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Forget the antiquated aphorism “Follow the Money.” Instead, adopt “Follow the Follower.” If you do, you’ll get closer, much closer, to what matters most.

The scandal resurrected around the decidedly dead Jeffrey Epstein is a quintessential example of how followers matter as much as leaders. For how this story ends will be determined not by the American president, nor by any other individual, nor for that matter by any branch of government. It will be determined instead by a collective composed of American voters – the collective known as MAGA. By Republicans across the country who have been deeply and unwaveringly devoted to President Donald Trump but who in theory, if not yet in practice, could be dislodged from their base.

I am not predicting it. What I am predicting is that what Trump does or does not do in the coming weeks will matter little if at all. Instead, the impact of the Epstein scandal, if ultimately any, will be determined by ordinary people who up to now have been reliable MAGA loyalists. It will be determined by Republican followers of whom Republican leaders have been, for fully a decade, seriously scared.

In yesterday’s post I discussed the success of President Donald J. Trump. Success as measured by how effective he has been, notably during the first six months of his second term, at getting done what he has wanted to get done. At shaping what he perceives as the nation’s agenda – and at what everyone agrees is the nation’s conversation.    

But in my previous post the phrase “getting it done,” referred to just one way of judging a leader. One way of judging their performance – and them – “good” or “bad.” There is however a second way, one that uses a different measure altogether. The first measure assesses a leader based on their effectiveness. How skilled are they at accomplishing what they set out to accomplish? The second assesses a leader based on their ethics. The first measure then is primarily about means, while the second is primarily about ends.

The cleavages in this country are not about the first. Many Americans who dislike Trump would agree that he has been a “good” leader in that he has been effective. But they would argue, and they do, that Trump is not ethical. Effective, arguably yes; ethical, decidedly no.

As I wrote elsewhere, humans are not widgets. “We are complex being with complex motives and incentives and we behave in complicated ways. What this means among other things is that many of us, perhaps most, are in some ways good and in some other ways not so good.” People who think Trump can do no wrong are resistant to the conception of complexity – of shades of gray as opposed only to black and white – as are people who think Trump can do no right. It is precisely this resistance to complexity that explains why Americans who loathe Trump cannot begin even to imagine anyone admiring him much less being a rabid fan. And vice versa.

There are cures for complexities. Or, at least, ways of making them less daunting. But in an America in which higher education is widely disrespected, extremity is widely rewarded, and nuance widely derided, cures can be considered worse than the disease.

Which raises this question: If Trump is “getting it done” what is the “it”?

Who might this leader be? President Donald J. Trump. Say what you will about Trump, six months in he’s gotten it done. He’s done most of what – during the interregnum (between his first and second terms) and the 2024 presidential campaign – he said he would do.  

In this limited but not unimportant sense we can say first that he is a man of his word; and second that his political skills are astonishing. They are that effective.

Trump has managed to keep most of his followers following in lockstep behind him, including his base, virtually every elected and appointed Republican official, and the Supreme Court. Moreover, in just a half year he and his administration have bent somewhat to their will a long list of American institutions including the media and academia; medicine and the military; business and finance; political culture and popular culture.

Trump leaves his thumbprint on everything that engages him or even briefly catches his eye. Will the Washington Commanders change their name back to the Washington Redskins? I have no idea. The point is that because of a message Trump posted (yesterday) on Truth Social – “The Washington ‘Whatevers’ Should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team” – this morning people are talking about it. Trump does not just shape the nation’s legislation he shapes the nation’s conversation.

One of the first books I wrote was titled, The Political Presidency: Practice of Leadership.* The question I sought to answer was how presidents got things done given that power in the American political system is divided.

America’s political culture has, traditionally, been anti-authority, anti-leadership. At the nation’s inception was a revolution which, by definition, was anti-establishment. In any revolution anything that smacks of the old order is intended to be torn down and replaced by something entirely new. In this case instead of an all-powerful distant king, a resident president, George Washington, himself a revolutionary, providing the original template.

Historically virtually every president has found that getting stuff done in the nation’s capital is difficult. Of course, the separation of powers, checks and balances were put in place for just this reason: to serve as a restraint, as a constraint, on the executive.

