Political charisma — why is it both powerful and perilous?

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New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes me slow when network is busy. See terms. ABC Listen. Podcasts, radio, news, music and more. Before knives out. Before true crime podcasts. There was Agatha Christie. Claire Nichols here and I'd love you to join me on the book show as we investigate the life and books of Dame Agatha Christie, the so called Queen of Crime. So definitely my get weird drug, if you like. Yeah, I wish I had my little Miss Marble mug that I could show you right now. Search for the Agatha Christie Murder Club on ABC Listen or ever you get your podcasts. Hello, welcome to the Mindfields. I just think it sure it's full of riz frankly. Well, later all these my name's Scott Stevens is my Riz Latin co-host. What am I talking about? Well, it's related. You'll see, dear listener, hang on. The lameness will be worth it. Hello, Scott. How you doing? Oh, I was better 15 seconds ago. You can't do that. Why? Riz, can I just be clear? It's a word I don't think I've ever used except just that. I think it should. And for very good reason, I don't like it either. Well, look, I mean, it's going to be front and center in some of the things we're about to discuss. Speaking of Riz, we do have a book club thing coming up and it is full of characters with Riz. Oh, man. You can't do this. Okay. Well, you do it however you want, but be quick about it, Scott. Well, look, my my joy was complete both because of the conversation we're having today. This is a show as will lead knows I've been wanting to do for a couple of months now. And then one of my very, very, very favorite books is coming up as I are not quite a book club for November. 100 years ago, one of the masterpieces of early 20th century literature appeared. It was by a sometimes playwright, sometimes columnist for Punch magazine, A.A. Milne. The book is called Winnie the Pooh. Well, lead, there are not enough words in the language to describe the depth of my affection. For this book and the treasures, I believe, about life, about sociability, about the nature of care, about our attendance to one another. And also the nature of egoism, believe it or not, that are just here lurking in the pages of this glorious book. What better way of marking the 100th anniversary of A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh? This is the original book in that series. We're not going to be doing the sequels. Sequels are always worse, almost always worse, and nothing television. And nothing television, don't do Disney, please pick up the book. Well, you can do whatever you like. My point is it's not the required rating. The required rating is the original, take the opportunity between now and the second week in November. To sit down with those you love and read Winnie the Pooh. It's only going to take you about two and a half hours over the course of a few nights. You'll be glad you did, your children will be grateful forever. I'm a little less authoritarian than Scott, so I think just do whatever you want. But that is the text, so have a go read through that. And also attentive listeners to this show will know how frequently Winnie the Pooh references come up and how often Scott is ascribing characters to one mostly me, actually. I was going to say people, but it's really just me. And in return, so maybe we'll get into that discussion as well. I have no idea. All right, Scott, we should get to a proper topic for today. What have we foreshadowed with our views of a particular opportune? OK, look, political charisma is a serious idea. And it is one of the ways that many people are responding to our current political pathologies. I think it's fair to say, please do correct me if you think it's not, that over the course of the last decade, one of the more pronounced trends in the politics of advanced democracies is the widening gulf that exists between the people and their elected representatives. Sometimes that's framed in terms of people in government, but increasingly, this discontent is being focused on politicians in particular, so much so bullied, that even a number of really serious chest beating democratic theorists, in other words, people who are not down on democracy, at all, have been prescribing that the number one problem with democracy at the moment is not populism, it's not misinformation and disinformation, it's not declining levels of trust, it is politicians themselves. So that certain proposals for, for instance, lotocracy or forms of sortition, where essentially, by ballot, people are elected as direct citizen representatives for particular terms of time, almost on the example of an expanded or exploded citizens assembly are increasingly being promoted. So if part of the problem is politicians, then what exactly is the problem with politicians? And again, the thing that keeps coming up, again and again and again, will include some links to actual research that's being published, the results of longitudinal studies that have appeared over the last couple of months, one of the things that comes up again and again, is that politicians don't have the people's interests at heart, they don't put the nation above politics, they are not responsive to my needs, and if you keep tracking the data down, what you almost always come up against in one form or another, is that politicians by and large are corrupt. In the sense that they are in office for what the office affords them, not for what the office can do for the people. Is this a fair characterization, do you feel? Yeah, and I mean, there's a hard data on it. The thing I've been doing now, I read this, and it arrested me a while ago, was the A&U poll that came out in March, was a March this year, which has had a number of findings that were quite extraordinary, but one of the more interesting ones to me was when they charted those who have shifted to one nation with their vote, the single best predictor for that was that orientation, so the idea that the politicians are not in it for the public, they're