹There's no need to compromise, so the leader can achieves "purity."
🔹People feel safe under a Strongman's protection.
2/ Paxton describes a cult of leadership this way:
In a leadership cult the followers look for a strong authority (always male) culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s historical destiny.
In a leadership cult the followers look for a strong authority (always male) culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s historical destiny.
3/ They believe that the leader's instincts are superior to the rational knowledge of the "elites" (or scientists.)
That's why Trump's "I alone can fix it" was so attractive to his base (people who prefer a strongman) and abhorrent to those who prefer democracy.
That's why Trump's "I alone can fix it" was so attractive to his base (people who prefer a strongman) and abhorrent to those who prefer democracy.
4/ Rule of Law and Charismatic Leader are mutually exclusive. Rule of law depends on facts.
Charismatic leader must destroy actuality so that he can create a situation in which (his followers believe) everything he says.
Charismatic leader must destroy actuality so that he can create a situation in which (his followers believe) everything he says.
5/ Looking at it another way, political psychologists teach us that roughly 1/3 of the population has what Adorno called the Authoritarian disposition.
They're the ones arguing that a supreme power should overrule the will of the majority when necessary.
They're the ones arguing that a supreme power should overrule the will of the majority when necessary.
6/ In a Cult of Leadership, the leader controls all information and believes (and persuades his followers) that whatever he says is true.
Here's the problem for Laura: Trump isn't all knowing and all powerful.
He doesn't know when this will end.
Here's the problem for Laura: Trump isn't all knowing and all powerful.
He doesn't know when this will end.
7/ Nobody knows. We all understand that the Republican denials of truth ("it's all a hoax") made the situation much worse, and we understand why.
COVID-19 puts Trump's Cult of Leadership up against reality.
Reality will win.
COVID-19 puts Trump's Cult of Leadership up against reality.
Reality will win.
*I meant "factuality" (a word often used by @TimothyDSnyder) not "actuality" but I guess both work.
