The Measure of Machiavelli? Fear, Love, Hatred, and Trump

Anthony R Brunello. World Affairs. Volume 182, Issue 4, Winter 2019.

The U.S. Constitution (1788) was born in a predemocratic age and survived into a postaristocratic history (Ellis 2015). The American Republic straddled two eras as the nation emerged from the 18th century and continues searching even now for that “more perfect Union” Abraham Lincoln alluded to in 1861 in his First Inaugural Address. In the 21st century, America finds itself governed by a demagogic, populist, and nationalist leader. In 2016, President Donald J. Trump defied conventional wisdom and the odds to become the 45th U.S. president. A selfproclaimed billionaire born to privilege, Trump represents a populist version of the “common people” in America—predominantly white, working, and middle class, and tonally nationalist, male, and angry. Picking up the trail originally opened by the Tea Party Movement, Trump’s angry brand mixes race, religion, prejudice, and nativism in a potent political brew (Brunello 2014). President Trump (2017) said the following in his Inaugural Address in January 2017:

But for too many of our citizens a different reality exists. Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation, an education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge. And the crime, and the gangs, and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.

This dark tableau painted a picture of an America lost and in decay.

In Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, Arlie Russell Hochschild (2016, 139) studied the simmering anger inspired by feelings of being left behind that she encountered among “Tea Party” followers in Louisiana:

Blacks, women, immigrants, refugees, brown pelicans—all have cut ahead of you in line. But it’s people like you who have made this country great. You feel uneasy. It has to be said: the line cutters irritate you. They are violating rules of fairness. You resent them, and you feel it’s right that you do. So do your friends. Fox commentators reflect your feelings, for your deep story is also the Fox News deep story.

Trump captured the energy of these fears. With the help of new social media and the rules of the Constitution, Trump gained a narrow victory in 2016, winning the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote (Singer and Brooking 2018). Cultural anxiety, shaped by Trump into messages of anger and victimization (aimed at Hochschild’s “line cutters”), spawned the passions behind Trump’s success.

How would the Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli view the rise of Trump and his performance in government? Can the philosopher of political prowess from the Italian Renaissance objectively measure political effectiveness today? Like the Framers of the American Republic, Machiavelli (1469-1527) also straddled two great historical transitions: the medieval era and the Renaissance. As a voice of the Renaissance, he was troubled by the inability of Europeans to escape the Middle Ages and its worldviews (Berlin 1992). The difference between Machiavelli’s two great political works, The Discourses and The Prince, centered on the philosopher’s understanding of republics. In The Prince, Machiavelli evaluated the options a leader might have in being successful over a previously “self-governing” political culture. In The Discourses, Machiavelli studied the character of republics as a form of government. Ultimately, he was consistent despite the clear differences between the two works. Republics are resilient and difficult to conquer because the people, in Machiavelli’s view, identify themselves with the nation and state. When people are allowed to influence the making of their laws and to choose their leaders (i.e., self-governance), then citizens generate an identity as authentic stakeholders. As people see themselves reflected in the nation and state, they view their fates tied to the life of the republic. Republics have the virtue of “ruling in the name of the people” and not the monarch or feudal caste:

If now we compare a prince who is controlled by laws, and a people that is untrammeled by them, we shall find more virtue in the people than in the prince; and if we compare them both freed from such control, we shall see that the people are guilty of fewer excesses than the prince, and that the errors of the people are of less importance, and therefore more easily remedied. For a licentious and mutinous people may easily be brought back to good conduct by the influence and persuasion of a good man, but an evil-minded prince is not amenable to such influences, and therefore there is no remedy against him but cold steel. (Machiavelli 1950, Discourses, Book 1, chap. 58, 265)

In republics, the state becomes the face of the people. In our times, even modern dictatorships claim to rule in the name of the people. In fact, Machiavelli (1950, 266) argued that the common people are more concerned with the public good over the long term. Princes are consumed too often by short-term and “individual interests”:

The follies which a people commit at the moment of its greatest license are not what is most to be feared; it is not the immediate evil that may result from them that inspires apprehension, but the fact that such general confusion might afford the opportunity for a tyrant to seize the government. (Machiavelli 1950, 265)

How would Machiavelli evaluate today the rise, the rule, and the future of the Trump presidency, and how would he assess the vitality and resilience of American values? Can Machiavelli measure the singular features of the billionaire populist who is the first Twitter President? Trump has learned to utilize direct contact with the popular masses through modern social media. Social media beyond Twitter is a critical tool in the hands of Trump and his allies (both foreign and domestic) making the Trump brand of populism viral.

The first part of the following analysis begins with Machiavelli’s The Prince, followed by a reevaluation of his definition of power and leadership. I close by describing the interplay of hatred, fear, and love in the politics of social media in the 21st century. Will the measure of Machiavelli be a guide to our assessment of the American Republic in the time of Trump?

