Two big egos
Imagine a leader with an enormous ego and a devoted fan club, who frequently behaves in a reckless and irresponsible fashion. He sends out tweets full of bizarre and irresponsible attacks on other people, and also misrepresents important financial information, which misleads various stakeholders.
What should we do with a leader like this?
I guess the answer depends on where they work. If they work in the private sector, then they need to be punished for their bad behavior, perhaps by the SEC. If they work in the executive branch . . . well, you can guess.
PS. Make that three big egos—look who The Economist thinks has a good chance to become the next British Prime Minister:
Mrs May might well win such a vote, if only because Mr Johnson is so unpopular among Tory MPs. His problem is not just that the majority of Tory MPs voted “remain” in the referendum, and hate him as leader of the Brexiteers. MPs of all political persuasions regard him as a cad. One senior Tory says that “it’s 100% inconceivable that he’ll become leader of the Conservative Party…He’s a media clown, not a serious politician.” “He’s a shit who doesn’t give a shit about anything but himself,” says another. The list of charges against him is long: he doesn’t believe in anything but his own advancement; he doesn’t lift a finger to help his colleagues; he was a disaster as foreign secretary.
He has one big thing going for him, in the eyes of most Tory MPs: his performance at the polls. When he won two terms as mayor of Labour-leaning London he was praised for possessing the “Heineken factor”—the ability to reach parts of the country that other Tories couldn’t reach. . . .
But should Mrs May lose a confidence vote, Mr Johnson has a good chance. The two further hurdles are probably superable. He has to get onto a shortlist of two MPs that the parliamentary party sends to the party’s 124,000 members, and then he has to win the membership’s support.
On the first, the Brexiteers, who include not just the ERG but other eurosceptics, have enough votes to get one of their own onto the final shortlist, and are likely to coalesce behind Mr Johnson. Jacob Rees-Mogg, their leader, has already said that he thinks that Mr Johnson would make an excellent prime minister.
On the second, Tory party members like Mr Johnson more than Tory MPs do—and are getting keener with every suicide-vest jibe.
Could a conservative politicians who is hated by his elite of own party (but not the voters), who acts like a buffoon, and who likes to make outrageous attacks on a top female politician, actually become the leader of the UK? Stranger things have happened. Eventually every country in the world will elect a buffoonish nationalistic leader. And then the world can pick up where it left off in the 1930s, before that unfortunate detour into the UN, EU, IMF, WTO, World Bank, NATO, NAFTA and all those other institutions that ruined everything accomplished during 1914-45, the golden age of nationalism.
PPS. Speaking of big egos, a victim of the MeToo movement has just died:
- Dennis Hof, the notorious pimp and Republican candidate for Nevada’s state assembly, died hours after a combination 72nd birthday party/campaign rally attended by GOP tax fighter Grover Norquist, recent Trump pardon recipient Sheriff Joe Arpaio and porn movie legend Ron Jeremy.
- Hof died at the Love Ranch, one of his legal Nevada brothels, according to the Reno Gazette Journal. Another brothel of his, the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, was made famous by the HBO show “Cathouse.”
- Multiple former prostitutes had accused him of sexual assault, but prosecutors did not file charges against Hof, who denied the claims.
As you’d expect, he was highly popular with evangelical voters.
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18. October 2018 at 13:25
Very well-written post, particularly the paragraph comparing the US-led rise of global institutions versus the prior period, encompassing the world wars.
Among other things, we live in an age of incredible hypocracy and an incredible lack of accountability for it.
18. October 2018 at 13:58
Scott, you’re over your head here. We need H. L. Mencken!
18. October 2018 at 13:59
I find characters like Theresa May much less capable, yet politicians like them are almost never criticized. Merkel is another example. What has May ever achieved? There’s still no deal in sight. Merkel and May are heading for a complete catastrophe; they’ve had years (!) for a deal, but their progress is virtually nil.
May’s strategy was grotesquely bad from day one. She has given up all the blockade capabilities of Britain in the EU long before the actual negotiations. She should not have given up all those blockade capabilities until she negotiated a good deal. May’s “strategy” was to throw away all Trump cards and then begging Merkel for a deal. You cannot act dumber than Theresa May. That’s just not possible.
We need more eccentric unadjusted unconventional thinkers, mavericks, and contrarians like Musk, Thiel, and Johnson, not less. May and Merkel, on the other hand, are the incarnations of completely adapted, boring simpletons who unfortunately never achieve anything positive for humanity.
Maybe you are a living mixture of both: Your ideas are very good and very unconventional, but in the implementation you are too similar to May and Merkel, too boring and too careful, maybe that’s why NGPDLT is not implemented yet? Maybe you have to go more out of yourself? Play the gorilla a bit more, clench your hands into fists, and tap your chest. Acting like May and Merkel leads to nothing but disaster. Scott, you need to wake up.
18. October 2018 at 15:40
I probably agree with this post, but should not we also ask why so much of the world’s voting population is turning against globalist institutions. “The demagogues did it,” is not truly an answer.
I also wonder if the US national security complex, a $1.2 trillion annual undertaking, has been turned into a global guard service for multinationals.
How should a voter feel if they conclude that their capital is being run by globalist interests, and not in the sovereign interest?
