Why did leaders stop pretending to be humble?
When I was growing up, my father worked as a middle manager at a large insurance company. He was relatively new to the business world — he had previously taught at a community college — and used to marvel at the peculiarities of corporate culture. One thing he remarked on was the emphasis on informality — insincere but, I think, meaningful all the same. My father, his superior, and his subordinates were all expected to be on a first-name basis, without explicit use of titles. Your boss was your boss, and you'd better not forget it, but the power relations were supposed to be implicit. |
I saw something of the same phenomenon when I became a professor myself. Some graduate students, especially foreigners, needed to be coached through a bit of acculturation. At first they would treat established figures with exaggerated deference, afraid to criticize their work. Then some would overreact, writing papers about "the stupid Tobin" or something like that. The balance between the reality of hierarchy — academic economics has a very steep prestige gradient, even though there isn't much of a conventional authority structure — and democratic manners took a little while to get right. |
So what happened to that America? |
The most obvious change has come in the G.O.P. Once upon a time Republican leaders posed as regular guys even when they were anything but: Dwight Eisenhower led an immense military machine to victory in World War II, but his campaign slogan was "I like Ike." |
Today, of course, the Republican Party has turned into a Trump personality cult, even though Donald Trump's actual accomplishments are hard to find. A failed nuclear deal with North Korea, a failed trade deal with China, a tax cut that never delivered the promised investment boom, a mishandled pandemic? Never mind. Obsequious professions of loyalty aren't just expected, they've become a requirement for those who want to stay in the party. |
I've been especially struck by the tendency of Trump acolytes to praise him for virtues he manifestly doesn't have. After The Times offered a description of Joe Biden's working style — not entirely flattering, but reassuring in the sense that he's clearly someone who takes his job seriously and works hard at it — Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, enthused about Trump's physical vigor. (Hey, he drives a mean golf cart.) |
When Tomas Philipson, a Chicago economist who worked for a time in the White House, returned to academia, his parting letter praised the famously non-reading Trump as someone whose "economic instincts were on a par with many Nobel economists." |
These absurdities probably aren't an accident; they're proof of loyalty. Anyone can offer praise for qualities a man actually has; only the truly subservient will humiliate themselves by offering flattery totally untethered from reality. |
The G.O.P. has also become a party that, like authoritarians everywhere, goes wild when subjected to ridicule. Incredibly, the Trump justice department tried to force Twitter to divulge the identity of the person behind an account devoted to making fun of Rep. Devin Nunes, a noted Trump loyalist. |
A lot of this obviously has to do with the psychological sickness that has afflicted the Republican Party. But I also suspect that we've seen an erosion of egalitarian norms throughout American society, simply because we've become a lot less egalitarian. It's a lot harder for top executives even to play-act at being regular guys now that they're paid almost 300 times as much as the average worker, up from "just" 20 times in the 1960s. |
True, there was always a strong element of hypocrisy in those democratic norms, but hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, and there were some good aspects to the society we used to be. And I miss it. |
How executives lived during the era of relative equality. |
Next thing you know they'll be setting up golden statues of Dear Leader. Oh, wait. |
Why do loyalists have to humiliate themselves to prove their loyalty? Signaling theory. |
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 | | Not much singing and chanting in the Trump administrationYouTube |
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Now this is how to praise a charismatic leader. |
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