not acting in the public's interests, they call that the populist orientation or whatever phrase they use, but that was a better predictor than financial hardship, so it's clearly there, and it's there in other 30 bucks too, but it was the single greatest predictor for where you would end up. But you know what's also interesting, just as an addendum to that, is that there was a time not that long ago, where large numbers of people were simply down on politics generally. They were down in the possibilities of government. Now, it seems as though there is a sense, and I do wonder, I do wonder increasingly whether the pandemic had something to do with this. There is a sense that government is and can be a source of public good, but those that inhabit the offices, those that govern the levers of government are not up to the task, and so again, one of the findings that keeps coming out more and more clearly, this is particularly the case in Australia, and it was notable to me that Germany and Spain are the two places in the EU that keep popping up on this particular metric that people simply do not believe that politicians are capable of delivering on the promises that they make. So there's a very interesting gap that's taking place here that suggests a degree to which people have lost connection with their politicians. They do not believe that what political representation is meant to be and meant to deliver is in fact being upheld. Do you have a working theory on why? Well, I have a couple. I mean, one is we live in a time of remarkable complexity, and it may well be that some of the problems that politics purports to be able to solve, to be able to address politics simply cannot, or cannot within the time frame, that most politicians seeking election are able to deliver. So it may well be that the nature of the problems is such that both politics and the disposition of voters aren't simply up to the nature of the solutions that need to be brought to bear. I do also wonder, Willid. I wouldn't say that I have faith in language. I certainly wouldn't say that I believe that political persuasion is the be all and end all of democratic politics. But I do worry. that the necessary virtues of forthrightness, and honesty, and transparency, and rhetorical vulnerability that help to create, help to cultivate those connections between elected representatives and people. I do worry that that has been substituted for either kind of cold, bureaucratic language on the one hand, a language that is not possible to bite for one of a better term, or the politicians who simply present themselves as being plain spoken or are willing to speak their minds. I don't think being willing to speak your mind is necessarily synonymous with truthfulness or even authenticity. It can itself almost be a kind of stick. I do wonder if there's also been that overarching decline in the nature of political language so that people can no longer really feel that connection that can take place by means of the vulnerability of the exposure, the mutual responsiveness that democratic rhetoric has been to foster. This has been, I think, a punishment of people who did shy of vulnerability. This is the phenomenon of the gotcha question or whatever my bay. I've noticed this just as a, what do I call myself, a practitioner of political broadcast, and when you interview politicians and then you talk them off air, you get a really interesting juxtaposition. I hear a lot of people complain about the way politicians don't answer questions or whatever. What I hear people complain far less about is the punishment that is inflicted upon them the moment they do, and so there's a kind of learned behaviour that's gone on here. They may be behaving in ways that alienate them from the community, but they know that to behave in other ways would be worse for them. Then that allows the gap in which the authenticity entrepreneur, if you like, can move a great time because as long as they're not the ones in office, and then the minute they assume that role, then it takes time, but eventually the laws of gravity start to take hold. And if he's there no longer the insurgent. And in fact, yeah, Max Weber, the great German philosopher, political philosopher, sociologist who really formulated the notion of political charisma. He talked about what happens when the charismatic figure comes into office and then charisma becomes rutinized, the very things that bore that particular politician to, you know, upon the shoulders of public acclaim suddenly meets the harsh, quotidian realities, the structural realities of governance itself. And then that initial allure begins to fade away. Your idea of authenticity entrepreneur, I think this is another really important dimension to this, because so many politicians, especially those who operate within kind of given or stable party systems, tend to be averse to what used to be called conviction politics, the politics of belief, the politics of passion, even even the politics of hope that had its heyday in the late, you know, the late first decade of the 2000s, it has been interesting isn't it, that now conviction doesn't really track on to consistency, the politics, it's just the preparedness to say things you don't meant to say, because why would you, why would you say something you don't meant to say, unless you believed it? And therefore it becomes evidence of an odd kind of virtue. So this is where the desire for charismatic political figures has really begun to reassert itself. So if you think, for instance, we are a week out of the U.S. midterm elections, the democratic party has been scrambling for political figures that quote unquote break the mold that aren't the usual political product, that have a certain degree of earthiness or authenticity that speak the language that people use, that really connect with voters. And so some people have been elevated without much of the usual vetting process. The person who really comes to mind for me here is the former democratic candidate from a grand planner, who was in some respects a charismatic figure in his earthiness, in