Dr Declan Hayes: Charismatic contrasts between Trump and Pope Leo

Donald Trump’s recent attacks on Pope Leo highlight the benign charisma of the latter and the increasing desperation of the former. Whereas Trump has willfully destroyed his own political base, Pope Leo has not only galvanised his own base but has expanded on it by empowering Catholics worldwide, most recently on his pastoral visits to Algeria and Cameroon, where the ceasefire he engendered might well earn him the Nobel Peace Prize Trump thinks is his God-given right.

Pope Leo’s visit to the Basilica of Saint Augustine in Annaba would not only have struck a global chord with his fellow Augustinian priests and friars, but also with those like French priest Fr Raymond Gonnet, who has spent half a century ministering in Algeria but who had never previously visited this famous cathedral in St Augustine’s home town. The message that Pope Leo sends out to Catholics world wide is that, even though they might be out of sight to the world, they are not out of the minds and prayers of those like him, who have been given ultimate stewardship over them. As Pope Leo previously ministered in Peru at the height of the Shining Path’s reign of terror there, religious missionaries worldwide have good reason to believe that Pope Leo remains one of theirs and that he walks, however silently and graciously, with them.

Whereas Trump has willfully destroyed his own political base, Pope Leo has not only galvanised his own base but has expanded on it by empowering Catholics worldwide

Whether it is wandering like a stray heifer in front of the late Queen or fulminating against Christ’s Vicar of Earth, silence and graciousness are not traits we immediately associate with POTUS Trump, whose recent charismatic failings more resemble those of Adolf Hitler, as portrayed in Der Untergang: Downfall, the superlative German film on the last days of the Führer’s 1000 year Reich.

Though Hitler’s undoubted personal charisma shines through from the very first opening scene to the very end when he blows his brains out, so too does his utter disregard for everyone nearest and dearest to him, where even Eva Braun cannot save her own brother from summary execution and where Hitler’s sole concerns are with avenging himself on Himmler, Göring and others he felt betrayed him and where the German soldiers and civilians still being needlessly slaughtered in their thousands just yards away from his bunker are of absolutely no concern to him whatsoever.

Whatever about their politics, Donald Trump shares some of the dark charisma the late Führer displayed in Downfall. Having obliterated their own base, Trump and his closest cronies have also retreated into their own make believe world and Melania Trump, his wife, is nothing more than a trophy wife, just another dispensible prop for his vanities; she has as little sway with Trump as Eva Braun had with Hitler, and Rubio, Vance and Kushner are as redundant and ultimately useless as were Bormann, Goebbels and the other flunkeys who surrounded Hitler in the bunker.

READ: Martin Jay: Lebanon’s key role in Trump’s game

Although the Catholic Church might well declare Leo a saint when he dies, elevating him to sainthood is not the purpose of this article, which is more focused on the dark charisma of the two temporal leaders, one German and one American, already alluded to. Although Trump’s race is not yet run, Hitler’s is, and Downfall shows it and the people central to it to be nothing more than very dangerous frauds. Pope Leo, on the other hand, is coming across as the real deal, as a Chicago White Sox fan, who is happy in his own skin and who is happiest in Algeria, Cameroon, Chicago or anywhere and everywhere else his quiet, charismatic mission takes him.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Maghrebi.org. Dr Declan Hayes is an Irish academic, author and geopolitical expert.

If you wish to pitch an opinion piece, please send your article to opinion@maghrebi.org.