It is also accurate to say that over the two and a half centuries of American history executive power has waxed and waned. In 1973, when Richard Nixon was president, prominent historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. came out with a book titled The Imperial Presidency. As its title suggests, even then Schlesinger thought the executive had become too powerful, at the expense of both the legislature and the judiciary.

The Political Presidency sought to answer the question of which skills were important for presidents to have in a political system such as ours? One in which leadership is famously difficult. How many times did we hear over the years that Congress was “gridlocked”? Well, no such problem now. During the first half year of Trump’s second term what he wanted from Congress – and for that matter from the Supreme Court – he got from Congress. Moreover, most of the nation’s legislators seem to consider the idea that they have a constitutional role to play in, for example, appropriations, antiquated.

 So, what does Trump have that none of his predecessors did? What wand has he waved to get what he wants when he wants it, notwithstanding the constraints that stifled or at least stumped nearly all his predecessors? To these all-important questions here I provide just three necessarily brief answers.

The first is personal. Trump is a buccaneer and an entertainer. He looks like both and acts like both. He has a strong, sometimes even magnetic effect on those disposed to be in his orbit.

The second is systemic. It is impossible to understand what Trump accomplished by fixating on him and him alone. In addition, it’s essential to understand the changing nature of the American people and of the America within which we are situated. Neither is what it was even a generation ago.

The third answer to what Trump has that none of his predecessors did, at least not to this extent, is power. The word “power” has many meanings, and it is used in many ways. Here it implies fear. Trump has the power to instill fear in people, power that he freely uses. Exactly what are his followers afraid of? To this question the obvious reply applies especially to members of Congress: they are afraid that come the next election they will primaried by an unflaggingly loyal Trump supporter, and that therefore they will lose.

Anything else? Any other reason to be afraid of the American president?   

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Oxford University Press, 1984.  

It’s been my recent habit to post a piece on July 4^th.* This year I’m going back to basics – specifically to free speech.

The first amendment to the Constitution reads in part “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” But… it’s one thing to be free to have your say, it’s another to say it in a way that other people hear it.

In ancient Greece and Rome rhetoric was considered a cornerstone of a good education. And in the United States it used to be. Public speaking, or as it was sometimes called, speech training, was typically part of the American curriculum.  In fact, in colonial times, training in speech was thought almost as important as instruction in Greek and Latin. Moreover, through most of American history great orators were usually, ipso facto, great leaders. For example, Patrick Henry, Daniel Webster, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Martin Luther King, Jr.    

Now things are different. Few 21^st century Americans can claim mastery of oratory. While “communication” is standard in leadership curricula, few in public life speak in a way that others find compelling. Further, few understand that speech is the most important tool in the leader’s toolbox. How to persuade others to do what you want them to do without conveying your message? To convey what you want to say is not, of course, just about style. It’s also about content. Still, many was the time when former president Joe Biden had a good message to send but he did not – likely because he believed he could not. He could not communicate in a way that got people to pay attention.  

Communicating is different now from what it used to be because attention has become a scarce commodity – the competition for our attention is relentless. For the last decade or two social media has swallowed our time and now there’s AI. The New York Times recently reported that “as generative artificial intelligence has exploded over the last two years, the technology has been used to demean and defame political opponents and, for the first time, officials and experts said, has had an impact on election results.” Still, so long as humans are not entirely replaced by robots if we communicate and connect and how – especially how leaders communicate and connect with their followers – matters.

The miserable message-sending surrounding the resignation of James Ryan, President of the University of Virginia, is an example. Ryan was effectively forced out by the Trump administration. For those who believe that universities should be free of political interference, Ryan’s essentially obligatory resignation was sad as shocking. Equally bad was that Ryan was hung out to dry alone. No one – not a single member of UVA’s board, not a single public official – stood beside him when he announced he was leaving. Nor did anyone seize the occasion to send a message: that notwithstanding the long hand and iron grip of the American president Ryan had been a good leader worthy of his post.

Do these people grasp the importance of speaking truth to power? Instead of folding in silence. Do these people grasp the importance of trumpeting the truth, loudly, clearly so everyone can hear? Instead of folding in silence.

People were shocked when Zohran Mamdani came out of nowhere to clobber former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City. Why? Did they not note what happened?

