Molly Worthen: "Charisma Is a Tool of the Weak"

Summary

The Gist – Episode Summary

Guest: Molly Worthen, UNC Professor & Author
Episode Title: "Charisma Is a Tool of the Weak"
Air Date: March 18, 2026
Host: Mike Pesca

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Overview

In this episode, Mike Pesca sits down with historian Molly Worthen to discuss her new book, Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump. The conversation centers on what charisma truly means, how its definition and role in society have evolved, and why it's often misunderstood. They explore the interconnectedness of charisma, narrative, power, and societal need, interrogating both the upside and the dangers of charismatic leadership—especially in times of instability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Charisma: From Ancient Greece to Modern America

• Origins of the Word
  • Greek charis ("divine anointing") → New Testament's charisma (spiritual gifts) → Modern sociological usage (authority outside institution or force)
  • “The word comes originally from the ancient Greek charis, meaning divine anointing, chosenness by the gods… and then it takes on a new connotation in the context of the New Testament…” — Molly Worthen [14:43]
• Modern Fuzziness
  • Charisma today is a mushy, catch-all term. We say someone has it when we don’t really understand their draw.
  • Worthen: “It seems like a concept that we kind of punt to when we are watching something going on between a leader and followers, but we’re kind of scratching our heads.” [15:52]
• Charm ≠ Charisma
  • Most think of charisma as charm, but Worthen found its hallmark was polarization—not universal appeal.

2. The Polarizing Nature of Charismatic Figures

• “The really telling sign of charisma was not a particular charming presence, but rather a very polarizing presence. I mean, the mark of charisma is that there are a lot of people who find this person amazing and a lot of people who loathe them and find them revolting, and not too many who are in between.” — Molly Worthen [17:41]
• Boundary-setting is at the core: defining who's in/out, who’s the villain or the hero.

3. Charisma as Storytelling

• Charisma is the leader’s ability to invite followers into a story that gives transcendent meaning, helping people make sense of suffering.
• Worthen: “It resides in the leader’s ability to invite potential followers into a new story that lends their lives transcendent meaning… makes them feel like a hero… or a villain.” [20:22]
• If you’re cast as the villain or excluded from the narrative, the leader repels you.

4. Charisma vs. Technocratic/Expert Authority

• Periods of catastrophe (wars, depressions) shift preference toward technocrats; these are rare blips in history.
• Post-WWII America is the clearest such episode (high trust in government, experts); today, trust is at historic lows.
• “I think experts… generally don’t have the trust of a wide swath of Americans. Americans are more attracted in our current moment to anti-institutional figures.” — Molly Worthen [25:00]
• 1958: 75% trusted government; today: ~22% [25:42]

5. The Pendulum of American Authority

• American appetite swings between “burn it all down” anti-institutional ages and eras of construction/building.
• These dynamics shape which types of charisma flourish.

6. Charisma: Tool of the Weak (and Smart)

• “Charisma is, it’s really a tool of the weak. To rely solely on a charismatic story to gain authority is what you do when you don’t have a better way of going about this.” — Molly Worthen [28:19]
• For figures like George Washington or FDR, charisma was a tool among many; for others, it was all they had.

7. Successful Leaders and Charismatic Adaptability

• The best leaders aren’t “all in” on one style; they flex between narratives to suit the moment.
• FDR as example: started with technocratic appeals, but could ramp up as a populist when needed—a master “dance” [29:25].

8. Women in Charismatic Histories

• Worthen was surprised to find more female charismatic leaders in earlier periods than recent ones.
• For marginalized people, charisma (often claimed as supernatural authority) was often the only path to lead.
• Suffering (maternal, medical, societal) played a role in their credibility.
• “I had a much easier time finding charismatic women… long before the period of modern feminism… charisma is so often a means by which people who are shut out of existing paths to claim authority via institutions or tradition…” — Molly Worthen [33:50]
• Modern women leaders more likely to seek institutional paths over charismatic ones.

9. Charismatic Leadership in Today's Pop Culture

• Discussed whether celebrity culture (Gwyneth Paltrow, Taylor Swift, Oprah) produces true charismatic leaders.
• Often, these figures have ephemeral (rather than lasting political) influence; the “follower” label can be misleading due to the passive, consumptive nature of fandom.
• “We have the illusion of being active in, you know, clicking on their Instagram feed. But that term follower is deceptive… so much of our interaction with modern celebrity reduces us to a pretty passive state…” — Molly Worthen [38:36]

10. Self-aware Charisma (Jordan Peterson, Trump, Steve Bannon)

• Speculated on figures who understand the mechanics of charisma. Can meta-awareness change how this power functions?
• Example: Joseph Smith balanced the new and the traditional to win credibility.
• “Understanding that every age requires a certain dance, because people want to believe. If they’re frustrated with the current stories on offer in their culture, they want a new one that makes them feel like a hero…” — Molly Worthen [41:47]

11. Charisma as Relationship and Audience Capture

• Charisma is always a dynamic between leader and followers; if followers withdraw belief, charisma dissolves.
• “One feature of charismatic leadership that determines whether it is a force for moral progress or not is whether the charismatic leader does have… a kind of moral North Star that provides some ballast against the temptation to simply do the thing that will get the clicks…” — Molly Worthen [44:01]
• Charisma itself is morally neutral; what the leader chooses to do with it matters.

