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Comment by mywittyname | Hacker News Reader

I think charisma is best used to signal a lack of intelligence. Someone else posted a link to a op-ed about GWB, but Trump follows a similar approach. Lots of people question his intelligence and decision-making ability, yet, every one of us hear or talk about him several times a day.

He also has a political sleight-of-hand that I don't think has ever been matched. Every time a key policy decision is being debated, the news channels are focused on Trump's latest gaffe rather than the decisions being made in Washington.

Appeal to emotion to get results, not reason.

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To use a metaphor as a counterargument, if there were a 6 foot spider in my shower you'd better believe I would talk about it at least a few times a day. That doesn't mean the spider has charisma, just that it's a clear and present danger weighing heavily on my mind.

If anyone is exercising political sleight of hand I'd say it's the legislators and executive staff who are getting in all their unpopular actions while the getting is good, like a looter in a riot. Trump doesn't have to be politically savvy or even aware of what they're doing for that to happen.

Trump's skillset is that of a reality TV star. He knows what to say and how to say it to engage people in drama. His presidency has been a continuation of this. It freaks out the intelligentsia because it seems insane to them that a person in such a high place of power could get involved in things like Twitter flame wars. That's low class/blue collar behavior that is totally foreign to their own culture. That is why people on the blue collar end of the spectrum are more capable of realizing that this particular aspect of his behavior does not represent a genuine threat, because it's part of their culture.

> Twitter flame wars ... does not represent a genuine threat

...until it's a flame war between two nuclear powers with unstable leaders.

Your depiction of Trump as unstable is exactly this cultural bias I'm referring to. He doesn't exhibit the upper class white culture behaviors you're willing to accept in a president, so he seems unstable.

It's worth mentioning that while he's always been rich, Trump spent a significant portion of his youth around construction sites, so he has adopted a lot of low class blue collar behavior.

I think charisma isn't a signal for intellectual weakness, but it does suggest that the person isn't speaking intellectually to you. Most people aren't at a place to understand policy implications, so charisma is a better proxy.

Minor nit-pick, I didn't say it was a signal of intellectual weakness (clearly it's the opposite), but instead that it is best used to "trick" the person you're speaking to into thinking you're at their level.

Obama spoke like a college professor because he knew his audience would respect that kind of person.

Trump speaks like a "straight talker" because he knows his audience respects that kind of person.

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