4 mn readSupremacy is what majoritarians crave and fight to keep — in their fearful imagination, taking back control “to ensure that which all others achieve with maximal effort,… [our own] achieve with minimal qualification,” as Ta-Nehisi Coates writes. The dreary thuggery of so many populist leaders constitutes a potent message to their followers: ‘Work half as hard as those other people, and I will bestow upon you more than they will get by working twice as hard as you. Just look at me. I did it.’ The ghastly freakishness of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro, Narendra Modi, let alone Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Nicolás Maduro, Viktor Orbán, or the Catalans Carles Puigdemont and Oriol Junqueras, is not an accident. It is by built-in design, for dominance to be made perfect: elevating the lowest of “our own” above those more qualified but not of “our own.” Their cavalier, low-life attitude toward law itself, and their recklessness in commiting crimes signal to their followers they are willing to do whatever it takes to protect them, first and foremost the kind of drastic actions that others shy away from. The felonies of those leaders, their insanity and depravity, become a means to buy the loyalty of the people they want to rally, driving them to act as facilitators at the bare minimum, as active hitmen at best. Who can better prove their commitment than those whose options are actually reduced to ruling the country or serving time?
