Abstract

This essay argues that scholars who focus on demagogues rather than demagoguery are mistakenly making charismatic leadership a necessary quality of demagoguery. Instead of focusing on demagogues, we should focus on the conditions that nurture demagoguery. This essay makes the case that charismatic leadership is not necessary for demagoguery but an almost inevitable method of gaining compliance in a culture that promotes outcomes-based ethics.

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
2019-05-27
DOI
10.1080/02773945.2019.1610638
Open Access
Closed

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (3)

  1. Philosophy & Rhetoric
  2. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  3. Rhetoric Society Quarterly

Cites in this index (1)

  1. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Also cites 9 works outside this index ↓
  1. Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel
  2. The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943
  3. 10.1353/rap.2006.0067
    Rhetoric and Public Affairs  
  4. Complicity in the Holocaust
  5. How Partisan Media Polarize America
  6. Fascists
  7. They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45
  8. The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945
  9. 10.1177/1742715005057671
    Leadership  
CrossRef global citation count: 6 View in citation network →