The Renaissance and The Prince

Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513 while in exile at his country home in San Casciano outside of Florence, Italy. Over 500 years have passed and this small book has had an enduring influence on Western political thought. The transformations associated with the European Renaissance were entangled with the great religious reforms and wars we now call the Reformation. These political and religious upheavals filled the 16th century. The Renaissance established a new vision of how Europeans viewed themselves and others, and the human place in the cosmos. By the end of the 1300s, the “synthesis” of the Middle Ages and the medieval Church of Rome had begun to break down (Hale 1992). The 14th century brought colder temperatures, poor harvests, the plague, and the Black Death, leading to political, economic, and social turmoil. It was an age of disruption. Secular rulers in towns and city-states and emerging nations began to challenge the Church to assert their own independent political authority. The Renaissance thus sparked a perspective we today call humanism. Humanism placed the liberal arts in both art and philosophy in a position of dominance over religion in the curricula of schools and universities. The place of Faith in the divine order of things was questioned at its core and challenged by an emphasis on Human Reason.

Renaissance humanism championed skepticism and objectivity, which had a high regard for human experience. Philosophy and the arts emphasized the human will to shape the world. The focus became the human being in this world. Europeans began to look away from the heavens and look inward for the sources of truth. Along with this came cultural change through the aegis of humanistic vision: sculpture, painting, education, commerce, science, and architecture were liberated from the more formal and symbolic requirements of the medieval and Gothic period. We find Machiavelli in this changing world of conflict and modern visions of the state.

What It Means (or Has Meant) to Be Machiavellian

Many associate Machiavelli’s name with a dark and ruthless vision of politics. To be “Machiavellian” conventionally has meant that one would do anything to succeed in the quest for power and wealth (Adams 1992). Machiavelli is misconceived as a political demon, advising political leaders to embrace the arts of treachery, skullduggery, force, defamation, and even cruelty to achieve their goals. The truth is that Machiavelli was far more practical than the popular image describes, and The Prince reveals this underlying reality (Gilbert 1992). However, as with many popular images and stereotypes, there is a grain of truth to the understanding of what it means to be Machiavellian. For example, people like Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Stalin, and Richard Nixon are popularly characterized as Machiavellian types, but it is more likely that Machiavelli would have been appalled by their leadership. Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson are better Machiavellian archetypes (Burns 1956). Lincoln is an ideal role model for Machiavelli: a perfect blend of the “lion and the fox” who steered the Union to victory through force, trickery, patriotism, and virtue (Danoff 2000). Machiavelli’s measures of political behavior offered a worldview that saves him from being wrongly considered an emissary of Satan (Brunello 1994).

Machiavelli perceived the political world and the success of a leader as dependent on two forces: Virtù and Fortuna. Virtù refers to the virtues or strengths of character a leader needs to survive and, most importantly, to strengthen the state. Machiavelli (1992, chaps. 6-7, 15-24) rejected Christian virtues, preferring Republican Rome and the stoicism he found in Marcus Aurelius. For him, the pagan virtues were masculine and patriotic. He extolled selfless duty to the state, loyalty and sacrifice, as well as abstinence and physical strength (Sabine and Thorson 1973). Skill in military affairs was vital, because in Machiavelli’s world, states were surrounded by predators and potential invaders, usurpers, conspiracies, and threats of all sorts (Lucchese 2017).

Machiavelli described the ideal leader using the iconic animal images of the lion and the fox. A great leader must be strong and ferocious when required, willing to use force and able to physically overcome foes—like a lion. The effective leader must also be clever like the fox to avoid snares and traps, and willing to be devious and crafty (Machiavelli 1992, chap. 18, 47-49). The fox knows when to retreat, use manipulation of people and circumstances, and is wise enough to avoid being deceived or flattered (Machiavelli 1992, chap. 23, 64-65). A successful leader must at times be like the fox, and at others like the lion. It was a sign of virtue in a leader to know how and when to employ these skills and to seize the proper moment.

Despite the value of these virtues, the political world is treacherous and unpredictable. According to Machiavelli, luck always has a hand in political affairs and Fortuna—fortune or luck—is an omnipresent force in the world of politics not always within a leader’s control. There is good Fortuna and bad Fortuna and it is the task of a leader to recognize each, turn circumstances to their advantage, and to control as much as possible the effects of unexpected occurrences and events. Machiavelli described Fortuna as a raging river that cannot be controlled once it rolls over its banks, and also as a woman—a feminine image that he used in a sexist way to describe fortune as emotional, unpredictable, and like a raw or natural force. Fortuna, no matter how hard we might try, is not easily tamed by reason, and arrives in many forms: illness, natural disaster, premature death, chance errors, and implausible circumstances (Gilbert 1992). Things happen that people cannot foresee, and such are the vicissitudes of life.

Only the most virtuous and prepared leader is capable of responding to chance occurrences in politics and has any prospect of surviving (Machiavelli 1992, chap. 6, 15-18). Machiavelli’s ultimate standard and ethic is the success ethic, and leaders are measured by whether or not they succeed. The goal at which all effort must be aimed is success at maintaining power to preserve the nation and state.

Machiavelli and Practical Realism: The Mechanics of Governing

Machiavelli lived from 1467 to 1527 and was a citizen of the city-state of Florence, Italy. In 1498, he held a post in Florentine government as a diplomat until the Medici family took power in 1512—overthrowing the Republic of Florence for its dynastic family. Afterward, he was arrested, tortured, and exiled to San Casciano where he wrote The Prince.

The Prince is a condensation of Machiavelli’s thoughts on “rulership.” The opening “Dedicatory Letter” to Lorenzo di Medici revealed that Machiavelli had a narrow purpose for the book: it is a long application for employment to the Medici government of Florence. Machiavelli hoped his cold analysis of political power for a despotic family could win favor and employment in the Florentine Court. The Prince was written with an intense focus on the evil and dangerous times of Renaissance Italy. Those were vicious days, and the game of politics was violent and filled with treachery, cruelty, and corruption. Therefore, in The Prince, Machiavelli says he will not speak of Republics, but rather principalities—how they are won, held, and lost (Hale 1992).

