Dear Dems, please stop saying Trump has "charisma". He does not.

A charismatic person wins over people who don’t like their ideas, or at least they didn’t before the person spoke. Does that sound like Trump to you?

No!  
Great observation and analysis. 

That’s not actually the definition of charisma though… That’s the definition of being persuasive.

Charisma is

“compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others.”

.(Per Oxford Language Dictionary)

I mean, I hate Trump with a passion.  I think he’s an idiot.  I don’t think he’s persuading anybody of anything that they don’t already believe to be true.

But do I think Trump arouses a devotion in himself by a group of near-fanatical followers?

I mean.. yeah.  I kinda do.  And that’s kind of the dictionary definition of “charisma.”

Trump possesses neither attractiveness nor charm. Which is why his followers falling for it is unforgivable. It’s the worst con ever. If Trump actually had charisma I’d be able to forgive these idiots after the smoke clears. I’d even have some sympathy there. Because he doesn’t and they are so wrapped up in this asshole anyways, is why they earn my neverending disgust instead. 

I think MAGA types find Trump very charming. I don't find him charming in the least but he's very drwquently described that way by devotees as funny and charming 

Back in 2016, Hillary Clinton had a VERY devoted following on this site. A TON of people admired and loved her, warts and all, and there were a ton of photo diaries and the like. It was different with Biden, whose supporters were more pragmatic. But the historic nature of Hillary’s candidacy really earned her a REALLY loyal following on this site. Not from everyone. But the love was real and ever present from some of us. 

I have never heard Hillary called charismatic ONCE simply because she inspired all that. If you want to call Trump charismatic for inspiring followers, you have to say the same thing about Hillary Clinton. 

But although I found Hillary’s personality utter endearing, she didn’t have charisma either. Why is it so easy for people to dismiss Hillary’s devoted followers and suggest Trump’s were more “real” when it comes to discussing charisma? Why does Trump get called that and Hillary doesn’t? I don’t think that’s actually the metric for it anymore in the modern age. The dictionary probably needs a bit of a update there. 

Take it up with Oxford and Websters?

He has tiny hands. An ugly combover. A nasally and whiny voice with a thick New York accent. He clearly wears make-up. His suits and ties don’t fit. He always stumbles over his words and says stupid nonsensical things. So yes, if THAT defines charismatic, the Oxford people probably oughtta be notified. 

Well “charismatic” is often used to describe people with a cult following, e.g. David Koresh.  The dictionary doesn’t say it means “person without faults.”

I suppose when people use the word about a creepy cult leader, they are thinking “I don’t know why anyone would be a fan of this creep; it must be that the creep possesses some sort of charisma that draws people to them.”   

It's not necessarily a compliment unless you’re using it to describe a person who’s not a creep, for example:

NPR (March, 2020):

Last summer, when Elizabeth Warren was bringing out thousands of people at mega-rallies who would wait long into the night in seemingly never-ending "selfie" lines, progressive groups were torn. They saw both Warren and her fellow presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as allies for their causes.

Sanders had inherited goodwill from his 2016 run against Hillary Clinton. But Warren was the charismatic star on late night TV who had fought the big banks during the recession and, notably, was the politician progressives had initially tried to draft into the 2016 primary as an opponent to Clinton before Sanders entered the race.

Here’s a Slate article (June, 2016) on this subject, which discusses a scientific definition of charisma (which suggests that Hillary Clinton is indeed charismatic in some settings) versus what the writer suggests is how people typically use the word, to mean “entertaining”:

[I]s the ability to draw people in just by opening your mouth really charisma, or is it just magnetism? Klein, Traister, and many others use the terms interchangeably, but psychologists who study charisma define it by different standards. According to Ronald E. Riggio, who’s studied charisma for decades, the trait requires expressiveness (the ability to communicate spontaneously and authentically), sensitivity (the ability to listen well and correctly read people’s emotions), and control (the ability to modulate emotions and fit in with different groups of people).

By this standard, Donald Trump is not charismatic. (He is expressive, surely, but neither sensitive nor controlled.) Neither are most American politicians in recent memory… One exception in the parade of charisma-less American politicians is Bill Clinton, who possessed all three ingredients, so much so that he could get away with saying that he felt other people’s pain.