In the months before the election Cuomo was nowhere to be seen while Mamdani was everywhere to be seen. Not just everywhere seen but everywhere heard. Mamdani benefited greatly from his sophisticated use of social media. But while his run for mayor seemed new and different, in fact it was curiously, amusingly, old and familiar. He campaigned in person, one on one, face to face, in what seemed every street and alley of New York City. In his invariably dark suit, white shirt, and knotted tie he cut an immediately recognizable figure, speaking to whoever would listen, delivering a message that, whatever you think of it, grabbed people’s attention. Here, finally, was a candidate who visibly and audibly hit the ground running.   

Contrast his dynamism with the miserably poor communicators who now lead the Democrats in Congress – Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries. OMG! No matter how smart and sensible their message is, they are so poor at sending it that no one listens. On their watch ethical boundaries have been erased and accountability has been dismantled. But whatever the Democrats’ moral outrage, as a party, a group, and as individuals they have proven incapable of packaging it in a way that gets the nation’s attention. Jeffries’s last ditch effort yesterday to claim center stage – as the White House was about to extract exactly what it wanted from Congress, the passage of its “big, beautiful” spending bill before July 4th, Jeffries delayed the final vote by speaking on the floor of the House for nearly nine hours – was the approximate equivalent of a final cry from the fast-sinking Titanic.   

Donald Trump provides an interesting contrast. No one would claim him a brilliant speaker. Nor would anyone say his content is compelling. Quite the opposite. It tends to be mangled and jumbled, vague and imprecise, full of flights of fancy and outright lies. Still, Trump makes himself available to the press and the public it seems every hour of every day. To his benefit he is a relentless hog for attention – tirelessly, and, yes, effectively, selling both himself and his wares. Even during the interregnum, while Biden was in the White House and Trump was out, the former was scarcely seen while the latter was in full view.

Freedom of speech is what we make of it. Americans should however be clear. When democracies are threatened silence is not golden. Speaking truth to – and about – power is step one. Step two is speaking it so that others hear it.     

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*See, for example:

July 4, 2023 – Leadership and Followership in America

Leadership in America – a July 4th Primer

Leadership – whether as theory or practice – is plagued by problems of semantics. I have written about this before, for example, in an earlier post in which I lamented that in the academy, though nowhere else, the words “leader” and “leadership” are presumed preceded by the word “good.” We assume without question that leadership classes and programs … are dedicated to promoting leadership that is good. I went on to add that this would be fine IF the leadership industry did not thoroughly ignore leadership that was bad.*   

Even definitions are problematic. The words “leader” and “leadership” have not tens of different definitions but hundreds. The words “follower” and “followership” are even more confusing. For example, in my lexicon followers are defined not by their behavior but by their rank – which is to say that in my lexicon followers do not always follow.**

I raise the issue today because of my most recent post in which I wrote about the newly resigned University of Virginia President James Ryan, and the soon to be retired Republican Senator Thom Tillis. I observed that both were “leaders forced out by a leader [President Trump] more muscular than they.” Then I added that both were followers “who reluctantly followed where Trump led.”    

All true – but it does present a problem of semantics, or maybe logic. How can a person be, simultaneously, a leader and a follower? Part of the answer is context. A person can be a leader in one situation but a follower in another.  The longtime CEO of JPMorgan, Jamie Dimon, is one of the most admired leaders in corporate America. But would I want him to lead me down a treacherous mountain path? Unlikely.  

Another part of the answer is rank. Like all great apes, humans live in groups, groups that are organized hierarchically. So, say you are somewhere in the middle of the group, and say this group is an organization. Chances then are good that you will have some subordinates, some people to lead and manage. Chances are equally good that you will have some superiors, some people who lead and manage you. Which is why it would be correct to say that within the organization you are, simultaneously, a leader and a follower.

It’s complicated. When it comes to leadership and followership it’s more than occasionally necessary to hold two apparently contradictory ideas at the same time.

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*https://barbarakellerman.com/language-of-leadership/

** See, for example, Barbara Kellerman, Followership (Harvard Business School Press, 2008).

Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States is the title of a small, highly influential book published in 1970, written by economist Alfred O. Hirschman. For a student of leadership and followership it provides a marvelously parsimonious model of the choices available to followers dissatisfied with their leader. They can choose privately, quietly, to quit the group. They can choose publicly, noisily, to quit the group but, at the same time, to voice their objection. Or they can choose, despite what they think and feel, to remain in the group.