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Notable Quotes

• On Charisma and Division:
  “The mark of charisma is that there are a lot of people who find this person amazing and a lot of people who loathe them and find them revolting, and not too many who are in between.” — Worthen [17:41]

• On Charismatic Leaders and Storytelling:
  “Charisma is a particular kind of storytelling ability. It resides in the leader’s ability to invite potential followers into a new story that lends their lives transcendent meaning…” — Worthen [20:22]

• On Technocrats vs. Charismatics:
  “Americans are more attracted in our current moment to anti-institutional figures who have a message that helps explain why so many people feel betrayed and let down by the big sources of authority in our lives.” — Worthen [25:00]

• On Charisma Being a Tool of the Weak:
  “Charisma is… a tool of the weak. To rely solely on a charismatic story to gain authority is what you do when you don’t have a better way of going about this.” — Worthen [28:19]

• On the Modern “Follower”:
  “We have the illusion of being active in… clicking on their Instagram feed. But that term follower is deceptive… so much of our interaction with modern celebrity reduces us to a pretty passive state in which we mistake consumption of media for activism.” — Worthen [38:36]

• On Moral Guidance in Charismatic Leadership:
  “One feature of charismatic leadership that determines whether it is a force for moral progress or not is whether the charismatic leader does have… a moral North Star that provides some ballast against the temptation to simply do the thing that will get the clicks…” — Worthen [44:01]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Charisma’s Etymology & Early Meanings: [14:29] – [16:28]
• Charisma vs. Charm & the Power of Polarization: [16:51] – [18:55]
• Charisma as Storytelling: [20:00] – [21:50]
• Charisma After Societal Crises; Experts & Technocrats: [23:06] – [26:02]
• “Tool of the Weak”; Adaptable Leaders: [28:19] – [31:45]
• Charismatic Women, Suffering, and Authority: [33:37] – [36:33]
• Celebrity Charisma vs. Political/Religious Charisma: [36:39] – [39:02]
• Audience Capture & Charismatic Responsibility: [42:57] – [45:07]

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Memorable Moments

• Host’s dry humor:
  “The best way to understand a people is to look at their idols. This was a fantastic book… I couldn’t endorse it enough.” — Pesca [13:36]
• Pesca playfully reflects on the pitfalls of including Taylor Swift in history books:
  “If you get a fact slightly wrong, you’d never hear the end of the problem.” — Pesca [37:38]
• Worthen’s insight into Instagram/passive ‘followers’ feels both sharp and contemporary [38:36]

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Tone and Style

The conversation is lively and smart, with both host and guest displaying a mix of intellectual rigor and wit. Pesca brings a provoking, reflective interview style, often deploying humor (“I just said Goop” [36:40]), while Worthen specializes in nuanced, historically grounded answers that challenge superficial understandings of charisma.

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Conclusion

Molly Worthen’s exploration dismantles the myth of charisma as simple charm. Instead, it’s framed as a powerful, morally-neutral force, rising from societal need and often employed by the otherwise powerless. True charisma polarizes, forges communities (and villains), and adapts to the mood of the age—sometimes for better, often with unpredictable effects. For those seeking to understand (and maybe survive) American leaders past and present, Spellbound and this episode offer essential context and caution.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

It's Wednesday, March 18, 2026. From peach fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Ali La Rajani, the most powerful political figure remaining in Iran, was targeted and killed by Israeli strikes the other day. Some accounts, assassinated. That's inaccurate. The two countries are at war, even if it's not been formally declared. And Lara Johnny was leading an enemy combatant's effort to kill Israelis and others in the region. This is what happens during war, which makes more flummoxing the confusion over why

[C]

and so what, what is Israel trying to achieve with this type of strategy? I mean, they've, they've taken out Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei a couple of weeks ago. A war that has proved much more complex than was perhaps anticip continued to take out another senior leader. I mean, what do we think we can understand about its ambitions?