Italian city-states (like Florence) had begun to distance governing from the Roman Catholic Church, insofar as government utilized church power and offices rather than the other way around. Civic responsibility and public welfare was slowly becoming the ideal for legitimacy rather than divine or ecclesiastical authority. The concept of the modern nation-state began to emerge. Only as an idea—and only in the contexts of these city-states—but the nation-state was on the rise along with the humanism of the Renaissance. Machiavelli sensed a transition moving away from Church authority toward the power of citizens. Loyalty began to be pledged to the nation—a common notion today, but revolutionary in the 14th century (Lucchese 2017).

In The Prince, Machiavelli discussed diplomacy and historical figures in specific situations, analyzing a leader’s skills in calculation, manipulation, negotiation, and at times, the use of violence and force. He assessed the strengths and weaknesses of political situations, and evidence of shrewdness and cool judgment in evaluating the resources and temperament of opponents. Machiavelli tended to think in terms of objective estimates of the limitations on policy, combining common sense and logic in the measurement of the prospective outcomes of events and actions (Harris 2010). Machiavelli was a realist. Policy and leadership is judged by success at accomplishing tasks that lead to the preservation and expansion of power and security. Almost nowhere does Machiavelli discuss the acquisition of wealth. His exclusive focus was on an objective control of power.

Whether a policy is violent, treacherous, or unjust is treated objectively in The Prince. Machiavelli was aware that indifference to cruelty and other such qualities react upon political success and it was critical that an effective leader manage public impressions. He preferred that policy be perceived as honorable, fair, and right and said that the successful prince must be the master of “outward seeming and inward being.” Perceptions are everything in the power game.

If a leader risks failure for the sake of honor or ethical principles, Machiavelli argued that it would be better to be cruel, faithless, and fearsome. A good leader cannot risk the state or the loss of power for mere moral considerations. Some have called this “skillful immorality” but in fairness, Machiavelli was not immoral. He believed in higher goals, but in his rush to make a singular point, Machiavelli described an amoral or a nonmoral appraisal. This appraisal has been called a Machiavellian principle of “moral indifference.” In today’s world, this is often interpreted as being objective or realistic (Bagby 2002). Allied with amorality was Machiavelli’s view of human nature. In The Prince, he underscored a weak and selfish definition of human nature, and was convinced that citizens in principalities, especially in corrupt regimes, are likely to be disloyal and care only about their self-interest. He answered the famous question about love or fear based on his understanding of the selfish nature of human beings. As he famously considered whether a prince should best be loved or feared, he clearly said it is best to be both. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to accomplish both (Machiavelli 1992, chaps. 17-19, 45-57). It may be that modern times make the ability to control images and passions more susceptible to generating both love and fear simultaneously (consider the immediacy and power of the social network in this regard), but holding both together remains daunting.

If one cannot be loved, Machiavelli concluded a leader must be feared because love and loyalty are impermanent. People are fickle, and if they stop loving the leader, then they must fear the leader or all is lost. Without love, it is possible for a leader to become hated—and hatred above all must be avoided. A leader who is hated but not feared will surely fail (Machiavelli 1992, chaps. 18-19, 47-57). He believed that no leader can survive on love alone. Because all leaders may be called upon, from time to time, to do good by doing evil, there is always risk that a prince can become hated for doing good things just as easily for doing bad (Machiavelli 1992, 53). The most effective human motivations upon which a leader must rely are essentially selfish, and so Machiavelli argued that the prince must always assume selfish motives on the part of citizens, allies, and opponents.

By comparison, in The Discourses, Machiavelli (1950) asserts that alliances and treaties with republics are to be trusted far more than those with individual despots or princes (Book 1, chap. 59, 266-68). Machiavelli argued in The Discourses that the common people of republics are less likely to risk ruin by engaging in treacherous actions. In Machiavelli’s (1950, 266) logic, the people prefer predictability and security as a rule and are “more likely” to play fair in their alliances. The rational calculations by citizens of Republics speak to the prospects for higher virtues and dignity in self-governance, as well as law-abiding behavior, leading to justice and fair play.

Machiavelli was convinced that governments are founded on the weakness and insufficiency of the human individual. Government protects people from the aggression and selfishness of others. Although this notion sounds cynical, it is not so very far from the rationale of the Social Contract expressed by John Locke, or the arguments of those who wrote The Federalist Papers (Hamilton, Madison, and Jay) following the American Revolution. As Madison observed, if “men were angels,” governments would not be necessary. In Machiavelli’s view, the state exists to constrain the selfish motivations and egoism of individuals (Nelson 1996).

Moral Indifference and the Double Standard

Machiavelli’s moral indifference contained a critical view of Christian virtues and values. Christianity taught people to be servile and to accept their lot in life for the rewards of paradise. Machiavelli opposed “turning the other cheek” in politics, and instead valued the secular and civic virtues of the ancient Romans. Roman virtues taught independence, strength, frugality, simplicity, and humble trustworthiness. The Christian emphasis on a morality of the spirit not only seemed weak to Machiavelli, but he was sure it was impractical and ambiguous. In perilous times, Christian virtues might be dangerous—though he did not ignore the practical application of religion in politics, and he was sensitive to the reality that a skillful leader would need to portray a semblance of piety. After all, true believers are a very dangerous subset of the body politic. Machiavelli viewed religion as helpful when holding the state and society together. Christian virtues can limit corruption and sinful behavior, and he believed that it is good to have such notions strong among the common citizens, if not the rulers (Sabine and Thorson 1973).

