The Dangerous Leader Principle
or, the rump third is always with us
The Pareto Principle says that most human processes happen because 20% of people do 80% of the work. Pareto referred to wealth (in 1900 Italy, 20% owned 80%); today his principle is often applied to sales (where 80% of sales come from 20% of clients). The principal can be applied approximately. If output is 1, four of five people produce 1-x, and one produces 1+4x. So if four produce 90% each, and one produces 140%, that’s a Pareto Principle setup. An organization may need volunteers. It’s not uncommon for 1 in 5 members, 2 in 10, 3 in 15 to do most of the volunteering. Basketball has metrics to determine “win production” per individual on a team, and analysis of championship teams found that 3 per 16 members on a team produced around 80% of wins.
The 80/20 rule fits lots of organization and economic activities. But political facts are different. Time and again, 35% or 1/3 of a public, the residents in a region or nation, support dangerous leaders. Hitler was elected with 33% of the vote. After Joseph McCarthy’s methods, lies, and damage were demonstrated, he lost his platform. But 35% of the public continued to believe he represented truth and decency. After Nixon resigned the Presidency, facing tapes that implicated him in criminal activity, he perennially had 1/3 of the U.S. adult population who still supported him. Polling was too crude in the 1930s to inform us the percentage who supported Charles Lindbergh’s Nazi sympathizing isolationism, but Lindbergh’s friend and fellow isolationist, Robert Taft, got almost half of the Republican convention’s votes in 1940.
It’s common to read and hear reports that 35% to 40% of today’s American public believes President Trump is railroaded by the FBI and intelligence agencies, that evidence of foreign influence are irrelevant or made-up. Even if solid evidence demonstrates Trump is blackmailed by Russia, 1/3 of the U.S. public will continue to support him.
This isn’t just an American phenomena. In the French 2017 Presidential election, 33% voted for a candidate who is allied to and supports fascist movements. Pundits worry this is “a trend”, meaning today it’s 33%, tomorrow, 51%. But that’s unlikely. France has a top-two run-off system. In first rounds of voting, the two main candidates usually get around 70%. 30% of the French may always doubt democracy works, and will continue to support illiberal candidates if energized. But that’s about it.
As Hitler’s example, and Trump’s, show, only when democratic institutions fail, can a minority group elect an illiberal leader. In Trump’s case, a combination of political disinterest specific to the U.S., such that only 58% of eligible voters cast votes, and the arcane Electoral College, means that winners can squeak by with less than 1/3 of the eligible voting population.
Why ring hands over Trump’s 35% base, when it’s always with us? Instead, nations should engineer democracies to avoid situations where 1/3 gain power. Otherwise it’s only a matter of time before disaster strikes.
The biggest U.S. problem is that its public, with weak civic education and engagement, distrusts government implicitly and is disinterested in policy and politics. That leads to apathy and low turnouts, making it easier for 1/3 of the public to gain power. The Electoral College and gerrymandering exacerbate this problem.
I lack the status to call this Coyle’s Principle. Instead, I’ll call it the Dangerous Leader Principle: 1/3, or about 33%, of voters can support dangerous candidates. Dangerous candidates spread hostility, setting citizens against each other. They generate violence among supporters. They undermine public institutions, including news media. Their policies and leadership lead to economic failures and/or wars — though often after a period of retrenchment and repression.
America’s Constitution, written by pragmatic, sensible founders, recognized human nature. They knew it was self-interested, so engineered a government of checks and balances. They hoped this would offset different interests, regional, class, and more.
Of course they couldn’t predict the future. They didn’t expect political parties to seize control so quickly. They didn’t expect national transport and communication lines to become so robust.
They didn’t realize that 1/3 of the nation would not adhere to democratic norms, but remained ready to support illiberal, dangerous candidates. They wouldn’t have designed the Electoral College as it was, which at the time they threw together to avoid a Parliamentary setup. They were wise enough to know parliaments could be split so a minority faction gained control. The UK Parliament, already in existence, prevented that by demanding a 50% threshold for gaining control.
The Electoral College also has a 50% rule. But that wasn’t enough, because the designers gave the Electoral College a flaw: each state could determine how its electors were determined. Each state then got a dominant party, which forced each state to adopt a winner-take-all rule for President. That gave its dominant party all the votes of a state, even if they only got 1 more vote than the runner up. So if a candidate was just a little more popular than others in some states, and completely unpopular in others, he or she could be elected with 1/3 of voters.
If the Electoral College was modified or eliminated, this problem disappears. Likewise, civic engagement needs attention. Public schools need to emphasize civic understanding. This is fraught with difficulty, since so many states are dominated by anti-democratic forces. These forces use threats of cultural and ethnic ‘others’ to have their candidates elected. They oppose efforts to spread civic norms, since it would make their own election more difficult.
But it’s culture that undermines civics. People opine that schools should teach it. That’s not useful. Schools teach American history, which covers the Constitution, how it was written, its aftermath. Textbooks provide the usual potted histories of key American events, which demonstrate how civic engagement works. Children, if self-disciplined, read and memorize. But civics is meta-knowledge. It’s not something your given, its something you glean.
Teachers are key to helping students gain an overview and understanding of things, and this includes civic understanding. That’s the problem in the U.S.. American culture disrespects teachers. Kids may read their books, take notes, to get the grade. But accept a teacher’s meta-knowledge, insight into civics? It’s not tested, so it’s irrelevant. A teacher doesn’t have the status to command respect.
We’re stuck with the Electoral College, for now. The Dangerous Leader Principle is a meme. Human nature doesn’t change, at least very fast. 1/3 of the public will support dangerous leaders. That may offend the 1/3, like Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” statement outraged Trump’s base. After, there were condemnations of her statement throughout the mainstream press. Well, if we know such people are always there, always ready for a dangerous candidate, there’s not much to wring hands over. Let them be outraged — it’s who they are.