Ironically, Traister’s profile suggests that Hillary, too, is charismatic when she meets with constituents and supporters one-on-one. …

So if most politicians aren’t charismatic, and Hillary actually is charismatic, then what is the quality that Hillary lacks yet Trump carries in spades? (Apart from a Y chromosome, I mean.) I think when people call Trump—or Palin, or even Bush—charismatic, what they really mean is that they’re entertaining. You never know what they’re going to say next, or how they’re going to say it. They’re exciting to watch, whether you relish or condemn every word that comes out of their mouths. Hillary certainly doesn’t have much entertainment value. After decades in the national spotlight, she’s composed and predictable in front of crowds, and she knows that the media will pounce on any misstep. And yes, there’s a gendered element to entertainment value: Palin was dismissed as an unserious airhead for saying things that weren’t as offensive and senseless as what Trump says on a daily basis. But it should be comforting to Democrats—and anyone else who shudders to think of a Trump presidency—that Hillary’s biggest personal weakness isn’t that she can’t connect with people (she can), but that she’s not a ton of fun to watch. After all, the former trait is crucial in the White House, but the latter is not.

Excellent observation, Rob — well said!

You could say much the same about say, Hitler, or Idi Amin, or Charles Manson.  All of whom are frequently described as charismatic.

Charisma can be mystifying to someone who doesn’t under stand the attraction of a given person.  Most people didn’t get why anybody would find Charles Manson, for example, yet to his followers he was described as hypnotic in the devotion he attracted.

You can only judge charisma based on the effect on followers, not on non-followers.  

I don’t find either charismatic, though Hilary Clinton might be in person. She certainly has some admirable qualities. tЯump is the white male supremacist’s idea of a “strong leader” though his phony  “strength” is nothing but greed, meanness and bullying.

I believe Trump has charisma because I’ve seen it.  It’s in a funny little smile he sometimes has—or had.  I haven’t seen it for a while.

Charisma is a funny thing.  The most charismatic person of my lifetime was JFK.  What was that about him?  I don’t know.  But a friend and I were nearly crushed to death trying to get close enough to touch him—and that was before he was president.  OK, that’s teen behavior.  But you can see it in Trump’s followers, and they’re not teens.

I don’t think charisma can be defined.  It’s one of those things that “you know it when you see it.”  And probably not everyone can see it in each case.  Certainly WE don’t see it in Trump—but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Who else had charisma?  Hitler comes to mind.  And I’m guessing the Jewish guy we now call Jesus probably had it in spades—even if the Romans couldn’t see it.

I’ve worked with people who had the ability to charm people in insidious ways.  People will overlook their negative traits — anger, hostility, divisiveness — or make excuses for them.  It never works on everyone, but a lot get taken in.  But the further and more deeply they fall, the more firmly they remain fooled,

It is the same with Trump.  Call it charisma, charm, whatever, but he has it.

And his followers have fallen so far, they’re like this.

x

Youffraita calls it “the Elvis Factor.” It’s real, but hard to describe in words — the power to dominate a space just by walking through the door. And yes, Bill Clinton had it too.

We Democrats have many fine elected leaders but very few with “charisma.”

I don’t agree that tЯump’s power is charisma, which is a positive emotion. It’s more a recognition that he hates the same people, worships the same power and greed, and would like to kill the same people they want to see die. That’s enough to establish slavish devotion to the ultimate strong man tЯump pretends to be.

Hitler is frequently described as charismatic.  Stalin, Idi Amin, Mao Zedong, Charles Mason , Warren Jeffs, and many dictators and cult leaders are frequently described as charismatic.

I don’t think charisma is considered a positive trait at all.  It’s neutral as to moral character or effect—the ability to attract a devoted following for good or evil.

You’re right if we consider charisma as being neither positive or negative; just being persuasive would be the criterion.

Or at least gets you to listen.

I wish I had gotten here first. Pretty much sums up my views. There’s no there there.  He simply says the hateful stuff his followers believe before anyone else of importance in the two parties would dare say. I also think his NYC roots help him. To so much of the MAGA crowd, one of the elites has defected to their side. The real elites, people who actually run real corporations that produce goods and services that someone actually wants never saw him as one of their own. The ones who have jumped on board do so only because he delivers so much of what they want — low taxes, deregulation, and a friendly scotus that has given them some presents and most likely will give them more.

