Alpha male bravado?

in trump •  2 years ago 

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Some inherit the presidency. (John Q Adams, the first Johnson, Ford, Bush II.) Others win it through competence and demonstrated accomplishments. (Ike, Grant, Adams, Jefferson.)

Trump belongs to a third category: his ace in the hole, is a particular species of charisma. Past winners in that category include:

George Washington, whose military record was mixed when given charge of the revolutionary forces, but must have had great charisma to be quickly recognized as "the man" both then, and later.

Andrew Jackson, perhaps.

Abe Lincoln, with his corny jokes, gaunt frame, Tolstoyan strategic wisdom, and rhetoric nurtured on Shakespeare and the KJV Bible.

Teddy Roosevelt. FDR. JFK. Ronald Reagan. Bill Clinton. Barack Obama.

Trump has a kind of game-show host charisma. But what he lacks, that most of these previous presidents had in spades, is moral integrity. Perhaps Jackson can in some degree be compared with him on that, maybe JFK, in his own way, or Clinton and Obama.

It seems difficult to get rid of a president who has charisma. Humans are, it seems, programmed to respond to that Alpha Male bravado.

That can save a nation, or destroy it.

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