And remember, the multinationals comport unlimited funds into media, academia, think tanks, and even political campaigns. But multinationals have fiduciary obligations to shareholders that trump allegiance to any particular sovereign.
18. October 2018 at 19:33
Best last sentence of any blog post.
18. October 2018 at 20:05
Christian List,
“May and Merkel, on the other hand, are the incarnations of completely adapted, boring simpletons who unfortunately never achieve anything positive for humanity.”
So, entertainment is the key quality you look for in a politician? And you think that “blockade possibilities” are the key to complex negotiations with international stakeholders that you have to live with in the long run (save for relocating the British isles)?
May and Merkel are the epitomy of the completely selfless, unsung heroes who make the world run smoothly. Rabble rousers like Trump and Johnson are the clownish buffoons elected to wreck all that good work for entertainment purposes because the electorate gets bored with prosperity every 2, 3 generations.
19. October 2018 at 00:43
May and Merkel are the epitomy of the completely selfless, unsung heroes who make the world run smoothly.
You can’t be this stupid – and still be able to breathe and type simultaneously.
outrageous attacks on a top female politician
Are you competing for World’s Biggest Cuck, prof Sumner ?
19. October 2018 at 01:14
Rob,
it would help if you left the trailer park some time and tried to run something, anything (video games don’t count). Then you’d find out.
19. October 2018 at 02:32
Oh look, the NPC is making mouth noises. How cute.
19. October 2018 at 05:32
“Could a conservative politicians who is hated by his elite of own party (but not the voters), who acts like a buffoon, and who likes to make outrageous attacks on a top female politician, actually become the leader of the UK?”
Would make quite a pair with Jeremy Corbyn, of whom all the same could also be said.
Ah, “cuck” as an insult, a true sign of someone who not only is following a preprogrammed script (an NPC if ever there was one), but also indicates someone whose insecurity over total lack of success with the opposite sex (or elsewhere in life) can only be assuaged by imagining that everyone else’s partner is unfaithful. Enjoy those sour grapes.
19. October 2018 at 07:53
Christian, The Brexit people told us it would turn the UK into a sort of Singapore in the North Sea. And now the search for scapegoats begins. I suppose May’s as good an option as any other.
19. October 2018 at 12:27
“all those other institutions that ruined everything accomplished during 1914-45, the golden age of nationalism.”
Not seeing how 1815-1914 was any less nationalistic than 1914-45, which had the League of Nations and transcontinental alliances. The main accomplishment of the Amerocentric age has been the diminution of the world’s geopolitical blocs into two (Russia/Iran/China v. Israel/USA); it has not been their elimination.
19. October 2018 at 12:32
“And now the search for scapegoats begins. I suppose May’s as good an option as any other.”
No. A bunch of the incompetence is unique to May, whom I strongly criticized from the very start, as you can remember.
Unlike Johnson, Corbyn does not act like a buffoon.
@John Thacker
cuck
19. October 2018 at 12:43
“it would help if you left the trailer park some time and tried to run something, anything (video games don’t count). Then you’d find out.”
Unless you’re friendly with people, the only way you can make them respect you is fear. Merkel and May aren’t feared, and their policy sucks.
19. October 2018 at 18:26
@Scott
As a scapegoat, yes. Scapegoats are not herd animals. But we have to expect more from a head of government. It’s like I said: her performance is extremely poor. It’s hard, maybe even impossible, to handle Brexit worse than she and Merkel did.
@mbka
That’s not what I wrote and it’s surely not what I meant.
This also applies vice versa. The EU, and especially Germany, needs the UK. But the EU continues to humiliate May in disgusting proportions, even though May is really modest, as you correctly imply. The arrogance and ignorance of the EU and Merkel makes one speechless.
I find your rapture pretty disgusting, especially because it’s not based on any facts. Merkel and May
have not made any progress regarding Brexit, not to mention results. Making the world run smoothly? Your statement could not be more cynical.
Selfless? You are completely out of your mind. Merkel clings to power like no German (democratic) politician before her. She has held the CDU chairmanship for 18 years and wants to grab it again in December. At first I was a supporter of Merkel, because she claimed in her first election program that she wanted to tackle all the necessary structural reforms. Now she has been “governing” for 13 years and what has she done? In 13 years there was not a single structural reform. She has zero results. Worse yet, if she carried out “structural reforms”, then in the completely wrong direction. It’s really scary.
Her predecessor Gerhard Schröder has an enormous ego as well, he was not very moral (he still isn’t, not to say, he’s human garbage from a private perspective. He was bizarre and ruthless, but at least he did his job and carried out major structural reforms, which led to an unprecedented economic boom in Germany. I don’t like people like Schröder and Musk personally but at least they get shit done now and then.
21. October 2018 at 09:23
Scott,
Going by the dynamic equation of exchange, the current money growth rates do not support 5% nominal GDP. Money is already too tight.
M2 dot @ 4% + V2 dot @ .4% = 4.4%, which is below the normal 5%. Trump is correct; too restrictive.
Pete Bias
22. October 2018 at 08:43
Attending Hof’s final party were other notables such as Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Grover Norquist and Ron Jeremy. I’m guessing the 2024 GOP ticket may just be Jeremy/Arpaio. And yes, that would bring in the evangelicals in a big way.