The One Book My Father Asked Me to Read

Heather Cox Richardson's column today reminded me that my father handed me The True Believer by Eric Hoffer and asked me to read it

When I read these paragraphs in Heather Cox Richardson’s post this morning I clicked on the Substack tab on my browser and began writing this post:

Trump’s behavior is Authoritarianism 101. In a 1951 book called The True Believer, political philosopher Eric Hoffer noted that demagogues appeal to a disaffected population whose members feel they have lost the power they previously held, that they have been displaced either religiously, economically, culturally, or politically. Such people are willing to follow a leader who promises to return them to their former positions of prominence and thus to make the nation great again. 

But to cement their loyalty, the leader has to give them someone to hate. Who that is doesn't really matter: the group simply has to be blamed for all the troubles the leader’s supporters are suffering. Trump has kept his base firmly behind him by demonizing immigrants, the media, and, increasingly, Democrats, deflecting his own shortcomings by blaming these groups for undermining him. 

According to Hoffer, there’s a psychological trick to the way this rhetoric works that makes loyalty to such a leader get stronger as that leader's behavior deteriorates. People who sign on to the idea that they are standing with their leader against an enemy begin to attack their opponents, and in order to justify their attacks, they have to convince themselves that that enemy is not good-intentioned, as they are, but evil. And the worse they behave, the more they have to believe their enemies deserve to be treated badly.

According to Hoffer, so long as they are unified against an enemy, true believers will support their leader no matter how outrageous his behavior gets. Indeed, their loyalty will only grow stronger as his behavior becomes more and more extreme. Turning against him would force them to own their own part in his attacks on those former enemies they would now have to recognize as ordinary human beings like themselves.

As nearly as I can recall, when I was in Junior High School in the late 1950s my father handed me The True Believer and told me to read it. As part of his recommendation he emphasized Hoffer’s humble roots as a longshoreman, urging me to not be dismissive of the wisdom of those who lack degrees and to be suspicious of those who stir up people by manipulating their basest motives.

In retrospect, this was a surprising recommendation given my father’s true belief in DuPont, the corporation he and his father worked for. As I believe I’ve recalled in earlier columns, my father believed that DuPont always acted in the best interest of the nation. He sold two of their most toxic products, tetraethyl lead and freon, and felt that the government was overreaching when they were banned. Tetraethyl lead, after all, made car engines operate more quietly and efficiently and freon and the forever chemicals related to it were miracle products that made food easier to refrigerate and prepare. Were he alive today I want to believe that the evidence presented since he passed away in 1994 would persuade him that maybe the government regulators were onto something.

As a pro business Republican, to the best of my knowledge he opposed every Democrat who ran for office during his lifetime. As one who recommended The True Believer, I wonder how he would view Donald Trump’s takeover of the party that now demonizes Democrats instead of regulations and corporate taxes.

Until I read the paragraphs above, I had forgotten my father’s recommendation that I read Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer. In retrospect, it probably served as the basis for my politics which are rooted primarily in the essays and books of George Orwell. I only hope that my true beliefs in the benefits of Democracy are not as blind as those my father held for the benefits the products he sold for DuPont.