What is one quality every memorable leader has possessed? Charisma. It is a powerful tool in their arsenal, but also quite a dangerous one. In this election cycle, the GOP is faced with a man with much charisma, but it shadows some of Donald J. Trump’s more cynical aspects from his supporters. His “winning” of the Republican nomination was masked by threats, divisiveness, insults, and other informalities that has dragged the GOP namesake through the mud.
In the last century, many leaders who had a positive impact on the world wielded charisma not as a weapon, but as a method to communicate their messages and bring people together. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, struggled with polio in his early life. Most would not think this would make anyone charismatic, but this illness (while it significantly weakened his legs) gave him the strength to carry on throughout his life, and he transcended his strength to millions of struggling Americans during the dark years of the Great Depression and the Second World War.
One man who emerged out of Roosevelt’s era was the future was the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. A commander of a patrol torpedo boat in World War II, young Lieutenant Kennedy and the crew of PT-109 would make history after being stranded at sea and surviving, greatly due to Kennedy’s great leadership skills and ability to keep calm. This experience showed the United States what kind of man Kennedy was: a calm man, able to keep heads cool in a time of high tension and short tempers. This show of great character and inspiring charisma got John Kennedy elected in 1960, inspired millions to “ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country,” and, along with the work of his cabinet, spared the world from annihilation in 1963’s Cuban Missile Crisis.
Charisma was a trait carried not only on-screen, but also in reality by none other than the “Great Communicator” Ronald Reagan. As President of the Screen Actors Guild in the 1950’s, many colleagues were caught in a communist witch hunt by Congressman Joe McCarthy. His exposure in Hollywood and later in politics as governor of California gave him insight to both conservative and liberal points of view, which led him to bridge the two parties together and achieved much progress during the 1980’s, along with the weakening Soviet Union, ensured his place as one of the greatest American presidents in history.
History’s greatest villains have also had the charisma to inspire their countrymen to join their cause. Adolf Hitler came from the humblest beginnings: a patriotic soldier in the German Army in the Great War (WWI), wounded and exposed to weaponized gas. He became an artist after the war and failed to sell a single piece of work. Sick of the ruling government and the economic crisis his nation was in, he rose among the ranks of the Democratic National Socialist Party and eventually influenced an entire nation that a single group of people were to blame for their troubles. Adolf Hitler divided Germany; turning Germany into an “us versus them” environment. The rest is history. Six million dead because of their religion. Six million more murdered because of the way they looked, what they believed, or the way they thought.
Joseph McCarthy, a small time senator from Wisconsin, took advantage of the political climate and the “Red Scare” and started a witch-hunt in America in the 1950’s. Anyone who supported the Communist Party in America was dragged in front of Congress to testify, their loyalty to the nation questioned, and some imprisoned for purely having a different ideology than those on Capitol Hill. Americans called in their neighbors, purely to see them taken away or because of some prior wrong in their life.
We are now at a point in history where another man presents an idea of “us versus them”; I am not saying Republicans versus Democrat; conservative versus liberal- no, American versus American. Donald Trump has addressed disenfranchised Americans, and has given them hope, a new direction. But Trump has no story of leadership, no story of overcoming struggles, growing up poor, serving in the military, or being exposed to adversity. Everything he has has been given to him, he has no experience achieving his own success. Trump has talked about deporting millions of Mexican immigrants, many of whom have stayed in the States long enough to be citizens. He talks of blocking any Muslim from coming into the country, including innocent refugees of a conflict they are not responsible for starting. He has even caused infighting in the Republican Party, with now-Trump supporter Mike Huckabee going on live television and saying “[If Republicans who won’t support trump as their nominee] won’t support the people that the Republicans nominated, they need to get out of the Republican Party and admit they’re no longer Republican; that they’re something else.” If I dare say that I cannot support Donald Trump for President, it is clear that I don’t want to “make America great again,” and I will be excommunicated by Republican leadership. I am one of many voices, and I will not be silenced.
