Berserk!: Anger and the Charismatic Populism of Donald Trump

Abstract

This paper explores the role anger plays in charismatic movements. Although scholars have long recognized the importance of emotions to the etiology of charisma, they tend to focus on mutual affection among leaders and followers, paying less attention to how anger—and particularly its subspecies, ressentiment—patterns charismatic power. Drawing on literature from political science, populism research, and the cultural sociology of charisma, we argue that ressentiment, which is associated with self-disvalue and an invidious need to blame outsiders, is key to theorizing the emotional energy that charisma delivers to revolutionary upheaval. The Weberian source for the intervention is his lesser known concept of ‘berserk-charisma’. Reorienting the focus of charisma research to account for its aggressive, ‘outward’ dimension has the benefit of drawing us closer to the vision Weber had for its social-historical relevance. We demonstrate our insights using the case of charismatic/populist support for Trump.