The politically expedient perspective led to Machiavelli’s double standard: the prince or ruler must be above morals and indifferent to them. Good government requires the ability to move without concern for ethical or moral qualms at times, unless the society is free of corruption (Berlin 1992). For example, republics, he believed, thrived on rule of law. At the same time, the affairs of state require leaders to insure that the state is strong. For Machiavelli, in a principality where corruption was common, there was little time for moral norms. The double standard in The Prince was clear: the people should be virtuous, but rulers must be above morality. Scholars disagree, but this perspective was not essentially cynical or evil; it was simply political objectivity (Ignatieff 2013). People may want to be wary of a culture of moral indifference or the double standard. Modern democracy, especially as embodied by the values in the American Republic and the U.S. Constitution, suggests that a moral and ethical core is essential to survive and flourish. Machiavelli chose to minimize this in The Prince, and yet the voice of the patriot who believed in republican virtues was always lurking in the background.

Machiavellian Principles

Several general principles that provide standards for measurement are bluntly revealed in The Prince (Brunello 1994):

Human Nature is fundamentally egoistic and acquisitive;
A central role of a lawgiver is vital to state survival;
Popular government and republics are superior to other forms;
Noble classes are to be distrusted for their parasitism, parochialism, and selfishness;
Mercenary soldiers are dangerous and faithless;
And … Machiavelli espoused a true national patriotism ahead of his time.

Machiavelli accepted an assumption of selfish and universal egoism, and he saw human beings as consumed by competition and conflict. People always want more: more property, riches, and power—everything. In that respect, he was sure that any government must protect personal property if it is to survive. Machiavelli’s view of the political world of his day brought him to this view because moral corruption and violence were epidemic. “Men always commit the error of not knowing when to limit their hopes” (Machiavelli 1950, Book 2, 271-72). This is an incomplete view of human nature, but it is an idea people still believe and use as a guide in political life (Scott and Zaretsky 2013).

Machiavelli argued for the role of a lawgiver. A healthy nation under one prince or statesman must have one lawgiver and voice of authority. In a republic, the legislative authority falls to the people’s representatives. Machiavelli (1992) believed that civic virtues and moral standards derive from the law and he had faith in the leadership of a political leader who applies the arts of politics accordingly (chap. 5, 14). If a stable republic exists, then the rule of law will naturally guide a society toward common decency and justice with representative government and citizen support. The state and law hold people together best, and moral obligations are ultimately derived from the laws. Therein may lie a cautionary tale for 21st century democracy.

Machiavelli (1992) only inferred his higher regard for republics in The Prince, but his criticism of aristocratic classes was based on his experience that nobles get between the people and the state, and operate out of selfish and parochial interests (chaps. 9-11, 27-33). Nobles pursue lands and titles without regard for the larger polity. A state that relies on noble classes will be weak. A strong state relies on the common people as citizens and strives to forge a direct relationship between the people and government. A similar logic emerges in the arguments in The Prince against the employ of mercenaries. Chapters 12 and 13 address these issues specifically, closing with the famous reflection on Cesare Borgia’s reputation (Machiavelli 1992, chap. 13, 37-40). Machiavelli insisted that mercenary armies cannot be trusted. Mercenaries fight for money and rewards and will retreat at the slightest hint of real danger. Mercenaries are not loyal to anyone but themselves, and Machiavelli (1992) favored a citizen army of people willing to die for their country (chap. 12, 33-37). Republican armies of citizens who make their own laws are more durable and commodious.

In the conclusion, there is an exhortation to Lorenzo di Medici to be a great prince and unite all of Italy to be one country (Machiavelli 1992, chap. 26, 69-72). The exhortation is a clarion call to national patriotism, but the definition of patriotism in Machiavelli is differentiated between “patriotism” and “nationalism.” A nationalism that is tribal and destructive is exclusive and built on blood and soil notions of prior rights and ownership. This form of fearful nationalism divides the body politic, inspiring exploitation, oppression, and scapegoating. Machiavelli is nearly modern in his knowledge that the best patriot is allied to the state for higher causes and the ultimate definition lies in the role of citizens. Citizens can be lawmakers. Citizens are the country. Common citizens need only be loyal to the laws and the people. When that is so, a country is made strong. Calling for a prince with the vision to unite Italy foreshadowed the rise of modern nation states (despite the fact that Lorenzo de Medici was a fool). Machiavelli would understand the modern spread of nation states with democratic institutions. These have the advantage of merging the people with the country.

Machiavelli’s ideas remain an enigma. He is characterized as a cynic but also a patriot, a nationalist, and a democrat. The Machiavelli of The Prince has become, over 500 years, an unscrupulous panderer to political despots and moral indifference. The patriot, democrat, and nationalist are overlooked, while the advisor to the devious, treacherous, and amoral political animal has staying power. The advice in The Prince has endured and guided many leaders in politics, statecraft, and the art of war. Machiavelli wrote with a purpose and an intuitive, inner knowledge that power—human, personal, political, and public—is a human need, and is based on perceptions and relationships with others and with history and society.