[A]

Why would Israel kill the de facto head of Iran? Because they are at war and Iran is trying to destroy Israel and kill Israelis. The hundreds of missiles sent by Iran would explain the killing of the top decision maker within the country sending the missiles. But to explain how anyone could be confused to the point of stammering out a befuddled question, let's look at first the New York Times coverage coverage of Lara Johnny. In the seventh paragraph of their front page story, the Times writes that despite Lara Johnny's stature within the regime, he was seen as an influential pragmatist with the clout to negotiate with the United States. His death, they suggest, would embolden Iranian hardliners who believe the Islamic Republic can survive only by reinforcing its repressive rule. As context, it was Lara Johnny who orchestrated what I would describe as a quite repressive crackdown that killed tens of thousands of Iranian citizens a few months ago. It is true, and this has long been noted, and I knew this about Lara Johnny, that he was described as a pragmatist or even a moderate in the Moderate wing of Iranian politics. He's a smart guy, he's Western educated, he comes from a sophisticated family. He's not one of those dumb backwards ayatollahs. In fact, he's not a cleric and that's why he couldn't become Supreme Leader. But a moderate in Iran, it's kind of a relative term. An Iranian moderate is a jihadist who's smart enough to place the explosive vest on his friend rather than himself. The Guardian in print echoes the same sentiment that Lara Johnny's death represents a future where negotiations will be harder to achieve. It goes so far as to cast Israel's actions as foreclosing diplomacy. Yes, the diplomacy that was in the air and in Donald Trump's head in the fourth paragraph of their piece, quote, Netanyahu is now focused on blocking Trump's pathways for a cease fire and follow up talks with Iran. Lara Johnney would have been the man to get that job done. Uh huh. Now look, I'm not naive. I understand that within the context of Iran, Lara Johnny was less extreme than certain other figures, including the Supreme Leader currently and passed. But the evidence that he is more inclined towards peace over war is scant. Also, you could make a case that a hardliner who wants to fight, fight, fight might in fact bring about Iran' demise more than a clever operator who understands Emmanuel can't. The Guardian cites Larijani's past role in negotiations with Russians and Americans over the JCPOA as evidence that he's a born negotiator. But a negotiator doesn't mean someone who's in the West's interests. It doesn't mark Lara Johnny as open minded to lessening Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons or killing their own citizens, or trying to kill Israel, Israelis through proxies, or in fact Americans through proxies. It marks Larajani of someone capable of recognizing Iran's interest. In fact, you could argue that a less capable figure overall, a more incompetent leader, even if that guy's very angry and doesn't talk about peace and doesn't know anything about Immanuel Kant, that that figure might be better for the West's interests, for everyone in the world's interests, he might be an idiot who so steps in it that Iran's demise is brought about right now. Also, let's make sure to note that there's not much evidence that anyone in Iran sees a cooling of tensions as in their interest. I see no evidence of that. And by evidence I mean let's Count the drones, let's count the missiles. Let's count the countries that they're firing drones at. Missiles at previous neutral states like Qatar and the uae. You don't keep shooting at them if you're interested in cooling tensions. This all reads to me, oh, no, they killed Lara Johnny, the man who one day will make peace, while right now he's killing people all over the world. It reads as Western wish casting, a tendency also to portray every Israeli action as a current or future blunder. This very much reminds me of the coverage of the killing of Qasem Soleimani. That was an American action which the Israelis cheered on, which at the time, I remember doing interviews. Oh, what a blunder. Oh, this will make Iran mad. And also, there's the next guy up. Well, it turns out, knowing what we know now, that taking Soleimani off the chessboard degraded Iran's ability to project force and coordinate its proxies. And Iran right now, with Soleimani in place, would be a much more formidable adversary. So I did play the question up top. Why would Israel want to kill the head of Iran, a country actively and also for 50 years that has been attempting to destroy it and kill its people? But I didn't play the answer. So here is the answer by the Guardian's deputy head of international news, Devika Bhatt.

[C]

And what taking out Lorenzani has done is that it has removed someone who, you know, yes, in many ways was a kind of hardliner, very close to Khamenei, is thought to have been responsible in part for the really brutal crackdown on protesters as security chief, but nonetheless was known as a sort of pragmatist. You know, he was involved in nuclear negotiations. We know in recent weeks, he was quite heavily involved in talking, in talks with Russia, was. Went to met Putin, reportedly.

[A]

Getting more support from the only power in the world in a position to give you support doesn't make you a moderate, it makes you not an idiot.

[C]

He has this kind of. He had this sort of experience in negotiation which others within the Iranian establishment might not have had. And removing her means that there's one fewer person for the US and Israel to negotiate with, but also one fewer

[A]

person to defend against. And right now, there are no negotiations. There is a war. And what he was actively doing right now was coordinating the war, waging the war. He wasn't waging negotiations when he killed tens of thousands of his own people. He's not waging negotiations. Every time he launches a strike that destroys an Emirati building an Omani refinery or Kuwait military base. This guy was running a war. And the Guardian looks at all that and says, ah, future diplomat.

[C]

So it does sort of suggest this idea that regime change and the kind of total destruction of the old guard of the Iranian leadership is something that is on Israel's mind.

[A]

Yeah, top of mind, I would say.

