DANGEROUS CHARISMA by Jerrold Post is about "The Political Psychology of Donald Trump and His Followers." We have heard SO much about that in the past few weeks as the 2024 election cycle ramps up. It is extremely disconcerting. Post, who served multiple decades with the CIA and was the founding director of the Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, divided his text into three sections: the Charismatic Leader, the Political Psychology of Trump’s Followers, and Trump's Impact. In a chapter titled "The Quintessential Narcissist," Post noted traits like inability to empathize with others, no constraint of conscience, paranoid orientation, unconstrained aggression, underlying insecurity, and extreme sensitivity to slight; he included numerous and varied examples relating to Trump. In a later section Post noted, "there is a quality of mutual intoxication for both sides, whereby Trump reassures his followers who in turn reassure him of his self-worth." Another chapter, called "Permission to Hate," chronicles how Trump's "derogatory language has the power to inspire hate crimes" and "using hateful rhetoric toward already discriminated against groups helps make a climate where hate is more acceptable." Numerous statistics support these assertions. This text was published in 2019 so that was prior to January 6, 2021. Post did not see that day (he died in late 2020), but in this book he acknowledged the possibility of Trump not accepting the election results. Post's wife says, "“He felt ... that psychiatrists have a duty to warn." Unfortunately, we see much of what Post predicted coming to the forefront of American politics again. Kirkus summed up DANGEROUS CHARISMA well: "A damning study of Trump's mind that goes a long way toward explaining some damnably odd behavior." More recently, The Washington Post published an article titled "Science is revealing why American politics are so intensely polarized" which, like Jerrold Post, turns to political psychology for explanations. It discusses tribalism and "othering, aversion, and moralization" to activate emotional responses.
Article link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2024/01/20/polarization-science-evolution-psychology/

This was a really informative book about Trump and his followers. The author wrote about the psychological reasons why his followers are so loyal and goes into detail about Trump's narcissism. This book truly shows how much of a hold Trump has over his loyal followers.

The author of Dangerous Charisma is an expert of political personality profiling. He ran a pilot CIA program to profile world leaders including Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat at the height of President Carter’s search for peace in the Middle East.

However, since Dangerous Charisma is about the most controversial President ever, Donald Trump, I can tell how you will rate it based on your party affiliation. Democrats will love it. Republicans will hate it. So if you are Republican move on and read Piety and Power about Mike Pence or Witch Hunt about Trump himself. There are books on each side of the aisle and actually the Pence book is very good.

Now, back to the Democrats. I don’t think calling Trump narcissistic or “mirror hungry” is particularly new. You hear it multiple times per day on MSNBC. That being said, it is new to wrap these issues in the official psychological jargon from the DSM, the manual to diagnose behavioral disease. Plus there are some great talking points for cocktail parties like that Citizen Kane is Donald’s favorite movie, which is about an unhappy wealthy narcissist much like Trump himself.

I enjoyed the look at the psychological underpinnings of Trump’s diehard supporters. It states that in times of stress, like being unemployed and seeing all their nearby factories close, leaves people looking for a voice in the wilderness stating follow me to the promised land where America is great again. Obviously, if you are a Trump supporter, you are not going to like hearing yourself characterized in this manner. You could be comfortably reading the Art of the Deal again and now you are so upset that you are planning on trolling me on social media. I’m just repeating what the author is saying. Please troll someone closer to the source material.

Speaking of the book, despite being a lifelong Democrat that held her nose while voting for Hillary in 2016, I don’t think Dangerous Charisma Is very good. It won’t change anyone’s mind and instead will just drive our fractured political system further apart. It also reads like an undergrad textbook. However, the cogent summary of the Trump presidency’s effects on the public’s mental health, strategies of the Democratic Party, and the United States’ ongoing foreign policy pulls my rating up to 3 stars.

Thanks to Pegasus Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.