Defining Power and Leadership

Power and Leadership are distinct. By definition, the leader is unlike a power wielder always to the extent that leaders are reflections of the needs and higher instincts of their followers. Leadership is defined by the way the motives of leaders are less about their personal needs and desires and more about the needs and desires of followers under their leadership. Power wielders tend toward domination of their followers and increasingly so as their efforts are “all about them,” and their motives reflect desires and dynamics of their own. Of course, leaders and power wielders are spawned in similar pools, but the attitudes and characters, and even the modes of their arrival on the scene are filled with points of departure. Burns’s (1978, 52) work, Leadership, made the distinctions clear and established a “Hitler versus Gandhi” continuum. Hitler was a power wielder. Gandhi provided something more akin to leadership.

According to Burns (1978, 52-53), political leadership is “ubiquitous and pervasive”:

This is not to assume that rule by a Hitler or leadership by a Gandhi is to be seen as different only in degree from, or to be equated conceptually with, that of a Brown Shirt corporal or village wise man . … That power as domination is pervasive in this century of Hitler and Stalin is obvious, as perhaps it was in every other. Is leadership, as it is defined in this book? Power lies deep in our origins. It has long been manifest in animal behavior. In primates domination is by far the most common trait, but even at this stage … there are tendencies toward leadership. Domination usually takes the form of a clear-cut hierarchy … To see the ubiquity and pervasiveness of power and leadership in the relationships of mother and daughter, teacher and schoolchildren, coach and athlete, master and apprentice, minister and congregation, sergeant and rifleman, party chieftain and card-carrying member, propagandist and believer, is to see power wielders, leaders and followers in continuous interaction in virtually every sphere of human society. This does not mean that the apparent leader is necessarily or exclusively the “real” leader or effective leader. Leaders lead in such a way … as to anticipate responses of followers, and followers and leaders may exchange places. Rulers (power wielders) never exchange places with followers. The leadership-followership process must be viewed as a totality of interactive roles before we can identify the forces and processes at work and hence assess the role of leadership in the historical process.

Burns’s work identified the basic relationships that are the basis of power and leadership. At its core, power is not an object, and is a relationship derived of perceptions about motives and resources on the part of both ruler/leaders and followers (Burns 1978; Knutson 1972). In Jeanne Knutson’s (1972) path-breaking work in political psychology, human needs as exemplified in Maslow’s needs hierarchy reveal a rich understanding that the obsession to collect power as an object is a critical misunderstanding, and may in effect also be a signal of mental disease.

First, power in political and social life is not an object. Power is a force directed toward accomplishing ends or moving people and objects to desired consequences. As philosopher Bertrand Russell (1938, 18) said, power is the “production of intended effects.” Even so, this does not explain what power is and how it evolves in all people. Power is not a material possession; it is a need. All human beings must have some sense of their own personal “power.” This means a kind of confidence, and a sense of their own capabilities to survive, accomplish goals, and take risks when necessary. This risk taking may be very personal (e.g., the risk we take when falling in love), or it can be the kind of risk we take when running for office, going to college, playing a sport, or taking a political position (Davies 1977). We are willing to take such risks because of an evolved internal sense we all have of our own personal ability or power.

Second, personal power is also derived from human perceptions and relationships. For example, all human beings evolve their personal sense of power based on material and social circumstances, including their life experiences, their early childhood upbringing, innate faculties, and accidents of lived experience. In the social and political sense, power must be understood as a relationship or set of relationships, based on the perceptions of all involved in the process of expressing power. No one has power over another person unless one perceives that the person in power has some quality that requires we grant that power.

A basic definition of power relationships begins: Power is A getting B to do what A desires. The big question is: why does B do what A wants? The answer to that question offers a richer understanding of power relationships: B does what A desires because B perceives that A has something or some reason that motivates B to do what A desires. Relationships of power between people are thus the result of what people perceive. Power is essentially given to leaders by followers in some way. In summary, power is a relationship based on perception of people, and these perceptions are built on motives and resources. The resources and motives people perceive suggest different types of power. For example, B follows A’s leadership because B perceives that A

is wise and an expert,
is fearsome and strong
is heavily armed and threatening
is compassionate,
because B wants to be like A,
because B loves A,
because B perceives that A is persuasive,
because B perceives that A will give a reward,
because B perceives that A will provide a penalty or punishment,
because B perceives that A is authorized by law and legal position and right,
because B perceives that A expresses goals in a way that motivates B to follow,
because B perceives that A is beautiful or handsome, and so on.

There are many possible combinations for leadership and power relationships (see Figure 1). A leader is known by the degree to which the needs of the followers are foremost in their calculus, as characterized by Burns (1978). Power wielders are known by the extent to which their own preferences and desires drive decisions and actions.

A useful understanding of social and political power was articulated by French and Raven (1959). Figure 2 describes the “five legitimations of power” as these authors define it. The key in the model is to understand that political and social power is formed from human relationships grounded in perceptions human beings have about one another. Given the accent on “human perception,” the connection to Machiavelli’s notion of the role of image and perception in political power is a point of emphasis. Burns helps by adding the idea that human beings’ perceptions in the power relationships are guided by our expectations and sense of the motives and potential resources we have as followers, leaders, or power wielders. Power in politics has been misunderstood to be a material object for centuries. It is common to hear people say that an associate, a teammate, a politician, or a public figure is motivated to “get power” as if it were either the goal or an object. It is a cliché to observe, along with Lord Acton (1887), that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” but the cliché is a misconception.