This past weekend we had two examples of followers who chose to exit – and to voice. In both cases their leader was President Donald Trump. And in both cases the followers were leaders themselves who nevertheless concluded that whatever their own power and authority, it was dwarfed by that of the nation’s chief executive. Need evidence that Trump is a strongman? Read on.

The first example was the resignation under pressure by the President of the University of Virginia (UVA), James E. Ryan. UVA is one of the nation’s most prestigious public universities. Ryan, then, has held one of the most prestigious jobs in American higher education.  Nevertheless, when the White House decided it wanted him to leave – because he was slow to dismantle policies promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion – leave he did. The administration had a couple of cudgels to wield – among them the threat of withholding large amounts of federal funding from UVA, and continuing investigations by the Justice Department. Still, when Ryan succumbed it was a shock.

Excerpt from Ryan’s statement:

I am writing, with a heavy heart, to let you know that I have submitted my resignation as President of the University of Virginia…. I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job. To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered to the hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld….

If this were not so distinctly tied to me personally, I may have pursued a different path. But I could not in good conscience cause real and direct harm to my colleagues and our students in order to preserve my own position.

The second piece of evidence of against Trump – or for him, depending on your point of view – was the announcement yesterday by Republican Senator Thom Tillis that he would not run for reelection.  Tillis chose to withdraw now from his next race (in 2026) because he knew that if he did not, he would be primaried – forced out of North Carolina politics by MAGA Republicans who detested his occasional resistance, such as now, to the president’s budget bill, to the Oval Office. Tillis is not, though, going quietly. He is exiting all right, but he is also speaking to the “hypocrisy in American politics.”

Except from Tillis’s statement:

When people see independent thinking on the other side, they cheer. But when those very same people see independent thinking coming from their side, they scorn, ostracize, and even censure them.

Too many elected officials are motivated by pure raw politics who really don’t give a damn about the people the promise to represent on the campaign trail. After they get elected, they don’t bother to do the hard work to research the policies they seek to implement and understand the consequences these policies could have on that young adult living in a trailer park, struggling to make ends meet.

As many of my colleagues have noticed over the last year, and at times even joked about, I haven’t exactly been excited about running for another term. That is true since the choice is between spending another six years navigating the political theater and partisan gridlock in Washington or spending that time with [my family]. It’s not a hard choice and I will not be seeking reelection.

Though their circumstances were different, in the end Ryan and Tillis were the same. Both were leaders forced out by a leader more muscular than they. And both were followers who reluctantly followed where Trump led. Finally, while both did voice their concerns, Ryan will be out this summer and Tillis next year.

          If a leader wants to lead a follower the leader has three wellsprings from which they can draw. The first is power. The second is authority. And the third is influence.

          Presuming that “A” is the leader and “B” the follower, here the definitions and distinctions.

• Power is A’s capacity to get B to do what A wants, whatever B’s preferences, by any means necessary, including the use of force.
• Authority is A’s capacity to get B to do what A wants, whatever B’s preferences, because of A’s superior position, rank, status, or credential.
• Influence is A’s capacity to get B to do what A wants, whatever B’s preferences, of B’s own volition.

In the past, leaders in America were able to draw on all three. Leaders in government and business, in the military and the media, in religion and education, whatever their sector, had the benefit of abundance. So, occasionally they drew on power; frequently they drew on authority; and regularly they used influence to get their followers to do what they wanted them to do.

These were of course applied in different ways and different measures by different leaders. Longtime CEO of JPMorgan, Jamie Dimon is a different leader in a different time from longtime CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch. As is President Donald Trump from President Jimmy Carter. Still, the essentials remained the same. Power, authority, and influence were available to leaders who wanted to lead.

But leadership is not a person, it is a system with three parts, each of which is of equal importance. Leaders, and followers, and contexts. The last is why it’s likely that leadership in America will forever be different from leadership in China.

Context though is not just about place. It is also about time. So, leading in America in the year 2025 is different from leading in America in the year 2000 and very different from leading in America in 1975 or 1950. Changes in technology are an obvious example of how times change, and of how these changes impact how leaders lead, and followers follow.

But I write here about something less obvious. About how one of the three wellsprings to which I referred – authority – has been, though not completely depleted, greatly reduced. Authority is far less valuable a resource for leaders, especially for leaders in America, than it used to be.