[C]

So we know from our own reporting and other reporting out there that one of the key goals for Israel is to deal with this enriched uranium that we understand is sort of buried beneath a mountainside.

[A]

No, no, not sort of. If it was sort of buried, they'd be able to bomb it. It's very much buried, which is also why Israel and the United States is having such a hard time taking it out.

[C]

And so how they do that, it looks like, you know, force is the mechanism through which they want to do that now be on the sort of war footing.

[A]

And I suppose the hundreds of sorties flown into Iranian airspace indicates that they're sort of going about this the forceful

[C]

way, use of force rather than any kind of negotiation, at least with the kind of current leadership.

[A]

What negotiation? The Guardian apparently is not covering the war in Iran. They're covering the pre peace in Iran, the future peaceful country of Iran that is very open to negotiation. The Iranians launch 100 drones a day at UAE, which isn't or wasn't before a couple of weeks ago, even an enemy. These are not peaceniks who have been for sadly forced to take up a post. What absurd analysis. Israel did not kill a combatant. It would seem like maybe they did. No, they killed a future peacemaker. The evidence being not much beyond the assumption that peace is waiting to be unlocked. If only the right Iranian official is left standing. A moderate, one of the very moderates who has maybe killed, I don't know, only a thousand protesters or 5,000, not tens of thousands. That's your moderate. The guy who killed tens of thousands of protesters. You know, in war, sadly, but sadly mostly for them. You kill the enemy. You don't wait for him to become your negotiating partner because some Western media outlet sort of says so on the show today. That doesn't count as a spiel if it's up top. It's not a spiel. It seemed spiel like, didn't it? But I give you a whole show. It is with Molly Werthen, a professor who has written a fascinating book called Spellbound How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump. Molly Werthen, up next. This episode is brought to you by Pocket hose, the world's number one expandable hose. What does that mean? Well, you know hoses, they get kinks and creases at the spigot, but Copperhead's pocket pivot swivels 360 degrees for full water flow and freedom to water with ease around your home. And they're rust proof and anti burst. They shrink back down to pocket size for effortless handling and tidy storage. This has genuinely changed my life. You know, hoses demand such a position of prominence in the garden, in the yard. You have other tools that you can put away. Not the hose. The hose demands to be paid attention to. But the pocket hose is the perfect solution. And so when I use the pocket hose and then coil it up and then put it away and it takes up a tiny fraction of what those old streperous hoses used to take up. Pocket hose has been a life changer. For a limited time, my listeners can get a free pocket Pivot and their 10 pattern sprayer with the purchase of any size Copperhead hose. Just text gist to 64,000. That's just 264,000 for your 2 free gifts with purchase gist to 64,000 message and data rates may apply. See Terms for details. The gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.

[B]

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[A]

Charisma is this ineffable characteristic, except, as Molly Worthen, the professor, writes, it is a little bit affable. I do have to say she wouldn't write that. She writes beautifully. But from reading her book Spellbound How Charisma Shaped American history from the Puritans to Donald Trump, there are certain through lines about how we define charisma. And it is also the case that how different societies at different times have defined charisma has changed, but it is always a reflection of not just the charismatic individual, but the need of the society. One of the conclusions of the book is the best way to understand the people is to look at their idols. This was a fantastic book, Spellbound. I couldn't endorse it enough. And Molly Worthen is joining us now. Thanks.

[D]

Thanks for having me.

[A]

So let's talk about because not just for fun etymological reasons, but I think it tells us something. The idea word of charisma changes a little bit. But take us from the Greek to what it becomes.

[D]

Sure, the the word comes originally from the ancient Greek charis, meaning divine anointing, chosenness by the gods. You know, you run in it if you read ancient Greek writers like Hesiod using it to describe relationships between the gods and humans. And then it takes on a new connotation in the context of the New Testament. Paul really invents the word charisma. He adds that suffix ma at the end. And it means slightly different things in different parts of the New Testament, but in general means freely given supernatural gifts from God, either the broad gift of salvation or specific supernatural powers like the ability to heal or prophesy or speak in tongues. And the term really remained a kind of specialized theological bit of vocabulary for 1900 years, until the German sociologist Max Weber took it out of the context of biblical studies and church history and kind of refashioned it in something like we often encounter it today in everyday speech to describe a kind of authority that is distinct from authority that comes from having a big military or a particular role in an institution, and seems to have something to do with a special kind of faith that followers have in a leader. But I think that the way we use it today has often become really fuzzy. And part of what part of why I wanted to investigate it is because it seems like a concept that we kind of punt to when we are watching something going on between a leader and followers, but we're kind of scratching our heads. We don't really understand what it is.

[A]

Yes, the Ineffable part. And of course, the book is called Spellbound, the closest I haven't done this, but if you looked it up in a dictionary or thesaurus, I'm sure charm would be the one of the first references. Charm, of course, also has the meaning of a spell. So is it always, and has it always had this magical quality to it?