Power is essential to human life and operates as a tool or an instrument. When or if someone pursues power merely to possess this intangible thing they believe is power, then that is a sickness and illusion. Power is the actual movement toward objectives. Power is generated by what people see and believe about each other, and the only meaningful reason to “possess” power (to abuse the conception further) is to accomplish some end. This accounts for the premium we must place on the connections between means and ends in political life. When means and ends are torn apart, then the pathologies of evil—as Hannah Arendt (1963) discovered in her coverage of the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem—will become manifest. To actually “possess” something called power is impossible; the pursuit of power for its own sake is a fantasy and a nightmare.

Ultimately, we know that a person is powerful when we see that they can move people and events, shape their own lives, and call followers and colleagues together to support common causes and achieve goals. Had Gandhi begun one of his famous walks and no one followed, he would not be remembered as a leader. Followers are necessary for leadership and power to operate. This is true on the grand stages of politics, and in our homes between family members, at our parent-teacher association (PTA) and Little League meetings, and in corporate boardrooms. Power is an instrument that accomplishes goals and it is a human relationship. Generating power is essential to calling people to follow, to believe, and to act.

Measuring Trump by Machiavellian Standards

Following Burns’s (1978) Leadership versus Power Wielding Schema measure, Donald Trump comes down in the area of Power Wielding. President Trump is deficient in leadership attributes, but high in Power Wielding. Many have discussed President Trump’s “narcissistic” tendencies over the years, but that relies on speculation (Johnston 2017). Woodward (2018), in Fear: Trump in the White House, offers a portrait of a self-serving man who lacks intellectual curiosity, is studiously unread and ill informed, enjoys pitting his staff against one another in interminable internecine conflicts, seeks to denigrate and attack media and journalism, and is responsible for inspiring hate, hostility, and racism on a national scale, for reasons Trump alone understands. Most significant, Woodward (2018, 357) closes with an observation from President Trump’s former legal counsel, John Dowd:

But in the man and his presidency Dowd had seen the tragic flaw. In the political back-and-forth, the evasions, the denials, the tweeting, the obscuring, crying “Fake News,” the indignation, Trump had one overriding problem that Dowd knew but could not bring himself to say to the president: “You’re a fucking liar.”

According to the Washington Post, August 12, 2019, the president had uttered 12,019 false or misleading statements since his inauguration. It was asserted in November of 2018 that the president told 83 lies in one day (Cillizza 2018). Fact-checking organizations claim they are exhausted by the sheer volume of falsehoods proffered by Donald Trump (Kessler, Rizzo, and Kelly 2019). The volume of lies easily surpasses Machiavelli’s advice about the management of public perceptions. Machiavelli speaks at length about the avoidance of flatterers, and demands a balance between keeping faith and, of course, strategic deceptions for the successful prince. The only reason for engaging in dishonesty would be on behalf of the state itself. The many deceptions we might associate with Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt would be acceptable to Machiavelli as they were employed in successful policy and security. Lying because you cannot stop yourself clearly breaks Machiavelli’s rules, and Burns’s standard for leadership. The level of mendacity engaged in by Trump undermines democratic values, the rule of law, and a self-governing political culture, as well as authentic “leadership.”

According to Machiavelli, we may understand a leader’s effectiveness on two general dimensions: (1) fear/love/hatred and (2) the lion and the fox. These are Machiavellian standards, but in the time of 21st century social media, the measures and comparisons require recalibration. According to Singer and Brooking (2018), politics and communications are operating on a new battlefield, a wholly unique environment for social conflicts. As they say, the Internet is no longer an adolescent; it is now a conflict zone and this new field changes how battles are fought. The battle alters the meaning of war, and all society—all of us—are a part of this war (Singer and Brooking 2018, 21-22, 51):

Half the world’s population is online, and the other half is quickly following. Hundreds of millions of new internet users are projected to join this vast digital ecosystem each year . . . As a result the internet is now inescapable.

The online ecosystem of the social media made young people terrorists and members of ISIS from all over the world. The new social media can liberate and oppress—expand knowledge and help lies and hatred go instantly viral. Open source intelligence (OSINT) and mass monitoring are changing the way we gather and interpret data—for both good and ill. Singer and Brooking (2018) describe a changing arena of social media driven conflict, and one aspect has had an immediate effect: Trump and the American elections of 2016 revealed a new infrastructure of bots, troll farms, and “sock puppets,” that allowed foreign governments and media platforms filled with hate and falsity, to have an explosive effect in American politics.

The use of social media, and in the case of Trump particularly, communication through Twitter, alters the calculus for perceptions. Our times are called a postfact environment because instant opinion, and politicized falsehoods—termed black propaganda—have become commonplace (Jowett and O’Donnell 2015). Black propaganda, as opposed to gray and white, is noxious (especially in democracies) because it is false, comes from unknown sources, cannot be verified, and has a primary purpose to instigate outrage, pain, anger, conflict, mob reaction, and even violence. In the battlefield of social media, the easy ubiquity of black propaganda, while having the power to communicate immediately to masses of followers, is a game changer:

Those who manipulate this swirling tide, to steer its direction and flow, can accomplish incredible good. They can free people, expose crimes, save lives, and seed far-reaching reforms. But they can also accomplish astonishing evil. They can foment violence, stoke hate, sow falsehoods, incite wars, and even erode the pillars of democracy itself. (Singer and Brooking 2018, 23)

The sheer numbers and the speed at which such communications took place in 2016, in Singer and Brooking’s (2018) research, are astounding. The new social media redefines Machiavelli’s dimensions and standards. The technology warps the context, but not the applicability.

