Richard III is a perfect person to tie together what we have been talking about in class which is leadership and tyranny. He made his way to the throne by using toxic charisma and this shows the bad type of charisma. Bezio compares Donald Trump to Richard III. Trump is a modern day Richard III. He is in the way of how he used toxic charisma to get the the “throne”, or presidency, minus the murders of course. Richard III was an actual tyrant while Trump only shows characteristics of one and can’t be truly named one.
Personally I could always see how Trump used Toxic charisma to gain supporters even before he was elected. However, it was interesting to see how Richard III could gain supporters while being such an evil tyrant. As humans in the past and in the present day you would think we would see the signs of a sort of tyrannic leader and wouldn’t let the gain power, but as we can see one case from the past (Richard III), and one case from the present (Trump), we continue to let these people who use toxic charisma to gain power.
You bring up an interesting point that humans should have learned how to identify toxic charismatic behavior by now. I think it is a very complicated issue because in many cases we don’t realize that a leader is are toxic until it is too late (or as Bezio mentioned: “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”). It was interesting to see how similar Trump and Richard III are when it comes to manipulating their audiences.
I think you have an interesting point regarding why humans fail to recognize the characteristics of toxic charisma in leaders. Two things we talked about in my class came to mind. First, hind sight is always a bit more clear than in the moment and I think that plays a huge role in recognizing ineffective leadership. Secondly, we talked about it being difficult to recognize toxic charisma because it might not be toxic to begin with. That shift between positive and toxic comes from the individual charismatic and could happen at anytime.
It was always terrifying to me… the idea that someone, a leader, can use corrupt methods and charisma to come into power. I think you made a very intriguing point on how Richarch III “could gain supporters while being such an evil tyrant, “. I believe this is very interesting because it really makes no logical sense to me. I understand how manipulation can lead one to act or behave a certain way but it is interesting how people like Richard III can remain in their position … just because of power.
I also found this quite terrifying, the idea that we can’t know a charismatic leader until its too late. Bezio explains the patterns of a toxic charismatic include deception which is dangerous because the general people don’t understand is happening until its too late and then the toxic charismatic has already gotten what they wanted to achieve.
I really enjoyed this post because in the article we read it talks about learning from history and not to repeat the same mistakes made in the past. However many of characteristics or a Tyrannical leader are linked to trump yet the American people elected him into office. I find it very interesting how history has a way of repeating itself and how people with tyrannical ideals still make their ways into positions of power.
I would disagree that Trump is a modern day Richard III although I do believe he shares a lot of the same toxic charisma that Richard III showed in the 1500’s.