his down to earth rhetoric, in the way that he connected with the grievances of people, and then he kind of now famously imploded as a result of improper vetting. And then you have other candidates, like, say, Abdul Assad said the democratic candidate for Michigan, who is in so many ways a remarkable and remarkably strident figure who is a telegenic, he is rhetorically engaging, he is attractive, and yet he also bears along with him many of the traits of identity and religious observance that make him the sort of figure that places him in the sights of Republican attack ads. So there is something here about the longing for people who really do connect, and for me, the archetypal figure here is Zoran Mandani, the mayor of New York, who is both charismatic in his rhetoric, but also, I don't know how else to say this, and in fact, I think Ezra Klein really described this beautifully, that Zoran Mandani's smile is a political tool. It suggests a degree of openness, accessibility, and vulnerability that can be utilized within social media campaigns that can be geared towards the algorithm, but also suggests in his very appearance the opposite of that closeness or that disconnectedness that so many people associate with established party politics. Yeah, there's very clearly an aesthetic dimension to his appeal, but like I think so many turns in American politics, it benefits from the contrast with what came before it. So, I think there's a very real sense in which George W. Bush gives rise to Barack Obama, and then Barack Obama gives rise to Donald Trump, and now perhaps Donald Trump is giving rise to Zoran Mandani. But also, yeah, in the interim, Donald Trump, the curial nature of Trump's first term, and the safe, this is the other thing you think, Trump is also a charismatic figure. Oh, hugely charismatic. He is a, I mean, he is the charismatic figure in Max Weber's precise sense. He is the locus of authority in his own person. There's something quasi-chosen, almost messianic about him, such that he defies the usual rules of political gravity, of the things that disqualify political figures, and yet it's the very mercurial nature, the chaotic nature of his style of governance, that then gave rise to an anti-carrot in Joe Biden. So, I think this is, again, correct me if you think I'm wrong here. Part of the problem with political charisma, and I think we do need to get to the risk dimension of this in a moment. Part of the problem of political charisma is that the people who are attracted to it are attracted not to an inherent dimension, but to something that really does resonate quite precisely with them. So, the very charisma that attracts people to Donald Trump will come across as bombast, as bluster, as inauthenticity, as something grating to people who find Trump objectionable. In other words, charisma is not a value-laden thing. It is neutral, to some extent, in the sense that both Trump and Mamdani can be charismatic figures, that both Marine Le Pen and Andy Burnham can be charismatic figures. It's something about the connection that they're able to establish. It's about the contrast that they're able to draw. But in that very contrast, you can see the ways in which charisma can itself go wrong. So, for instance, what if the lawlessness, the ability to defy the usual rules of political gravity that apply to the charismatic figure? What if they are then taken up by their supporters? What if the supporters then come to engage in forms of lawlessness, the betrayal or the throwing off of the usual constraints of decorum, democratic decency, and so on, and begin following the law and the dictates of the charismatic figure? So there's something about charisma, even before we associate with the social media saturated age, that really holds out I think dangers as well as new possibilities of political connection. You all listening to The Mind for an ABC radio national will lead Ali Mann, I'm Scott Steve as my co-host, we've got a guest coming up very soon, but Scott, I just think there's something there that needs to be teased out, which is charisma as a factor in politics has always been there. I have no doubt that the columnists in the Roman Empire would have written about it. But what I think we need to pay attention to are the terms on which it is claimed. So, and here I do think that the medium is the message. So by all reports, and you would know better than I do, so correct me if I'm wrong. Abraham Lincoln's not on over Lee Carasmatic figure. So in today's age, he crashes, or he doesn't ascend. He probably doesn't even get very far in the JFK era. Sure, but Lincoln's medium was taxed. That's my whole point, yes. So, charisma is adapted to the age, it's adapted, and by the age I mean really, I suppose the forum by which we engage with them. To have JFK's charisma may have been useful in Lincoln's time, maybe, but certainly not as potent as it was in his own. Donald Trump's charisma, I think, is an expression of the age in which he was. It was the full embodiment of a particular version of television that happened to be perfectly adapted then to the social media age. And I don't actually know that I fully concur with your idea that the charisma I see in a figure is something that appeals to something within me, or I think you know me well enough to know that Donald Trump and I would be quite opposite as people in most ways, like aesthetic ways dispositionally, like all these sorts of things. And yet I find him charismatic. There's something about, and it's not just that he brawens to break rules, lots of people can do that, they're not charismatic when they do it, it's more, I don't know, it's atmospheric, I can't explain it really other than to say he's genuinely funny. I once implored a friend of mine as a stand-up comedian and quite a cerebral one to write an essay analyzing Donald Trump as a stand-up comedian to identify the, what is it that makes this work? It's things that would be recognizable to people who are students of stand-up comedy. There's something about the timing, there's something about the phrasing, there's something