Fear/Love/Hatred

Despite the title of Woodward’s (2018) book, the quality of fear in Trump’s relationships is complicated. According to Johnston (2017), there are reasons to fear Trump but not necessarily as Machiavelli prescribed. In business, you should fear that Trump will not pay his bills, honor contracts, and that you may find yourself in litigation. In the story of how the television show The Apprentice saved Trump’s company and finances, it is shown how his fortune and image were rescued by celebrity. Keefe (2019) reveals that Trump’s financial situation and his public persona were at a very low point. Ultimately, the CEO image presented in The Apprentice allowed a perception of fear to evolve (“You’re Fired!”) and yet it was make-believe. Trump has been labeled a bully (Foer 2019), and bullies do inspire fear, but this is a form of intimidation Machiavelli would find wasteful and pathetic. Moreover, if this kind of management misuses the people who work for you, and squanders this valuable resource while undermining loyalty, as described by Johnston (2017) and Woodward (2018), then Trump is surely out of Machiavellian balance.

President Trump is feared due to his capricious nature and unconventional or unpredictable methods, especially in foreign policy. For example, the NATO Allies may fear Trump’s moods, attitudes, and policies that can ruin the alliance. At the same time, it is unlikely that America’s chief foes (e.g., Russia, North Korea, Iran) actually fear President Trump. Nations may be wary of a man who moves by gut instinct, but Russia and North Korea likely feel they have Trump under control. Machiavelli would look unfavorably on the weakening of alliances that provide multilateral security, strength, and commercial predictability in a dangerous world. The fear Trump inspires damages national credibility while unsettling many Americans in a context where the United States is perhaps the most powerful nation on earth. The measure of Machiavelli here is certain: the waste of resources while alienating friends and allies is unacceptable.

Donald Trump may be loved by more than 40 percent of the American people. Loved is used here as a loose term but, based on analysis by FiveThirtyEight.com (2019), the president has maintained an “Approval Rating” above 40 percent since the 2016 election. On average, he shows an oscillating 41.6 percent approval rating and a 53.1 percent disapproval rating. Thanks to the Trump image, and his way of communicating through Twitter and large rallies, the audience for “Make America Great Again” has remained stable. The passionate support of the core base in Trump is something akin to love while the more modest support from Republicans generally is self-serving but has remained steady. For example, no Republican stepped forward to challenge Trump’s nomination for reelection in 2020. In the 53.1 percent disapproval rating, we also find something akin to hatred, as well as contempt. Machiavelli warns mightily against these twin passions. Clearly, there is a problem if the fear you inspire is muted and partly seen as a character flaw, while the love you generate is strong but not nearly as advanced as hate and contempt. If Trump were to be reelected president, Machiavelli would be dismayed because here would be a republican form of government failing itself. The new forms of communication change the manner and effect of the populist demagogue in a republic. The citizens have more trouble being the steady-state actors Machiavelli predicted they would be when they are more easily confused, manipulated, and deceived.

Lion or Fox?

Trump is a bully, happy to insult and demean those he dislikes, fears, finds threatening, or skirmishes with, but these are not really the attributes of the lion as Machiavelli envisioned. Machiavelli saw the lion as someone of force, skilled at the military arts, unafraid to employ excruciating violence swiftly and expertly when necessary, but also a fierce defender of allies, the people, and the nation. Machiavelli’s lion won battles, punished foes, but tempered ferocity with intelligence. Wolin (1992) referred to this as the “economy of violence,” and of course, no well-designed or secure state can long endure wanton bloodshed. For these reasons, brutal authoritarian regimes are often short lived. Trump personally avoided military service (Johnston 2017), and although has endeavored to ingratiate himself to military veterans, he has had some of his worst moments of bullying against folks normally considered heroes. The ugly attacks on the deceased Senator John McCain are examples of this shortsighted behavior (Haberman, Karnis, and Tackett 2019). Trump may like the image of the CEO who fires people, but he is less a lion than he is malicious and petty.

Trump does qualify for a certain fox-like craftiness. The details of his life and tenacious survival in a challenging financial world (although many of his deepest wounds have been self-inflicted) reveal someone who has found a way to come out on top (Johnston 2017). At least for himself, Trump shows an ability to calculate costs, benefits, and hard choices. He is also not ashamed to play on the dark side—dallying with criminal figures and shady financial relationships. These tactics buoyed him through multiple bankruptcies until he landed the television show The Apprentice and his fortunes turned around. Even so, this kind of “foxiness” has little to do with preserving the state, securing the country, and helping a people to be prosperous. Trump may be a fox, avoiding snares and injury, but would he sacrifice himself for his country? Machiavelli has only one answer for that question (Butler 2016).