Specifically, position and rank still matter. They especially matter in the workplace where subordinates are still inclined to fall in line behind their superiors. What matters less though than it did is status. We are less in awe of those more highly situated than we used to be. But what matters much, much, less than it did is credential. Whatever credential we have, whatever our claim to knowledge or expertise, it is no longer so important, nor does it any longer entitle leaders to lead followers.

In 2017 Tom Nichols wrote a book, The Death of Expertise, in which he pointed to a trend. “Not only,” he wrote, “do increasing numbers of lay people lack basic knowledge, they reject fundamental rules of evidence…. This is more than a natural skepticism toward experts. I fear we are witnessing the death of expertise itself.” A similar point was made by Gil Eyal, in his book, The Crisis of Expertise.

Recently were two articles that lent the argument further credence.  In the New York Times piece, “The Expert Class Joins the Endangered List in Today’s Washington,” David Sanger wrote: “The most dangerous occupation in Washington these days is being an expert.” As Sanger points out, not just denigrated but dismissed in the last several months were government experts in the military, national security, intelligence, aviation, cybersecurity, veterans’ issues, public health, you name it.

An article in The New Yorker by Daniel Immerwahr, “Doctor’s Orders,” focused on Americans’ increasingly widespread resistance to experts who are doctors and scientists. Even in the recent past we trusted them. Now not so much. Robert F. Kennedy. Jr., President Donald Trump’s choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services, is a cause or maybe a consequence of the syndrome. He adheres to beliefs that mainstream science discredit and espouses ones that are marginal. Kennedy is suspicious of the pharmaceutical industry, supports unproven and unsanctioned drugs, and makes wild accusations against members of the medical establishment. Whatever their errors and failures, when science and medicine are attacked, when experts in any field are excluded or derided, and when the vice president of the United States says we must “honestly and aggressively attack the universities,” it’s safe to conclude the authority of the credential has bit the dust.     

Many American leaders are in positions of leadership precisely because they are experts. When their claim to authority is based on their expertise which, however, now counts for little or even nothing, their authority obviously is weakened.

It’s one of the reasons why leading in 21^st century America is not just difficult but thankless. Ever ask yourself why just last year CEO turnover rates reached record levels?

No one – certainly not the organizers – anticipated it. They were a motley collection coalescing for the occasion. The occasion was “No Kings Day” which even a few days before only a plugged-in few had even heard of. The day was a random Saturday in June. There was no program or agenda. And there was no single designated center or speaker. It was all rather loosey-goosey, slightly haphazard and lightly organized, more of an experiment in political movement than a political movement.

And yet. And yet it turned out to be some five million strong. It turned out either the largest political demonstration in American history ever or among them.

For all its anonymousness and amorphousness No Kings Day did have one central organizing principle. It was vigorously, decisively, and unambiguously against President Donald Trump. It was to put a stake in the ground – to demonstrate to the American people generally and this leader particularly that large numbers of his followers were as fiercely angry as deeply unhappy with most everything he was and most everything he did.

It took a while for dissenters in numbers to be seen or even heard. Moreover, where they, we, are headed from here is not clear. Still, for those among us who fret about the future of American democracy it was a splendid display and heartening day. It was a real-time reminder of how good followers can stand up to a bad leader.     

Last year I came out with a book titled, Leadership from Bad to Worse: What Happens When Bad Festers. The book was a warning. It warned that without exception – unless and until they are stopped or at least slowed by something(s) or someone(s) – bad leaders become worse leaders.

This progression is universal. This progression is inevitable. This progression is inexorable. This progression is ubiquitous. Always and everywhere bad leadership – like every other malignancy – starts small and then it gets larger. It grows, then grows more, and keeps on growing unless and until finally it is excised. If, on the other hand, it is never removed, it will transform what was original into what is unrecognizable.

The term “tipping point” seem at odds with this process. Because it implies change that is major not minor, tipping point further implies change that is sudden. But when “tipping points” are defined as a series of small changes that in time become larger and more significant, they can be seen as integral to the progression in which bad leadership becomes worse.

The United States is, then, at a tipping point. For just six months into his second term, President Donald Trump has let loose force. He has let loose force not abroad – about which he is skittish. He has let loose force at home – about which he is decidedly not skittish.