about the repetition, the extent of it, the amount of it. Because there are things that are knowing, there are things that are not, there's just, it's emerged quite precisely from the insult comedic culture of New York of the 1950s and '60s. There is that kind of, almost the cat skills cadence to it. Yeah, that's probably right. I mean, that would be a point for my friend to make in this essay. I don't know enough about these things, but I think he would. And I think there's something there, but it's not a charisma that would have worked in print. No. It's probably not a charisma that would have worked in, you know, I don't know, some kind of caucus-based political culture. It has, it requires scale, it requires depersonalization, if you know what I mean, like things that are mediated. It needs to go through a camera or a social media feed or something like that. Probably, in Trump's case, it probably also has to be clipped to be perfectly honest. Watching a hold on Donald Trump clip is a very different thing. I noticed this actually when I went to a Trump rally and I did sit through this bitch and I'm in the crowd, not in the room, because he wouldn't let any foreign media in. But I was outside and you're with his people listening to him and you notice the bits, which they respond in the bits, and it's a different sort of experience and you're probably right. Once it's clipped, it becomes quite a different thing and arguably, politically, a formal potent thing. So I do think, I don't think it then becomes a question of is political charisma a good or a bad thing? Does it lead us down wrong tracks or right tracks and so, I mean, I think those questions are relevant. They're there. I think the most relevant question for our age is on what terms can it be claimed, on what terms can it be cultivated? What are the attributes that get rewarded or that will culminate in a rewarded form of political charisma? That's the thing that worries me most. Sure, sure. As we bring in our guest, I think there is also the attendant problem. It happens when charisma, which is able to exert a kind of gravitational pull on people's attention. I think that's kind of what you're describing there. It's able to exert a certain degree of kind of power of fascination. What happens when that becomes so trivialized, so debased that it really takes the form of, now we're using the term properly. It simply takes the form of risk, that it's simply, well, here's a better term, that when a political campaign structures itself around the notion of aura farming, as has been described about Andy Burnham. This is not just anything bad. Actually, Andy Burnham is actually quite a remarkable political figure here, but charisma is the value of charisma, is dependent upon other things that it enables, other things that it makes accessible to people, and the ways that it nurtures, and also tempers, the connection between people and the representatives. If charisma is simply obeisance, if it's dependence, it's unbelievably dangerous, if charisma is the nurturing of that kind of reciprocal relationship. Such call and response that can have its debased forms in certain sort of more fascist or authoritarian context, but it can also have its more redeemed and salutary forms in healthy democratic context. Let's sneak to the minefield on ABC Radio National. Well, later on these, my name is Scott Stevens, and as always, we have a guest, this one's one of our favorites. Ah, yes, yes. It's been far too long, and it hasn't been for a want of trying. And Wellings is Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at Monash University. His most recent book is English nationalism and British disintegration, Ben, thank you so much for joining us once again on the minefield. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, well, Lee. I'm a bit sad that you're not here for Winnie the Pooh actually, Ben, because I feel like you did the fault two hours episode with me. I know, I'm sad too. Yeah. We just locked up on this episode. Is there anything you want to say about Winnie the Pooh before we get on it? Yes, E or is the leader for our time, so that's what we need. It's what we need, but it's not what we have, E or we'd never win an election. Is that fair to say? Well, this might help us push our understanding of charisma. I mean, he's got a kind of anti-carisma, doesn't he? Yeah. He just tells it like it is. He's miserable. But maybe that taps into something about the national psyche that the book was originally written for, and if I'm assuming it's written for that, audience rather than an English-speaking audience more generally, but I think he'd be an anti-can today. Sorry, Ben. The problem with E or is, and you're going to have to hear the rest of the conversation to fully engage with this. He's not just morose. He's not just down. He's attention-seekingly down. And I think that's what, when you say that E or is a negative charismatic figure, there is something that he's not morose in secret. He's not morose in his corner. He is morose publicly and looking around so that people observe his moroceness. And I think that can get us to some of the dangers associated with political charisma. I think that's fair enough. I think that then he's articulating something that a section of the citizenry and/or electorate, they may not be the same thing, wants to hear. So and I suppose, I mean, your conversation was making it. When I was thinking about this, there's a slight difference between charisma and mystique. And I think if we bring royalty into this, like any number of the person as you were speaking, I was thinking of Louis XIV. And I was thinking. I didn't want to mention it. It was embarrassing. Something so obvious. I was thinking, if we sort of locked up in the presence of Louis XIV and he's sitting on a throne that's radiating behind him, we'd probably be like, wow, what a guy. But are we responding to him or the office? And I think to pick up your JFK analogy, he did very well of using the office to align with his image somehow, in a way that in the 21st century, even like Trump