Freud on group psychology and leaders: The case of Donald Trump

Abstract

What can Freud teach us regarding the grounds of the ‘leadership’ attributed to the current American president, Donald Trump, if one considers that such ‘leadership’ presupposes the existence of an identifiable ‘group’ of which Trump is the putative leader? It is argued that Freud's Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego of 1921 furnishes the conceptual means for clarifying the sense in which Trump can indeed be described as a leader. To be able to show this to be so, the relevant parts of Freud's essay are reconstructed, with particular attention to his claim that what constitutes a group is indissolubly connected with the ‘libidinal ties’ between a leader and his followers—something he elaborates on with reference to two ‘organised’ groups, namely the Roman Catholic Church and the army. Freud's claim about the unifying role of a leader in relation to a group, as well as his reminder, that common hatred of something external to the group could also promote unity is considered as far as the relation between Trump and his supporters is concerned, with specific reference to Republican members of the United States Congress and to his ‘base’ among members of the public. Eventually it is Freud's observations on ‘identification’ that appears to provide the key to understanding the sense in which Trump may be called a ‘leader’, specifically that type of identification that pertains to the desire ‘to be something’. Drawing on the work of Naomi Klein on Trump, Freud's insights are brought to bear on the question, what it is about Trump that his followers identify with. It is particularly Klein's insights into the sadistic character of Trump's The Apprentice that supplies the clue for articulating the unconscious grounds of Trump's followers identifying with him: insofar as Trump ‘disavows’ castration (powerlessness) or lack, he embodies an imaginary ‘fullness of being’ with which they identify.