In The Prince, there were two main points that interested me the most and seemed to connect to earlier concepts we’ve learned in class. The first is that “men are so simple and so ready to obey present necessities, that one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.” (Machiavelli, 122). Machiavelli’s point ties directly into the idea of toxic charisma. Certain people will always be attracted to charismatic people (the Prince), regardless of the deception/falsehood of what is being said. A modern example would be how the German population adopted Hitler’s ideology despite it being terrible.
The second main point was that it is “not necessary for a prince to have all the above-named qualities, but it is very necessary to seem to have them” (Machiavelli, 123). I thought this was interesting, because Machiavelli is saying that the populous only must believe the prince has the qualities of a good ruler, when they could just be putting on a front. This made me think that leaders (princes) could just be eloquent scammers and that is enough to make the state stable.
Overall, the reading was interesting because Machiavelli wasn’t reflecting on what a leader should be, but rather on what a leader must be to remain in power. That could follow the path of just actions, but more likely than not it would require the prince to be cruel, but not cruel to the point of engendering hatred.
I also found the second point interesting because I think that it is very closely related to the idea of toxic charisma. Machiavelli says that it is only necessary for a leader to appear to possess these certain qualities, which I think makes it easier for toxic charismatics to manipulate people.
I agree with the comment above that both of these points deals with toxic charismatics. For the first point, I believe that your example was a good way to explain how men are so easily tricked by showing how Hitler was able to manipulate his followers into committing such awful crimes. To go along with your second point that it is not necessary for a leader to have the qualities but to make it seem like he/she does, we talked about in class how almost all charismatic leaders are essentially actors.