is kind of anti the office in the way that it had been seen as this very respectable thing by the time we get into the second half of the 20th century. So there's something there about power. We've got to talk about power and the allure of power. And I think it's just if we sort of think about powerful people that we've seen, it doesn't have to be powerful in the Trump sense, could be powerful in your organization, your company, whatever. There is a certain mystique just because they can make you do things that you don't necessarily want to do. Can I pick you up on something, though, Ben? Because the example of Louis XIV is maybe more interesting and more pertinent to our times than you may think. So there is obviously a kind of stationary sedentary charisma. It is the simple charisma of office, of the divine trappings, the opulence that attend. But one of the other, and look, Richard Senate has this extraordinary new book called "The Performer" on art, aesthetics, politics, and the notion of charisma as a kind of high-wire act is a thread that runs through the entire thing. And he has a chapter devoted to Louis XIV's dance routines, which were extraordinary, but also perilous, because if he failed, if he faltered, it was the majesty of office that suffered. You know, we associate, I think, most charismatic figures with a degree of risk. You never know if this is going to work. They're all we might refer to, you know, I think of them as sort of as figures on the edge or extreme figures or people who sort of break or flirt with breaking the rules. But what we're really talking about is a degree of almost double or nothing risk that attends what it is they do. Is that riskiness? Is that sort of, you know, failure or glory? Is that part and parcel of political charisma itself? I think it is, because I'm thinking about its opposite. If we think about the routine leader, this idea that a Keir Starmer or Anthony Albanese comes in because whatever has preceded it has been chaotic, and you just want someone boring. And, and there was a sort of sense wasn't there with again with Joe Biden. I just want my politics to be boring again. It doesn't have to intrude in everything that I think and say and do. But what's changed now, I think, is that that used to be predicated on a sort of a system that would correct itself. And we've maybe beyond moved beyond the system that will correct itself into a sufficient desire amongst some voters and citizenry to get rid of the system. The system has become more abundant. This is your one nation voters who are moving away from the established parties because they just don't feel that they represent them anymore. So I think that the risk, I really like that idea that, you know, there's a risk every time Louis the 14th takes to the dance floor that if that individual messes up, the whole system is actually at risk. So it does become then not just about the office, it's the characteristics and the abilities of the person that holds that office, because maybe Louis the 15th was a bad dancer. Or, you know, so, you know, we know that we can get mad Kings, right? So at the office survives mad Kings, it does. It does, but not always, does it? I mean, so an even not mad King. So the office of the French monarchy didn't survive always the Louis the 16th, right? So so there are moments where the where the system can change. It's remarkably durable. I go back to that complexity that I think you spoke about well either at the outset also means that it's actually the system is quite sticky. And it's it's quite difficult to sort of pull all its component parts apart. And I think that's part of the frustration that people feel, you know, on whatever end of the political spectrum there are, is that they're actually changing this is is really, really difficult. And I think politicians experience that because when they get into office, changing things is harder than you might think is slower than you might think, you know, maybe it's so slow that it's in effective if you think of things like, you know, climate crisis and so on. But people get frustrated with that that inability to sort of spot change. So the name that has been just in bold type in my mind as both of you have been speaking is Barack Obama. Undeniably charismatic. I would say at the time, singularly so. Not a risk merchant didn't come to the office as an embodiment of risk, but as a as an embodiment of hope. But I hope that was conventional, a restoration of, you know, the aspirations of the greatness of America and its institutions and so on. I will not be the person that junks those institutions, I will be the person that renews them, that restores them, etc. I just this account of political charisma that then you and Scott have been grinding out here. How does it apply to a figure like Obama? I wonder if it's too much describing our moment rather than a phenomenon of political charisma, generally. Well, what were the elements of Obama's charisma? When I think about that, and I did speak to someone who'd been in the room with him and had exactly that feeling hearing him talk was a his voice is quite kind of low. And he was a considered, he was a sort of cerebral president. And remember, you know, we used to think George W. Bush was not a cerebral president. So there's that kind of like reaction to the previous incumbent that you were you were drawing upon. But maybe it was, you know, somehow using that particular office, but I can't make it because of course, we could say that we could put that position to lots of people in America. And half the country would not think he was charismatic. Just simply because they didn't like him. So is this is I think at the time they would have acknowledged he was charismatic, wouldn't they? Maybe. What is charisma? I keep sort of coming back to that. So it's like it's an ability to inspire an emotion, hope, anger in other people. And it does rest a little bit on the ineffable thing that you that you pointed to. So there's some some bit of it we probably can't explain. And if we could explain it, they wouldn't be charismatic. So