“Crooked Politics: Shakespeare’s Richard III and Leadership in 21st Century America” by Dr. Bezio is a great way to compare two leaders, Richard III and Trump, from different centuries and show that politics have not changed as much as we thought they have. Although we now have a multitude of technology, from smartphones to smart cars, we are still very much human and can be fooled by the image politicians show us. “Toxic leaders are attractive precisely because they promise those things that followers feel (or fear) are under threat…” (Bezio 5). This is one of the tactics used by Trump in order to gain the alt-right wing Republican votes. With the strong xenophobia surrounding our country, especially after the 9/11 attack and all of the mass shootings occurring, it was easy to tap into that fear of terrorism and use that to his advantage by creating slogans like “Build the wall”.
Both Trump and Richard understand that they need to persuade their audience into believing that they are the most reasonable choice for office/throne and are willing to use manipulation in order to get what they want. In an interview before the 2016 elections, Trump stated that “if [he] were to run, [he’d] run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country… [he] could lie and they’d still eat it up”. Trump is very much aware of the ideals of the party he represents thus, is able to manipulate them and use them for his personal gain. Our democracy is an imperfect process and is unable to reflect the true popular vote of our country. According to a couple articles, in 2016 voter turnout was around 60%, which is a little over a half. There are many factors contributing to this like unreasonably long poll lines, with the polls only being open during working hours. Many people are not able to take a break/off day from work to be able to wait in those long lines in order to vote, eliminating a big percent of the population. Until reading this article I was never aware as to how many similarities Trump and Richard shared with one another and it is interesting and a bit scary to think that history could be repeating itself.
Before doing this reading I did not know much about Richard III, so it was both very interesting and a bit scary to read about these parallels after learning how Richard III’s rule turned out. I agree with you that it is especially scary to think that even though our world has changed so much since then, it is still so easy for us to fall into the trap of toxic charisma and end up with a tyrant leader.
I think that your argument is extremely strong, and reminded me of the Stanford Prison Experiment, and how people can be easily manipulated, especially by authority. Many people can be easily convinced of something and then believe they are following the right thing.