[D]

I do think that part of why Max Faber borrowed this term from the world of Christianity, you know, he's part of the kind of founding generation of social scientists who are doing their best to account for the way humans behave in a totally naturalistic, you know, let's get rid of any kind of theological authority paradigm. And yet there remains some aspect of mass movements, religious and political movements, that could not be accounted for purely in terms of, you know, material promises that a leader made to followers. And it's almost as if he was looking for a way to retain a term that still contained a kind of whiff of the magical, of the supernatural, but in a way that made it kind of respectable so his colleagues in the social sciences could use it. And I think it's telling that when we use the term today, often we use it in conjunction with quasi religious or hypnotism metaphors. You know, we talk about a leader, mesmerizing followers, or people converting to a cause. And certainly I thought when I began this project that I would be writing about a lot of very charming people. And I realize now, in retrospect, that I confused charisma with charm. I thought I would be writing about people with really high emotional intelligence, really good at working the room. I thought all my characters would be these amazing orators, just, you know, full of inspiring, you know, power in the pulpit or on the campaign trail. And that was true sort of here and there, but more as exceptions. And I found that the really telling sign of charisma was not a particular charming presence, but rather a very polarizing presence. I mean, the mark of charisma is that there are a lot of people who find this person amazing and a lot of people who loathe them and find them revolting, and not too many who are in between.

[A]

Right. So you said you thought you'd find charming people, but always charming to someone. And part of the appeal is that they are repulsive to others. And that does a few things. Right. It defines the boundaries of who's in and who's out. It appeals to people who maybe feel disaffected. Everyone from, you know, Donald Trump's right there in the subtitle. So what's going on with his followers to early followers of especially women who were charismatic and were said to be somehow touched by the Holy Spirit and had revelations often about around childbirth. But here's my question about the presence of a bit of revulsion to all these charismatic figures. Is it something that Weber would point to is very practical. Here's how it works. My fellow social scientists. Look at the empiricism on this. Or is it more like the idea that every great perfume has that one rotten note in it that somehow that makes things more compelling?

[D]

Yeah, that's a really interesting way of putting it. I don't think that Weber would want to reduce charisma to a formula. I think he. While he was a big fan of so much that he saw happening in kind of modern 20th century Western culture, he also feared the way in which the bureaucratization of society confines these ineffable dimensions of the human experience and what he called the iron cage. I think he would be cautious. I think the key here and how I ended up defining charisma across the four centuries I cover, is that charisma is a particular kind of storytelling ability. It resides in the leader's ability to invite potential followers into a new story that lends their lives transcendent meaning, gives them a sense that they're suffering the chaos. Everything they can't explain actually has significance and is part of a bigger plot. Now, what's the difference between a compelling story and just a set of attractive policy proposals? I think a story has an arc. It's a narrative that has plot points, has a resolution, but it also has characters. And this is where we have some tools to understand that revulsion that charismatic figures compel. I think, because if you find that you are left out of this story that a leader is telling, or you are cast as a villain, I think that that means you will find this person pretty uncompelling and, in fact, revolting. So I think that our relationship, our reaction, what we might perceive as a visceral reaction to a charismatic leader has everything to do with whether he or she is inviting us into a story that has an attractive part for us or not.

[A]

Yeah. So when you talk about how is it different from an attractive set of policy proposals, you often note that charisma and the rise of the charismatic leader has been a constant throughout world history, with a couple exceptions. And those exceptions is have been when there have been a giant dislocation like a worldwide depression or especially a world war, and then there is at times a retreat to Letting the technocrats have a moment or two to redefine things. But then when things stabilize, we as human beings who are now narrative creatures go back in for the charismatic figure. That's really interesting, but I'm thinking, as I read the book, I think of myself as more the rationalist. You probably do too. You also correctly diagnose that everyone who defines themselves as the rationalist will also quickly abandon that when, when this correct charismatic person comes around. I was thinking about our current technocratic charismatic, or maybe they're not charismatic figures. I was thinking about Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson and Pete Buttigieg. Now, would you say that they are exceptions to the charismatic rule? Would you say they have almost a negative charisma, that dorky charisma? Or do they just have these famous ones? Or do they just have full on charisma?

