Lately I’ve been thinking—as we all have—about what looks like a rapid march to fascism in the United States, and what some news media call the rise of authoritarianism in nations that at least used to pay lip service to democracy.

What do people look for, what do they see, in an individual they choose to follow? Why do they obey, even to the point of great personal sacrifice? What are the real characteristics of a leader, as opposed to what his followers imagine him to be? It seems to me that there are a number of factors.

Today let’s look at image.

*          *          *

In America’s political environment, with modern technology, the most important qualification is public image—NOT public service. A background in film or television can vastly outweigh one in managing the affairs of state. Three previous or current office holders come to mind:

In 1966 the voters of California chose Ronald Reagan as governor. An FDR Democrat in his younger days, by 1952 he was backing GOP candidates. His prior political experience, if you can call it that, had been as president of the Screen Actors Guild, where steered that union to accommodate rather than challenge management. According to journalist Rick Perlstein, “Reagan’s actions lent legitimacy to the studio’s efforts to crush the more radical union by giving liberals in SAG who did not want to strike ‘a story that turned them into moral innocents instead of scabs.’”  However, he’d been in 53 movies. In 1980, the majority of Americans voted him into the White House.

In 2003 Californians who were upset by the high cost of electricity recalled their Democratic governor. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican they put in his place, had no political experience—he’d made a name for himself as a bodybuilder and Hollywood action star. However, he was a successful businessman having gotten rich investing in real estate and marketing bodybuilding equipment. As he’d been born in Austria, he was ineligible for the presidency.

Upset by the 2003 election results, one of my friends described the attitude of the voters as “gorilla politics.” She was referring, of course, to the social structure of most mountain gorillas: the largest and strongest male bosses a harem of females and some subordinate males as well. Most chimpanzees organize themselves in a similar fashion.

There are certain similarities between us and our simian cousins. The dominant gorilla protects his subordinates from predators. He and the rest of the troop provide food and safety to their infant offspring who, like their human relatives, have a long period of dependency. In past millennia a human who wanted to rule his tribe had to provide a similar degree of protection. Attila the Hun and Alexander the Great led their troops in battle.

We differ from our simian cousins, however, as we grow old. When the dominant gorilla ages, a younger male may kill him and take his place. Humans, on the other hand, do not kill the war hero who is no longer capable of actual combat. They may promote him to general, or elect him to the senate or the presidency.

To give them credit in their quests to lead troops of apes, both Reagan and Schwarzenegger had at least done a minimum of military service. Reagan’s consisted of making training films for the Army Air Force. Schwarzenegger completed the one-year requirement of all Austrian males, though he briefly went AWOL to compete in a bodybuilding contest.

Reagan was a mediocre student and not much of an athlete but he had played football at college. Schwarzenegger wasn’t an A-student either, but no dope—as I noted above, he was a successful businessman. He did have comparable musculature to a chimpanzee—they can dead lift 600 pounds without breaking a sweat, while Schwarzenegger’s lifetime dead lift record is 683 pounds. (A gorilla, on the other hand, can lift 4,000 pounds.)

But in today’s America you don’t need muscle or brains to be the leader. Perhaps it isn’t a coincidence that, as the educational levels of the American public have declined over the past decades, we elected the least qualified individual in our history as president—a Republican with no previous background in government or military service. He has claimed to be a top student but won’t let his schools release their records. He has been videotaped cheating at golf.

His business experience, too, includes a history of cheating—of stiffing contractors and swindling people via a fake university, plus six bankruptcies to shift his debts to contractors and the banks that had been foolish enough to lend him money. As he said in 2011, “I do play with the bankruptcy laws—they’re very good for me.”  But, but, but…he was a reality TV star!

*          *          *

By the way, as you may know, bonobo chimpanzees organize themselves differently from the way most chimpanzees do. They live in an egalitarian structure, with females pretty much running the show.

And one hopeful note: Per Nathan H. Lents in The Sexual Evolution, in the 1990s about a quarter of the mountain gorillas being studied in the Congo abandoned their old ways and began forming multi-male (and female) cooperative groups, living together in relative harmony. So perhaps our species isn’t condemned to “gorilla politics” forever.

To be continued…