we got to leave a little bit of something there for the for the unknown. But but I do think it's a lot about power. I think it's got to be a lot about like implied or realized power, and which we can invest in this particular figure. Can I can I take a country view here? Go for it. So I do think that political charisma is an extremely paradoxical idea. Because on the one hand, the person who we end out with this quality of charisma is a singular figure. There is something about this person. And it doesn't have to be a man. There's something about this person that attracts a degree of regard that places them above the fray. Really for someone like Obama. And remember, it was dreams of my father that placed him on the map of the of the collective imagine of the political imaginary in the United States. Here's a figure whose own biography makes him a figure of hope someone who rises above the the entrenched political disagreements that maybe represents the next step. But I think the other crucial thing about Obama at well, and this is the other side of the paradox is that while the figure is singular, the figure also has to be has to hold out the possibility of participation. We don't simply stand around in worship by a scribe, a certain value to this person. We are also participating in the change that they themselves represent. So there's something about them that then flows backwards to us. Their virtue to some extent becomes our virtue there. Hope becomes ours. This is not the same as race is it? No, no, okay, okay, this is precisely my point. I do just have to say, of course, that one of Max Weber's singular insights is that charismatic figures do not inspire belief and something beyond them. They inspire belief in the charismatic figures belief. In other words, we have faith in the intensity of their faith in what it is that they believe in. So there has to be something about the figure that almost sort of that refracts everything becomes focal upon them. Now, Obama just just remember, you know, he he enjoyed a great deal of popular acclaim, a great deal of popular success. He's own initial electoral victory was remarkable and it was received by many people as being kind of inoffensively. So this is simply the next step. He was an inoffensive rather than a risky figure. But then just remember the way that he's the sheen surrounding him slowly came off. And much of it, I'm sure you remember this ban, much of it was focused on a political figure who is too dependent on teleprompters. Yes, he has a beautiful voice, but it's all written there for him. And then there were these these complaints and there were these little satires joking about his cadence about his stumbling when he was off the teleprompter. In other words, he suddenly went from being a charismatic figure to someone who is almost a manufacturer, someone who is being held up by all the accoutrements around him, surrounding him such that by the end, really, he wasn't a revolutionary figure at all. He wasn't a radical figure. He was extremely conventional, which made Donald Trump's off scriptedness. So striking, so offensive and compelling at the time. All right, let me give you both another example. Just send her out there. Wow. Any thoughts? I mean, in a way, her charisma is, and I don't deny her charisma. I think she's very charismatic. Her charisma met a particular moment. Yes. And that was the moment of cross church. We've got to be kept with all these figures in that they have often very differently apprehended outside their country than they are within the better. But early on, just in Germany, it was a real thing. She wins an election she should never have won. No one thought she would. I think off the back of that. And then COVID changes everything, but didn't change everything for everyone. What sort of charisma was that? What sort of figure are we talking about? about there that made. - I'm thinking about legacies then as well. This is another aspect, is it? Maybe we are, we impute charisma after the fact, not entirely, but I think this is important part of it. And of course, she has worked very well to kind of consolidate that idea of the compassionate leader. And so she's got a clear message, she's got her niche. But wouldn't you say the height of her charisma was in office? - It was, wasn't it? - It was, so you've got a surprise victory. Someone who, you know, eight weeks before the campaign didn't really know that they were going to be leading that party. The response to, and this goes back to the authenticity, entrepreneur, which maybe in this case sounds a little too, rather, it felt genuine to me. But like, her response to Christchurch was the thing that really kind of set her apart. But then of course, she incurs the wrath of some people during the lockdowns, or at least the response in New Zealand to that. But again, what's the charisma here? I mean, she embodied a kind of hope as well, didn't she? But more compassion, I think. And maybe each time we talk about a charismatic leader, maybe there's just something in their approach that resonates with a certain section or a sufficient section of the citizenry for them to feel like that is a charismatic person. I mean, we're also like describing trajectories of political life, you know, all political lives end in failure is to misquote, you know, pal. But like, that is, you know, maybe we're just sort of thinking about that bit where they're popular and successful. And they haven't started to receive the kind of critique that can eat away at how we perceive a particular person. But you can become popular and successful off the back of something other than charisma. I mean, I would say, I don't, people might disagree with this actually, but I would put some of my John Howard in that category. Successful, popular is a different question. I don't know that he was ragingly popular so much as seen as competent, safe, stable, whatever, and had a lot of haters as well. That was the nature of the time, his politics, et cetera. But I wouldn't say it was built off the back of charisma so much as ordinaryness. Can I put