Trump didn’t get where he did through charisma. He got there through marketing. For some people, that was some quality turd-polishing. None of it came from Trump himself. 

Agreed. D. Trump is just better at using the dark side of The Force than DeSantis.

Personally, I find both of them repulsive. But the worst thing about them, far worse than that, is that they are Republicans.

Abandon your Trump-centered worldview. For example, stop posting diaries with his name in the title. 

I agree that he's a con man who is very skilled in using marketing, celebrity and more to expand his fan base into a cult.

Trump Words Per Minute. TWPM. 

We've typed billions plus of words on this site. I am typing more words. Good or bad, our attention benefits him.

What if every Trump think piece on DKos voluntarily turned off its comments? A small step towards redirecting our attention to our own goals, not his.

This diary is using TWPM in the headline as bait to hype a webcomic. That's fine, but to chide others for propping up the the former president and fueling his attention machine? Think piece may be an overstatement.

Do you want me to take out the link? I can. 

You know what? No. Rereading the diary shows I put a LOT of time and effort into it. MANY people put extra links to their sites at the end of diaries. If this was one or two sentence with a bunch or fair use from other articles you might have a point. Or if I wrote 2 or 3 diaries a day doing that. But I only write diaries when I have something to say and putting the link at the end seems fair. It’s not like many people follow it. 

You can disagree with my conclusions about charisma. But don’t pretend that my essay was a bait and switch for a webcomic ad. That’s bullshit. 

Is this truly the first diary on Daily Kos you’ve encountered with Trump’s name in the title? 

It’s really a matter of semantics here.

Trump possesses the con man’s deft touch for manipulating his marks and gulls. Whether we call it charisma is beside the point. The central feature of every con is an appeal to the gull’s greed, to the desire for a secret or unfair advantage. It’s never to anyone’s better nature but to guilty desires. To the unearned leverage allowing you to crush your rivals. Trump appeals directly to his marks’ racism, selfishness and rage. He makes them feel good about their racism, greed, selfishness and desire for violence.

Why I agree that probably the majority of con victims are greedy, there are two other categories of victims: gullible and impaired. (An example of “gullible” would be people who are tricked into sending money to “bail a child out of jail”, and hoping to find “impaired” is why so many scumbag scam artists prey on the elderly.) I think a certain number of Trump supporters fall into each category, but there’s little doubt most are “greedy” in the broad sense that you suggest.

All the charisma of a fussy baby.

With a loaded diaper.

I expect you didn’t mean it, but you’ve hit on something.  Babies have charisma!  (Yes, even when fussy or with diaper loaded.)  Evolution has built it in so that adults will take care of them.  It fades gradually from about 18 months through 5 years.

When I saw this headline I realized that even supposedly rational, reasonable people can believe that Donald Trump is not the gloriously ignorant incompetent fool he has thoroughly demonstrated himself to be.  Trump supporters must see something of themselves in con man and scam artist Trump.  A great portion of our fellow citizens are not what we think they are and not what they say they are.

Some have noted that Hitler speeches had some “fans” fainting like at Beatles concerts. 

What too few people want to admit is that Trump’s supporters are the biggest fucking idiots on the planet. They don’t want to face the fact that so many of our fellow citizens are racist morons, so they invent excuses for them: “economic anxiety”, “Trump swayed them with his charisma”, etc. Bullshit! Trump is a charmless goon who spews racist word salad, and hateful bigots with room temperature IQ’s lap it up.

Yes. If Trump were charismatic, I could forgive them. 

Does Trump have as much charisma as Jim Jones had?

Obviously Jim Jones followers thought he did until the day of reckoning came calling, and then many of them came out of their stupor. Unfortunately for  them though, their awakening came to late for them. 

It may not be charisma or persuasiveness that generates such seemingly irrational and extreme support by his ‘base’. It seems to me that it is his success is in making racists actually believe they represent ‘real Americans’, that they are ‘decent’ people (“fine people on both sides...”) and that they have, in Trump, their Messiah to usher in their ascendancy. Democracy and truth be damned.

Don’t all skeevy real estate swindlers have charisma?