[D]

I think they have charisma for, for a relatively small subculture. Overall, over the long duray of American history, Americans have a record of being pretty ambivalent, if not outright suspicious of expert elites. The one exception is roughly 20 years after World War II, in which as a result of the trauma of the war, in a sense that charismatic leadership equals Adolf Hitler, equals mass murder and destruction of civilization. There is this huge reaction against that, both at the level of journalists and academics, but I think also at a more popular level in a sense that okay, if charismatic leaders inviting people into a story leads to. That leads to Holocaust, it has no place in a modern western democracy. And in fact we are going to trust the stories that the expert technocrats tell us about what America is, where authority should lie, where we're going as a country. And so that's the one period in the history of this country in which I think you can fairly say that for a large swath of Americans, experts of the type that you're describing really have broad purchase on the society and invite a lot of people into the story they're telling. I think they end up rather squandering that trust. And many people lose their faith in institutions for good reason. I think in our own time we're in what I call the age of the guru, in which figures who claim authority because they have taken degrees at fancy universities, they have gained a lot of knowledge and approval from other professionals. So they have the right to weigh in on a complex issue. People in that category, I think generally don't have the trust of a wide swath of Americans. Americans are more attracted in our current moment to anti institutional figures who have a message that helps explain why so many people feel betrayed and let down by the big sources of authority in our lives. Just to put one concrete data point on this, 1958 was the first year in which the National Election Study asked Americans do you trust the federal government to do the right thing all or most of the time? And in 1958, 75% said yes. Today that number is more like 22% with self described Republicans being a little bit lower, Democrats a little bit higher. And we see a similar drop in trust across our faith in all institutions. Right. And I think experts, they derive their authority from their relationship to institutions. So they are not, they're in a low point right now in our culture.

[A]

Yeah. So it was probably too high then and is too low now. So a couple thoughts on what you've said. One is there was that one period right after the war where we looked askance at the charismatic leader. Yet at the same time, since the Nazis were eugenicists and also believed in espoused, but to some extent believed in technology and what technology would do and we were also perhaps very afraid of the atomic bomb, there was a great deal of worry about this in every episode of the Twilight Zone. There are two themes of the Twilight Zone. One is beware the enemy for he is us. And the other is what will. Don't put your faith in technology. So it shows up in kind of an opposite way in our anxieties even during this technocratic time. That's point one. Point two is of course we gave a lot of policy sway over to the technocrats and they become the best and the brightest to get us into Vietnam and don't get us out of Vietnam and are Robert McNamara. So that's another point. But a third point I wanted to make is, was the only time where we really embraced the non charismatic figure that post war time. Because after the Civil War. I just am looking at your book. The there is a chapter that ends about at the Civil War and the next chapter is 1904 and what was. And this was the Philadelphia, sorry, the St. Louis expedition where we meet Max Weber. But after the war it wasn't maybe necessarily that things were so great in America, but perhaps there was a period where we either embraced or didn't pay so much attention to the charismatic. And that's why there is this little bit of a lacuna in your book.

[D]

That's interesting. I mean I think there's a. There's a couple of narratives I'm. I'm trying to stitch together. One is this sort of story of experts and institutions. But the other is this pendulum swing that I think we see across the 400 years since European contact, from ages when Americans have a greater appetite for burning it all down and criticism of institution and traditions to an era when they want construction, they want building. And I think we see a kind of back and forth between those two impulses. And that appetite for more building can come with a greater inclination to go along with a charismatic leader who advocates for institutionalizing that building. I'll also say, too, one thing I really noticed as I was trying to step back and make sense of this pretty diverse range of characters from Puritan heretics to, you know, neo Hindu gurus in the 1970s, you know, politicians ranging from George Washington and Napoleon to Adlai Stevenson, who was like the last person I thought I would be writing about in a book about charisma. I realized that charisma is. It's really a tool of the week. It's. It's to rely solely on a charismatic story to gain authority is what you do when you don't have a better way of going about this. You don't have, you know, institutional. Right, Right, right.

[A]

So George, for George Washington, maybe Andrew Jackson is a tool in the toolkit for a lot of these other guys. It's all they have.

[D]

Yeah, but all. But also the most successful leaders were not those who leaned totally 100% into the dominant appetites and anxieties and desires of their age and really hewed closely to what I, what I call in each period the kind of dominant, charismatic type. The success stories. George Washington, FDR is another one. Martin Luther King as well, were those who showed a certain agility, who were able to lean part way into one kind of charismatic narrative, but cheat in the other direction when it was politically advantageous. So FDR is a great example at the beginning of his presidency when he senses that at this depth of frustration with the inaction of the Hoover administration, as the Great Depression is just beginning, he senses an opportunity to call Americans along to faith in the rationalist technocrats helping to design the New Deal. You listen to his early Fireside Chat radio broadcasts, and he's really calling Americans to the calmest, coolest version of themselves, turn this problem over to the experts. But a bit later, on 1934, 35, as he begins to worry more and more about this populist challenge to his reelection on the left, especially in the form of the Louisiana populist Huey Long, who is saying, listen, Americans, the New Deal just lines the pockets of Wall Street. We need something far more radical. FDR is this, this elite Boston Brahmin FDR in response to that kind of horrifies his own advisors and speechwriters and turns out that he can bring out his inner demagogue. And his own speechwriters are sort of standing in the back of a rally he did in Madison Square Garden hearing him foam against the wealthy elites and they're thinking, what happened to the FDR that we knew? But that's FDR doing this dance and sensing that some moments call for a particular kind of storytelling and other moments call for recalibration.