something to the two of you, though, because I do think Ben's notion of contrast. And I mean, contrast really was the thing that sustained John Howard throughout his, throughout his premiership. But I do think contrast is particularly interesting and irrelevant in the case of Jacinda Ardern. I mean, she had this moment where she almost held the possibilities of natural, of national healing and restoration in her own person. She held that out as a symbol of embodied or incarnate hope. But entirely dissimilarly to Ivana. OK, I think it's right. As a kind of racial post-racial figure. I think that's right. For Obama, yes. For Obama. But also remember that Jacinda Ardern also functioned singularly as a contrasting, progressive figure to Justin Trudeau in Canada who, on one level, seemed to have charisma, but ultimately it was just Riz, wasn't it? Ultimately, he came off as a kind of confected charismatic figure, whereas Jacinda Ardern was being held at as the new face of the progressive left. But here's where I wonder, could you have a more different figure to Justin Trudeau than Mark Connie? Banker, intellectual, well-spoken, not charismatic in traditional terms. And yet you would have to say that in terms of charismatic, global leaders, Mark Connie would be up there in the top two or three. Why? Precisely because of his articulativeness and his contrast to Trump in both disposition, but also his likeness to Trump in strength and forthrightness. And his preparedness to fight Trump, which is what, yes. The other thing to the mind field on ABC Radio National, well, they'd alley my name. Scott Stevens, my co-host. We're joined by Ben Wellings today, so as Professor of Politics and International Relations at Monash University. (upbeat music) I'm tempted to keep going through figures. And I don't know if this is the right way to do it. And I'd really love to know how you account for Nigel Farage. Right. For example, there's a garishness. He's now crashing on the shores of a bunch of things, scandals. Also, perhaps a sense that there's something a bit fake going on with all these things. But with any of these figures that we talk about, and feel free to talk about Farage or not, but with any of these figures that we're talking about, there's an arc, isn't there? There's a thing that gets lost. And so it seems that circling all of this is a question about whether charisma, political charisma, is definitely a weapon, it's definitely a tool. Is it inherent? Or is it entirely defined by the context that surrounds that person? The charisma of e, or it seems to me, could only be possible in a certain moment. There are moments where that is the opposite of charisma, there wouldn't be anything like that. There is a charismatic doomsayer. And people are attracted to that figure precisely because they are willing to say just how terrible everything is. That's right. I don't know that e, or would do it in a charismatic way. But yes, I understand your point. But I'm just wondering, Ben, whether we're trying to grasp something as though it were inherent, but actually it's not. Well, some of it's got to be learned and connected and enhanced, isn't it? So a charismatic person might go into a media environment that they're not familiar with. So to take your JFK, the Nixon, when he wouldn't put make-up on for the TV interview in 1960, new medium, he looked terrible at JFK with his make-up on look great. And that's often seen as a key moment. I think to take your forage example, he's had two decades in public life. One thing that sort of comes over about, in terms of charisma, is that he embodies the role. So I'm sort of thinking here about his Englishness, which he's not necessarily always very explicit about, except if you look at his clothes. And he embodies a sort of certain type of citigents-- slightly eccentric. Slightly eccentric, slightly mismatched colors. But what does that say about it? He says that I'm speaking from sort of a particular tradition. At the same time, I don't look like everyone else, the blue suits, if you know what I mean. And in particular, most recently, his main rival, if you like, was Keir Starmer. And Keir Starmer had that sort of that idea that he was supposed to be sort of just like the calm after the storm of the conservative years of Brexit leadership, right? It's almost any visible politician. It's almost the virtue of the government. Yeah, that's right. And so then the context sort of tests the character, doesn't it? And so I think this is going to sound too middle of the road. But I think the words, like the people's ability with words, I mean, obviously we learn that at some stage. But that's kind of the kind of deep learning that I think charismatic figures can bring, political figures. But some of it is learned and some of some of the times just suit the people better than others. And I think that's a lot about the media in which they present themselves. So that makes a handsome analysis pretty easy to do, doesn't it? Because, I mean, that's not about words in the Farage sense or in the Obama sense. It's words in a quite different way. It's words that convey authenticity and ordinaryness, but the charisma attaches to that. And it clearly doesn't seem performed. It would be hard to perform the words in that way. She's interesting because she's had a second coming to use, we haven't talked about religious charismatics. But a bit like Farage, actually. Yeah, yeah. Well, hers is more pronounced. She was literally locked away for a while, and then has come back and reinvented. It's recognizably the same thing, but with different emphasis. And maybe second time round will be more successful. But I think, again, that question about authenticity, that seems to be something that she can do. And other politicians for whatever reason seem not to do that. So that's partly because she's got the whole idea of speaking her mind and not really caring. But I do think it's possible to sort of push that a little bit too far, and you might start to sort of overstep people's norms and boundaries of behavior. But that's precisely the people who