In Dungeons & Dragons, “Charisma” is a measurable statistic possessed by all beings.  For ordinary people, it can range from 3 (hideous) to 18 (incredibly magnetic).  The gods in D&D have statistics that can well exceed that but can also have NEGATIVE charisma (at least in 1st Edition with which I’m most familiar because I’m old).  A god with negative charisma is inhumanly horrifying . . . if you’re not an innately evil being.  To an evil being, negative charisma acts on them as positive charisma acts on decent people.

I believe that those of us who see right through Trump, knows he has no charisma, but those who are falling head over heels for him, see it differently. They do think he has charisma, and style, and strength-(the disillusioned masses)-but we who are “awake” know him to be a racist, hateful ,narcissistic charlatan. 

‘I think it is in the eye of the beholder ,on what they “think” they see. 

Is charisma a positive trait?  If that's your understanding then I get the objection.

Quentin Crisp said, "Charisma is the ability to influence without logic."

That's more or less what people mean when they call Trump charismatic, I think.

There is nothing compelling about your argument.  Trump is extremely charismatic in the same mold as any cult leader or authoritarian. You are misinterpreting the word to modulate your hate for the man but the underlying definition never changes.

Charisma is a powerful thing and there is a fine line between can use and abuse. My wife and I are acquainted with a well-known and highly charismatic motivational speaker. He is by far one of the most successful in that space. If he uses his charisma to get people to hand him gobs of money, would we describe that as appropriate use or misuse of his charisma?  He promotes a certain spirituality but does not promote a religion of any kind — which creates a fuzziness between him and a televangelist. In fact, he discovered at some point that adding whiffs of spirituality enhanced his marketing.

His charisma is as innate as the speed of a fast runner or the skill of a musical prodigy. He could sit at home being charismatic to the mirror or help people improve their lives. He could do it for free or make millions of dollars from it.

He could remain secular or he could discover that a little bit of spiritualism fattened his bank account.

He might even discover that his audience sees no irony in his words when he says, “Everything you need is within you.” while prattling about higher powers — and growing his audience as a result.

Charisma is a funny thing. But more important than whether Trump is or is not charismatic is how charismatic people use or abuse the gift.

Seriously, though, what the fuck is up with that? I've wondered for a long time why people keep saying that about him. He is absolutely repulsive, which says a lot about the people who (STILL) support him.

Charisma is like beauty in that the ultimate judge is “the eye of the beholder”. It’s not universal, and it can be heavily based in one’s mindset, emotional triggers, and social circle.

Someone can be seen as strongly charismatic to some audiences (Hitler and Trump), and strongly abhorrent to different audiences. The psychological and social factors that play into this are numerous, nuanced, and way out of my ability to understand in depth. I can recognize it to a degree.

I would say that defining charisma as a general term can be done with a degree of logic and reason. However, deciding who has charisma at an individual level is primarily an emotional decision, and may not have any logic behind it.

The best word I can think of to describe trump is repulsive.

Y’all — and I mean the author *and* quite a few of the commentators — just don’t get it.

As others have mentioned, the generally accepted definition of charisma is:

compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others

Note that the definition doesn’t say “inspire devotion in everyone”.

I don’t think that anyone can reasonably argue that Trump does not have devoted followers; those followers obviously find Trump charismatic, but let’s break it down by the characteristics mentioned in the definition above:

• Attractiveness: Do we really need yet another discussion of why the folks now known as MAGA/Trumpist find Trump attractive?  For many of them, it’s the “plain talking rich/powerful guy” persona, and it’s nothing new; Trump is just doing an NYC version of GWBush’s “guy you can sit down and have a beer with” and Senator John Kennedy’s (R-LA) adoption of a folksy country accent.
• Charm: The usual definition of ‘charm’ includes “bringing delight”.  Does anyone here want to argue that racists, misogynists, and/or bigots aren’t charmed and delighted by Trump’s openly racist, misogynist, and bigoted speech?  He isn’t only saying what they’ve long thought, but he’s empowered them to speak up — and act out — on a scale we haven’t seen in a long time.
• For bonus points, note how the “plain talking” characterization provides them a way to excuse and/or cover the racism, misogyny, and bigotry.  We’ve certainly heard ”oh, he’s just a blunt talker” more than once, haven’t we?

So, yeah, Trump obviously has charisma, even if it doesn’t work on us.

Totally agree.