From Machiavelli’s lion or fox view, the list of leadership errors built on flaws of character in Trump is long (Albertini 2018). Among a few are the following: personal greed; lust and sexual promiscuity; faithlessness to allies, friends, and family; talking too much in public; preferring flatterers as advisers; ignorance of military matters; ignorance of diplomacy and foreign affairs; ignorance of history and philosophy.

Surely, Machiavelli would admire the strengths that have allowed a man like Trump to survive so many mistakes and personal defects, and yet in the midst of his considerable acuity at galvanizing his audience, Trump has garnered all the good luck in the world. In one considerable case, the iconic promise to “build a wall that Mexico will pay for” stands out, because as Machiavelli says in Book 10 of The Prince, walls and fortifications are more necessary the weaker your city or state is within; a wealthy city with a good army can defend itself without relying on outsiders for protection. Of course, in his day, cities needed to be able to withstand sieges. Artillery, walls, and moats were expected of secure cities. Even so, there is something even more valuable—a strong and supportive citizenry:

Thus a prince who has a strong city and does not earn his peoples’ hatred cannot be attacked, or if he were, that attacker would be driven off to his own disgrace; because the way things keep changing in this world, it is almost impossible for a prince with his armies to devote an entire year to a siege while doing nothing else. (Machiavelli 1992, chap. 10, 31)

The idea that a prince might proclaim false emergencies and waste his forces sending them to the border for short-term political gain would be unacceptable. To politicize security would be unthinkable to Machiavelli, when the best course of action is to encourage a strong, secure, and confident society. Inspiring false fears does not make a nation stronger.

The virtues of character that make Trump a survivor are in his single mindedness, his use of celebrity, his intuitive grasp of an audience and oddly enough, his lack of empathy. One day, the unsympathetic nature of his relationships and actions may be catastrophic to Trump, but he has been able to endure a lot of damage. His White House is under chronic threat of investigation and indictments. The scandals are historic in scope and number, including the possibility the Trump team encouraged a malignant foreign power to help win his election. Moreover, articles of impeachment are imminent in Fall 2019 as the House of Representatives uncovered, through a whistle-blower complaint, that President Trump allegedly misused the power of his office in asking the President of Ukraine (Zelensky) to dig up dirt on his political rival, Vice President Joe Biden. In the balance, the Trump administration was withholding essential military aid to Ukraine for its defense against Russian military aggression. Questions of national security and the invitation for a foreign nation to again interfere in American elections are prominent. These accusations are enough to destroy any American President, but both impeachment and a conviction in the U.S. Senate are not givens. The virtues of character that have aided Trump’s survival so far will be tested. Trump has difficulty showing honest empathy for people, even the victims of tragedy, whether it is a natural disaster, an act of war, or the murder of a journalist (Ignatius 2016). These combined traits have been helpful in his survival, but could “turn on a dime.” Loyalty, trust, and sympathy may be in short supply when needed most, for a self-centered leader who operates as if the natural laws of political and social life are irrelevant.

Donald Trump was born fortunate. He began in wealth and started out on top of the economic ladder in America. He has endured countless existential threats to his financial empire only to be fortuitously rescued by a television entrepreneur—and struck gold. The good fortune of Trump put him in position to be president. In his campaign, the asymmetrical style, aided by social media and eventually nourished by Russian intelligence, WikiLeaks, and the first cyberwar election, combined technology with his native gifts and sheer good luck. The most fantastic good fortune for Trump was his inheritance of a recovering economy that was building momentum at the time of the 2016 election. Trump walked into a clean house and a strong economy, none of which were of his own creation. He did not expect to win the 2016 election. The astounding good fortune of this man is manifested in that revelation alone. Machiavelli would say that anyone who takes a state by luck in this way will not hold their power unless they can demonstrate the ability to govern.

Conclusion

Trump’s presidency is not an accident. It is a complex puzzle of good luck, timing, and clever channeling of fear and anxiety in a formerly dominant, but now declining, cultural order (Norris and Inglehart 2019). In spite of the way the modern world has warped and remodeled, the Machiavellian measures and standards remain relevant today. Machiavelli would understand President Trump. While he may be ignorant of American politics and government, and many other things, Trump has a native wisdom about popular culture that carried him to the White House. In the aftermath, the Trump government is an assault on civil rights and liberties, in particular the role of a free press. Trump’s nationalism divides Americans from one another; Trump fosters white nationalism and racism which, in the end, it is destructive of authentic patriotism that draws a nation together in a healthy way. Trump’s presidency has made an assault on the rule of law and indulges in the kind of willful ignorance that may be the undoing of everything. Trump’s assault on science and facts led naturally to a rejection of climate science and the Paris Climate Accord. Trump’s misunderstanding of foreign affairs as a zero-sum game, and his inflated confidence in the force of his own personality leads him to believe that his personal touch is superior to multilateral alliances and traditional diplomacy

Machiavelli would assess the examples of Trump walking away from a nuclear arms treaty with Iran and his ongoing destabilization of European alliances, and conclude that there exist real causes for alarm. He would view President Trump to be a selfish, fox-like creature of good fortune, ill equipped to be a successful president. The corrosion of republican institutions domestically while disabling international alliances with other republics for personal gain and the profit of your enemies is an appalling error. This does not mean Trump will not be reelected as president. His eventual failure (from a Machiavellian measure) has little to do with his personal fortunes, and everything to do with the vitality of the American Republic when he is done. Despite the changed world of communication, technology, and social media, Machiavelli can yet be a measure of political leadership in modern times.