are attracted to her, are attracted to her for those kind of iconoclastic reasons. So here's my overarching question to both of you. When we're looking at the phenomenon of political charisma, in the various forms it takes, in the various contexts at the various times, does it work because it is telling us something true? It is pointing to something that is important and matters and is precious. Or is it seducing us to something that is the opposite of truth? It's misleading us in some way. I mean, maybe this is a false binary. And I suspect that's what you both say, because why wouldn't you say that? But-- Well, I would go just to go with the vulnerability of that false binary. Maybe in politics you create your own truths. And that's a lot of what we're seeing is charismatic leaders seeking to create. their own version of political truth and act on it. So part of the contest is over. This is why we sort of so exercised about mis and disinformation. But part of this is simply to turn the truth into something that is amenable to whichever groups world view. Does that mean there's a truth out there they're advocacy and manipulating? What does it mean they're creating the weather? What they're pointing to is not necessarily true. There's nothing true that's being communicated or that's done to provide what it is. I don't know if we can generalize at that point. Well, for instance, you can say that certain demagogues, for instance, tend to rise in conditions that are characterized by economic instability, disparity, collapsing trust, unequal opportunities, and so on. You can say that those are real conditions. But I think often where the charismatic figure comes in isn't just in the diagnosis of the condition that may well be something that's shared. But where they really do come into their own is in the simplicity or even the simplification of the solution. That solution may be, I alone can fix it. It may be those are the people to blame for all of your ills. It may be, government is too heavy and unresponsive and what we need to do is to pair things back and to centralize decision-making. So it may well be that the charisma is in the thrilling nature of the solution that is being described, which is why then happens when the charismatic figure enters office with all the hopes and the faith and the confidence in this quasi-messianic figure. And then they meet the grinding nature of political decision-making itself or the intractable nature of the problems that they said were easy to solve. That's when the allure begins to receive. Which in a moment like ours been, would it not that political charisma fades very quickly? Because the speed with which the complexity takes over our lives, the speed with which the context that made the charisma possible suddenly changes and so on, seems to be heightened in a way that, well, I certainly don't remember in my life. Yeah, I think a little historical comparison would be useful there. I mean, we do live in a complex age, but previous ages also had complexity just a different variety. So I'm not going to mention the third Reich. I will mention the Vymar Republic. So did Germany lose the First World War? Because it was stabbed in the back by its politicians. I think historians would say no. But of course, the Nazis were very able to capitalize on that broad feeling, channel it and channel it through particularly one person who was able to give voice to that and turn that into electoral advantage. So this is all about like new media and technology and the way that we presented or these figures are presented. But I think, yes, maybe the turnover would be quicker. I mean, I think compared to some of the giants of the 20th century, who billions of people invested their hopes in and it all went badly, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, they kind of look a bit like small beer. I think our current crop, but they're the ones that we live with and they're the ones that we've got. And so there will be something about like the turnover of charisma and possibly just like not the kind of broad agreement on this. I mean, maybe there aren't sufficient number of people who would even agree that Trump is charismatic. I mean, he may be, but-- Because there's no unified gaze any longer. So the bits of Trump you see will be different depending on what you're looking at. So it's possibly, we go back to that verbarian notion of charisma and he was writing that in the 20s. And with some of these emerging figures like Mussolini on his mind. So I think the charismatic are they're seeking to change the way that we perceive the world. But it is a two-way street. We are investing them with, we're kind of almost like giving them the ability to do that for us. We want them to do it. It makes me wonder if the thing that is actually useful about something like a monarchy is that if the charisma attaches to the station rather than the person, you can actually have someone in the office who might have certain very important skills that would not survive if it was worked actually all about them. I mean, there are other limitations that come in. That also misses the dimension of reciprocity or responsiveness that I do think is at the heart of the notion of political charisma. If the charismatic is simply out there, then if the reciprocity with a monarchy, just look at what happens when people flocked to the pomp and ceremony of it. You can cue your scruffier as well, I mean. - So much. - Scott, we're going to leave it there, I'm sorry. Ben, thank you so much. - Thank you. - Thank you again. Ben Welling, Associate Professor of Politics, International Relations at Monash University, I guess, for this week's edition of The Mindfield. We are at an end for this week, but we'll be back next week on ABC Radio National so you can listen to us there. Or any time you like on ABC, listen and go away and read the original text from 1926 of Winnie the Pooh. That is your homework. We'll be discussing it in a few weeks. Bye. (upbeat music) You've been listening to an ABC podcast. 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