Leadership

There is a just-so-story about our pre-proto-Indo-European, pre-Yamnaya (pre-choose-whatever-nomadic-group-you-think-is-in-your-ancestral-tree) tribal ancestors: that there were two centres of power in the social patterns of our ancestors, the war-leader/hunter (strong, tough, aggressive, not-very-bright) and the shaman (clever, capable with language, might or might not be a good fighter).

(It's not a terribly great just-so-story as these things go: we have access to only traces of PIE culture, and no evidence of that sort of organization at that time, and there are lots of other patterns to choose from (priest-kings, for example, who combine the two roles).)

Regardless of its status it's certainly an old trope. Going by elements in his portrayal (that archaic shield) Telamonian Ajax, who pretty much embodies the stupid aggressive warrior type, may inhabit one of the earliest strata of the Greek epic tradition, and his fight with Odysseus over Achilles' armor stands at the head of our cultural tradition. (Shakespeare is still getting comedy from the opposition in Troilus and Cressida, over two thousand years later.) It may be worth pointing out that from our perspective Achilles, "best of the Achaeans", looks much like Ajax (and neither looks much like much-contriving Odysseus).

The trope reflects a reality: that a sizeable part of the population respond to "big, aggressive, and frankly stupid" as positive traits. This is the macho stereotype, of the hood as leader. (There's also the reality that a lot of people are also put off by it.)

Some of the splits in the US vote suggest that this has been a factor in Trump's relatively strong support; men (mainly men) from macho subcultures voting for him because they respond to him as a leader, especially if they are socially conservative and see as enemies the targets of his rhetoric.

This is also not just about now: the US has been here before. The American version of the standoff between Ajax and Odysseus was that between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Adams, like Odysseus, took the prize from the assigned judges, followed by great recrimination by the loser (though Jackson ended up winning in a rematch, four years later, with greater public support, and went on to ride roughshod over the fiscal well-being and constitutional norms of the republic, as well as putting a boot on the backs of inconvenient ethnic minorities). Biden is no Adams, but the Democratic demographic he stands for represents the Odyssean side over against Trump's cur Ajax.

Whether he wins or loses in the Electoral College, Biden has a sizeable majority of the popular vote; but the number of people who voted for Trump - against national self-interest, against economic self-interest, against any rational evaluation - is a reminder not only of the effect of the alternate reality presented by and inhabited by the modern conservative movement but of the continuing influence of the tough leader trope, millenia after Homer signalled a movement away from a simple macho leadership approach.