[A]

We'll be back with Molly Worth and in a minute. The gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We do it gaming team take on Gilly the king and wallow. 2, 6 $7 million gaming in an epic global gaming league video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner, plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right [e-mail] that's globalgamingleague.com everybody games. We're back with Molly Werthen, UNC professor, author of Spellbound How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump. I wanted to get to your really eye opening insights as to women who were charismatic throughout history. I think I mentioned they often had great insight into childbearing but they often were also victims, real true life victims, not just their story. They've had horrible lives and that gave them credibility. The suffering they went through in a way that wasn't true for men. So what I wanted you could talk about that. But also, let's jump up to the present. Is that still a factor in the current charismatic woman who's likely to be seen as charismatic, a Marjorie Taylor Greene, say, or pick any other example.

[D]

Yeah. The trajectory of women in this, in this book was one that surprised me. I thought, you know, going into it, I thought okay, I want, I want just a mix of all kinds of people and certainly I want to want to, you know, have, have a gender balance in my cast of characters. I thought that it would be easier for me to find charismatic women to write about in the later end of the period I was covering, closer to our own time. In fact, I had a much easier time finding charismatic women who really used a charismatic story, often acclaimed a supernatural authority, to develop what we could call a mass movement long before the period of modern feminism. And I think this is because charisma is so often a means by which people who are shut out of existing paths to claim authority via institutions or tradition. It's a means by which they can do a kind of end run around that hierarchy and say, listen, God told me directly, this is my mission, like it or not. You know, I didn't choose this, but God chose me. And that is, that is appealing and powerful for women. I think before the age of modern medicine, most humans had far more experience with terrible sickness, death, and suffering than we do today. This point I'm constantly trying to drive home to my students. I do think for women, there's this way in which every pregnancy is a potential death sentence. Women are the ones doing the nursing at home and overseeing people die in their bed in a way that was more intimate, I think, often than men. And I was struck by the power of these women religious leaders to turn that, that, that suffering into a way of connecting and claiming credibility, especially with other women here. You too, have experienced, you know, this kind of unexplainable loss. And let me tell you what it all means. Let me put it in context for you now, as I sort of follow this plot line forward, what I found, while I still write about women toward the end of the book, One of the last major characters in my book is Oprah, who I think is one of the great charismatic leaders of our time. There's a way in which women, once they have more access to more dependable means of claiming authority, once they can get official positions and institutions, and this sort of thing, they do, frankly, the smart thing, and they opt for that, which is a more reliable way of. Of having influence often. Now, this is not to say that there are no charismatic women in our own time, but I think the age of the gurus is more dominated by men. I think women have generally opted for other, subtler means of claiming authority, Just as a generalization.

[A]

Yeah, but you could have done. What's her name? Goop.

[D]

Oh, Gwyneth Paltrow.

[A]

Yes. Couldn't you have done Gwyneth Paltrow? I just said Goop.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Couldn't you have done Gwyneth Paltrow?

[D]

I could have, yes. I mean, the thing a Thing with a topic like this is, you know, I could write like 20 versions of it with different, you know, different cast of characters. I will say that I made the decision early on to focus on people who really left a mark in the kind of spheres of organized, lasting religious movements and in politics. And this is not to say that people who are primarily active, you know, in, in a cultural space like Gwyneth Paltrow or in, in music or, or sports don't sometimes have pretty significant political impact. Sometimes they do, but I, I think it's, it generally is, is a bit more ephemeral. So I'll, you know, I wrestled a lot with whether I should write about Taylor Swift at the, this book.

[A]

Right.

[D]

I've got an 11 year old daughter, she's obsessed with Taylor Swift. How could I not include Taylor Swift?

[A]

Yeah, but then if you get a fact slightly wrong, you'd never hear the end of the problem.

[D]

Well, that's, that's true. But I do think we saw a telling moment in the last presidential election when Taylor Swift did, you know, she got, she became a little bit more political and made, you know, more explicit her criticisms of Trump. And there was this moment when I think people on both the left and the right explosion expected that to have a big impact. And ultimately it really seems to have been a non. Event. And I do think there's this way in which the experiences that we have in a concert arena with our favorite artists or at a sports event with our home team can be incredibly emotionally powerful. But I'm not sure that they are always activating in a sustained way. And one of the great problems of

[A]

our culture, anything beyond their own desire to perpetuate their fame or commerce or art, you know. But yes, I understand what you're saying.

