Charismatic
Candidates
and the 2016 Presidential Primaries
By Ted
Goertzel
The strong
charismatic appeal of two candidates – Donald Trump and Bernie
Sanders – was the
most surprising feature of the 2016 presidential primaries. Trump
won the
Republican race against a candidate, Jeb Bush, who was strongly
favored by the
Republican Party establishment and its major funders and against
several
candidates whose ideological positions were closer to those of
most Republican
voters. In Sanders case, part of his appeal was his ideological
stance, but
Achen and Bartels (2016) have shown that the ideological
differences between
Sanders and Hillary Clinton supporters are not nearly as great as
it might seem.
In one of the more reliable election surveys, Sanders supporters
were actually
less likely than Clinton supporters to favor proposals for a
higher minimum
wage, increased government spending on health care and higher
taxes for
government services. Sanders’ most memorable slogan was “Feel the
Bern” not “Redistribute
the Wealth” or “Single Payer Health Care,” let alone “Democratic
Socialism.”
The concept of
charisma, originally applied to religious prophets, was first
extended to
political leaders by German sociologist Max Weber, who referred to
leaders who
had “personal magnetism” coming from a “gift of grace.” But Weber
had little
insight into the psychological origins of this magnetism, and the
personalities
and appeals of charismatic leaders have varied widely. Winston
Churchill and
Adolph Hitler were both charismatic. Actually, it is better to
refer to the “charismatic
relationship” since charisma is in the eyes of the beholder and a
leader may be
perceived as charismatic under certain conditions and not others.
Shamir (1991) offers
two psychoanalytic theories of charisma, an oedipal need for
relief from
responsibility and a narcissistic need for perfection and
omnipotence. Other
theories he discusses include a more sociological need for
symbolic order, and
a need for self-expression and enhanced self-esteem. Donald Trump
is a textbook
example of a narcissistic personality, while Sanders might be more
of a father
figure. But Sanders supporters seem more motivated by a need for
self-expression
and enhanced self-esteem than by a desire to entrust their fate to
a powerful
father figure.
McAdams (2016) uses
the model of the Big Five personality traits: extroversion,
neuroticism,
conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness to new ideas. He
characterizes Donald
Trump as having “sky high extroversion” and “off the chart low
agreeableness.” McAdams
discussed only Trump, but three students who wish to remain
anonymous (The
Colosseum, 2015) have ranked all the leading presidential
aspirants on the five
personality traits. They concluded that Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton
and Bernie
Sanders also rated low on “agreeableness.” Hillary Clinton, Jeb
Bush and Ben
Carson were low in extraversion. Trump and Sanders were the only
candidates
rated low in conscientiousness.
The traits that make a candidate
charismatic are not usually
shared by the voters who respond to the candidate. Post (1986)
contrasts the “mirror-hungry”
narcissistic leader with the “ideal-hungry” follower. This fits
the Sanders
campaign well. Sanders is a hypnotic speaker who drones on
repeating the same catch
phrases over and over, while his youthful supporters seem more
interested in
expressing their values than in examining and evaluating detailed
policy
proposals. Trump is obviously “mirror-hungry,” or at least goes
out of his way
to appear so. His supporters seem to be looking for a candidate
who expresses
feelings they have found difficult to express themselves. The
feelings,
however, are angry resentment and hostility rather than a need to
express
ideals.
Donald Trump’s extreme nastiness is the
most remarkable
phenomenon to emerge in the 2016 campaign. He delights in
insulting as many
people as he can, including women and war heroes, as well as
Mexicans and
Moslems. Ted Cruz is also known for his nastiness and for being
disliked by
most of his congressional colleagues. Cruz’s nastiness seems to be
a strong personality
trait, while Trump’s nastiness is mostly for public consumption;
he is not
reported to be unpleasant to his personal acquaintances. Trump’s
attacks on “political
correctness’ appeal to people who are angry about losing status
and respect,
but who are not members of a protected minority and have no
socially approved
outlet for their anger. Sanders’ attacks on the Wall Street
bankers and the wealthiest
1% appeal to young people who are burdened by debt and limited job
opportunities.
Nastiness is not a trait people value in
personal
acquaintances, romantic partners, fellow workers or family
members. Most people
are close to the mean on the Big Five personality traits, very few
are as extremely
disagreeable as Trump or Cruz. Probably very few of Trump’s or
Sanders’ supporters
would be nasty to a Mexican or a Moslem or a Mogul if they met one
face-to-face. The charismatic leader provides an outlet for angry
feelings that
are normally suppressed. He or she is not someone one would want
for a boss or
a colleague at work.
This makes for interesting television, but
the job of
president of the United States is not to star in a reality
television show. We
would be better served by a president who was highly conscientious
about his or
her work, who had the interpersonal skills to get along with
Congress and other
stakeholders, and who sought to harmonize social differences with
realistic
policies rather than exacerbate them with rhetoric. A number of
candidates in
the 2016 primary election fitted this description much better than
either
Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders.
REFERENCES
Achen, Christopher and Larry Bartels. 2016. “Do
Sanders
Supporters Favor His Policies?” New York
Times, May 23, 2016.
The Colosseum. 2015. “Big Five Traits of the
2016
Presidential Candidates.”
https://lionsmusings.wordpress.com/2015/10/23/big-five-traits-of-the-2016-presidential-candidates/
McAdams, Dan. 2016. “The Mind of Donald Trump.”
The Atlantic, June 2016.
Post, Jerrold. 1986. “Narcissism and the
Charismatic
Leader-Follower Relationship.” Political
Psychology 7(4): 675-688.
Shamir, Boas. 1991. “The Charismatic
Relationship: Alternative
Explanations and Predictions.” The
Leadership Quarterly 2(2): 81-104