The most obvious evidence of this is of course in California. Though you and I might differ about the specifics of the situation in Los Angeles, we might nevertheless agree that federalizing the national guard and sending in 700 marines to maintain order in one square mile of the city is overkill. But I refer not to California. I refer instead to Washington DC where this weekend a an imposing military parade will take place, ostensibly to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army and, oh yes, the 79^th birthday of the commander in chief.  

I don’t like the idea of showy military parades under any circumstances – they are associated with autocracies not democracies. However, my objection is not to the parade per se. Rather it is to what Trump said in connection with the occasion. Yesterday he threatened that anyone who protests his parade will be punished. “People that want to protest will be met with big force,” the president said. These are people “that hate our country. They will be met with heavy force.”

Which is precisely why the United States is at a tipping point. Twice in one week Trump has made clear that he sees the American military as his military. To be used when and how sees fit, no matter the law, no matter the Constitution.

If you think this is the end of it, think again. If you think, for example, American elections will be exempt from Trump’s infractions, think again. If the president gets away with using the miliary for his purposes this week, think what will happen next. Think leadership from bad to worse.  

The title of this post is the subtitle of a book by Post. Specifically, it is the subtitle of a book by Jerrold M. Post, titled Leaders and their Followers in a Dangerous World. As I was looking through the book this morning I found myself stopping at chapter 9. It’s titled, “Narcissism and the Charismatic Leader-Follower Relationship.”

Post died a few years ago. But he had a long, prolific career as a psychiatrist, academic, and analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency. In all three roles he applied his expertise in psychology to politics, especially as it pertained to people in positions of political leadership, including heads of state.  

Given my interest in followers rivals my interest in leaders, I have occasionally gravitated to Post’s work. For he more than most understood that leaders do not operate in vacuum, in isolation. Necessarily they interact with and absolutely depend on their followers.   

Leaders and their Followers in a Dangerous World was published in 2004, long before the Time of Trump. Still, what Post wrote, specifically about charismatic leaders and their followers, is as timely as relevant.    

For the purposes of this discussion, I will assume that President Donald Trump is a narcissist. He has never been formally or professionally diagnosed as such. But for at least the last decade he has been labeled a narcissist by experts and laypeople alike, both seriously and casually. The parallels between Trump and his followers and what Post has to say about charismatic leaders and their followers are in any case striking.

To be clear: being narcissistic and being charismatic are not one and the same. Not all people who are narcissistic are charismatic, and not all people who are charismatic are narcissistic. Still, according to Post, the “narcissistic personality helps us understand the nature of the charismatic leader-follower relationship.”

Here nine Post points for interested readers to consider:

• Charismatic leaders require a “continuing flow of admiration from their audiences to nourish their famished selves.”
• Central to charismatic leaders’ ability to “elicit admiration is an ability to convey a sense of grandeur, omnipotence, and strength.”
• Charismatic leaders “convey a sense of conviction and certainty to those who are consumed by doubt and uncertainty.”
• Analyses of speeches by charismatic leaders reveal a good versus evil, strength versus weakness, “all or nothing polar absolutism.”   
• Such either-or categorization, with charismatic leaders on the side of the angels, “is a regular characteristic of their evocative rhetoric.”
• Post quotes eminent psychiatrist Heinz Kohut who found that certain types of narcissists “display an apparently unshakable self-confidence and voice their opinions with absolute certainty.”   
• Followers of charismatic leaders are characterized as “ideal-hungry personalities.” They experience themselves as worthwhile “only so long as they can relate to leaders who they can greatly admire.” Followers like these are “forever” searching for leaders who are “idealized figures.”
• Charismatic leader-follower relationships can yield outcomes that are “destructive,” as in the cases of Adolph Hitler and Ayatollah Khomeini. Or they can yield “powerful transforming social movements” as in the cases of Mahatma Gandhi or Mortin Luther King Jr.    
• Charismatic leaders must be seen in tandem with their followers. Therefore, the word charisma does not properly apply to the leader; it applies to the leader-follower relationship.

On the assumption that Post made a good case, finally an irony. Long one of the most lacerating charges against Trump is that he is a narcissist. It is, however, precisely this narcissism that could explain his tight grip on the many millions who follow where he leads.

This grip is not, however, necessarily permanent. It just seems that way.