The Appearance of Leadership

I don’t often disagree with John Scalzi, but today he is wrong.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Remember that scene?

The one in The Fifth Element?

The cruise ship/hotel Fhloston Paradise is under siege by the Mangalores? Simple minded, single minded, brutish, thuggish, ugly, bald, jowly creatures? Easily duped into fighting for hopeless causes? Yeah, those guys. They’ve taken the bridge, shot the Captain and are holding a dozen hostages. They’ve lost the battle, but they’d crash the ship into the ground and kill everybody rather than surrender. They’re rooting around like feral children, smashing the instruments, fighting amongst themselves, and exchanging gunfire with what’s left of the ship’s crew.

The hero, Korben Dallas, and Ensign Fog are against the bulkhead, just outside the bridge:

Dallas to Fog: “We need to find the leader, Mangalores won’t fight without the leader.”

Aknot the Mangalore (shouting from the bridge): “One more shot, and we start killing hostages!”

Dallas: “That’s the leader.”

You can always spot the leader.

Sure, the details vary and he’s not always the the guy giving the orders, but you can usually spot the head Manglaore pretty easily:

- When you question an organization, the guy who consistently answers loudest, whether or not the organization approves – and in fact there is little the organization can do about it one way or the other - is the leader.

- In a crises, the guy they all turn to for hope is the leader.

- When a guy, speaking for your organization and purporting to represent you, spouts crazy nonsense, provably false information, blatant hate speech, and fixes blame for your organization’s problems on [insert convenient scapegoat: Jews, Atheists, Liberals, Socialists, Homos, Illegal Aliens, The Press, etc ad nauseum] and everybody in your organization nods their head and doesn’t raise an objection, he’s the leader.

- When the supposed powerful of your organization nervously wait to see what a certain guy says, not because they respect him, but because they fear appearing to hold contrary opinions, then that guy is the leader.

- If somebody speaks publicly for your organization without first consulting your organization, and the organization makes no move to either refute his statements or shut him up because they don’t have the balls to do so, well then he is speaking for your organization and he’s the leader.

- If somebody speaks publicly for your organization, loudly, repeatedly, and so often that he becomes the de facto face of your organization, then he’s the leader.

- When the chips are down, and morale is low, and you’re feeling blue, the guy you call to rally the troops is the leader.

- When you give a guy a twenty minute speaking slot in your organization’s very tight agenda, and he takes an hour and a half, and you do nothing about it because the crowd is eating it up – and in fact you actually can’t do anything about it because the crowd would tear you to pieces, so you bump supposedly important people off the schedule to let the guy go on speaking on his own agenda – well then his agenda is your agenda and he’s the leader.

- When a guy proposes no solutions, shows no inspiration, no insight, but excels solely at playing to your organization’s worst fears, when he tells you that [insert convenient scapegoat: Jews, Atheists, Liberals, Socialists, Homos, Illegal Aliens, The Press, etc ad nauseum] are ruining your country, destroying your home, raping your children, spitting on your holy books and your sacred ideals and you cheer him on, he’s the leader. Note: he is a particularly heinous type of leader, a leader of the weak minded, one that we’ve seen many times throughout history, one that our country has fought against over and over – but he is a leader nonetheless.

- When a guy bangs the podium, pounds his chest, and punctuates his speech with fist pumping salutes while misquoting the founding documents of your country in order to make his point – while conspicuously failing to mention those portions of the governing documents that directly refute his points – all while making simplistically mindless patriotic statements in order to pander to the lowest unthinking common denominator and inflame the crowd, and instead of hearing the words “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!” the crowd of young people rise to their feet and cheer at the top of their lungs, then that guy is the leader.

- When a guy, speaking for your organization on the national stage, takes the most dishonorable, extreme, and dishonest traits (and thereby directly acknowledges that these traits are dishonorable and extreme and dishonest) of your organization and blatantly, obviously, childishly, pins those failings on the opposition rather than to own up to them and take responsibility for them, and the people in your organization cheer and do not correct him, he is the leader.

- When a guy stands before a crowd and tells them that their fellow countrymen are in point of fact the enemy, and the crowd cheers, he is the leader.

- When a guy stands before a crowd and speaks proudly of treason, and the crowd cheers, then he is the leader.

The GOP has such a leader.

He is the face of their party.

He is the one they listen to.

He is the one they’ve turned to for hope.

He is their voice, whether they like it or not.

He is the one the official leaders are afraid to challenge.

He is the one the official party leaders debase themselves before.

He is the one that tells them they are right and righteous and wronged.

He is the one that brings them to their feet and makes them cheer.

He is a man of abject ignorance who speaks of divine knowledge.

He is a man who has never served and yet speaks of service.

He has no ideas of his own but he is hailed as idealistic.

He is a man of gluttony who speaks of self control.

He is a man of vice who speaks of virtue.

He is a man of sin who speaks of piety.

He is a man of hate who speaks of love.

He is a coward who speaks of courage.

He is the one they’ve rallied to.

He is, of course, Rush Limbaugh.

Dallas to Fog: “We need to find the leader, Mangalores won’t fight without the leader.”

Aknot the Mangalore: “One more shot, and we start killing hostages!”

Dallas: “That’s the leader.”

Of course, it didn’t end well for Aknot the Mangalore.

And those who followed Aknot had it far worse.

But what of the innocent bystanders?

Why, they had it worst of all, and their bodies littered the Mangalore's trail of destruction.