[D]

Well, and we are, I think we have the illusion of being active in, you know, clicking on their Instagram feed. But that term follower is deceptive. I mean, it implies an action, it implies putting one foot after the other when really I think so much of our interaction with modern celebrity reduces us to a pretty passive state in which we mistake, you know, consumption of media for activism. And they're not the same. Yeah.

[A]

Yet two other women. I was thinking of a lot of other characters who could be in the book. I was thinking of Jordan Peterson. And that's interesting because he's obviously studied, maybe come to different conclusions, but it wouldn't surprise me if he knew the vast majority of the characters in your book. So I wonder what the charismatic person who thinks they really understand and have a knowledge of the charismatic people who. Who came before them, how that might change things. You know, the experiment affecting the experimented to some extent. Donald Trump's in this category. I don't know how much he understands Andrew Jackson, but this was foisted upon him by Steve Bannon, who certainly understands a lot of charismatic figures who came before him.

[D]

That's a great. That's a great way of putting it. I. I would have loved to include Jordan Peterson. I mean, there are so. There are. There are cases, there are so many where just because a book needs to be fit between two covers, you can't include everyone. But I think Peterson is a fascinating feature of our current age in which people are both disillusioned with institutions, but so hungry for a structure, a story that makes sense. And I think Peterson's power is his really bold willingness to stand on stage and present as relevant both the biblical story and also the kind of matrix of mythological types informed by his study, especially of the psychologist Carl Jung, as a kind of totalizing framework that can really make legible all of people's struggles today. It makes total sense to me. One of the breakthroughs I had in this book was learning more about the story of the. Of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church. And I think he's a great example of someone who riffs just enough on tradition. Right. His new revelation, I mean, it sounds like the King James version of the New Testament. It's that language, you know, he's sort of picking and choosing in a really. I mean, Mormons would say this is him seeing the kind of partial revelation of God's full truth in the past, but he's drawing on this library of images and symbols from medieval alchemy and the world of Freemasonry while still innovating just enough to say, no, here is the full story. And I think understanding that every age requires a certain dance, because people want to believe. If they're frustrated with the current stories on offer in their culture, they want a new one that makes them feel like a hero, but they also want to feel like they've done their due diligence and that they aren't just being taken for a ride. And Joseph Smith is an example of someone who sensed this balance of credulity and skepticism in his age and, you know, knows, okay, this is an age when people want a sense of there being hard evidence. He takes his friends out in the woods, and they are, you know, afterwards willing to sign affidavits saying that the angel Moroni let Them hold and heft the golden plates, you know, before taking them back. At the same time, he. He sensed enough about his age and about kind of the American spirit to say, you have to just prey on. On it and God will reveal it to you inside you that it's true. Right? This, like, persistent elevation of personal subjective experience that I think has always been a really important part of whether Americans, you know, believe something or not. So I think it's that dance between locating yourself in a tradition. I am the culmination of a story, you know, and also, let me show you how the true light is burning inside you.

[A]

One aspect that you emphasize over and over again is it is a relationship. It is a relationship between the charismatic actor and the audience. These days we have this phrase, this concept, good concept, called audience capture. And I'm wondering, I'm sure you know about this. Is it a mark of someone who is not purely charismatic in the spellbound way or has more tools in the toolkit phrase I've used before, that they are aware of audience capture and don't give into it. So the real cult leader, charismatic figure will be captured by the audience, whereas the Martin Luther King type is maybe aware of what his constituency potential consists. Constituency perhaps wants, but knows what his North Star is and wants to steer them.

[D]

Yes, that's. That's so interesting. I guess it's. It's always a dialectic, so I think it would never be the case. And this is a point that Max Weber saw when he was kind of creating the framework that we still use today. There's something ephemeral about charisma, that if the audience decides they no longer believe in the promises and the achievements of the leader, that charismatic relationship will vanish. But you're right that there is this sort of power dynamic. And I think, think one feature of charismatic leadership that determines whether it is a force for moral progress or not is whether the charismatic leader does have, as you put it, a kind of moral North Star that provides some ballast against the temptation to simply do the thing that will get the clicks or boost in the short term, an election advantage. You know, the other key feature is, is the story that the leader is telling. Is that a story based in facts that one can verify from outside sources, or is it a sort of pseudo reality? I think those two things help us navigate how to judge a charismatic leader because charisma in and of itself is morally neutral.

[A]

We do have some more of Molly Werthen for our Pesca plus subscribers. Great interview. Go to subscribe. There is an opportunity to join us for free and to try the services. And once you do that, we're doing this NCAA thing. So if you get your picks in before noon on Thursday, we'd love to have you as member of the Peska plus family. The best way to subscribe and help the gist subscribe.Mike Pesca.com. And that's it for today's show. Cory War produces the Gist, Kathleen Sykes runs the Gist list, Ben Astaire is our booking producer, and Jeff Craig runs our socials. Michelle Pesca oversees it all benevolently and thanks for listening.

[B]

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