Chaleff is a speaker, innovative thinker and the author of “ To Stop a Tyrant: The Power of Political Followers to Make or Brake a Toxic Leader. ” This is the second entry in a series on political followership.
In my previous op-ed for The Fulcrum, I examined how political followers create their leaders, just as much as leaders create their followers. I observed that while our culture may still romanticize leaders, the real work of governing is done by skilled and courageous followers. Let’s explore this further, this time using a dance floor analogy.
In straight culture, a man usually leads a woman in ballroom dancing. Many men share my experience: When I have tried my hand (or foot) at dancing — whether it’s the Texas two-step or the Argentine tango — my novice partner would endure my clunky moves as I “lead” her in the most basic steps, hopefully without bruising her or other couples, or ricocheting off a wall. Not a pretty sight.
In the same lesson, when a more advanced dancer was my partner and took the follower role, I suddenly looked like a halfway competent lead. I was still formally doing the lead steps, but she was subtly guiding me into the music, the tempo, the weight shifts onto the correct foot, while keeping us to the spatial lanes and away from the walls. The follower had made the leader look good!
Anyone who has been involved in politics or governance knows this is an apt metaphor for how followers make political leaders look good.
I’ve been writing and teaching about followership for several decades and while my work has found its way around the world, only now am I applying it directly to politics. Particularly when examining politics at a national level, it quickly became clear that “follower” behavior needs to be broken down by access to the leader. This has resulted in a new way of visualizing political followership.
Confidants clearly have the most direct access. In the case of the White House, they have “walk in” privileges when they need the ear of the president. Oftentimes it is a close family member who can be the last voice the president hears before making a decision, whether that’s Jill Biden or Donald Trump Jr.
Elites can relatively easily get the attention of the leader. They have something the leader wants — a large following, deep pockets for campaign contributions, the power to move or block important legislation, media platforms. Elon Musk, Peter Theil, Nancy Pelosi, James Clyburn and Taylor Swift all fit into this category.
No head of government achieves objectives without working through the bureaucrats who play a significant role in transforming goals, policy and legislation into actionable and enforced programs. But large agencies can develop a mind of their own. They can “slow walk” or procedurally hamper both the bad ideas of a would-be-tyrant and the good ideas of a would-be reformer, without being blatantly non-compliant.
Activists are the spark that gets the broader public moving in favor of (or against) candidates and their political agendas. Their power to influence is many times greater than that of an average citizen. Whether this is Dan Schultz advocating for MAGA Republicans to fill the seats of precinct captains, or Stacey Abrams (before she became a nationally known figure) mobilizing minority voters in Georgia, they have an impact on policy formulation that rivals those of elites.
Those who make up the populace are the citizens and non-citizens alike who are affected by the actions of government and fill the stadiums and arenas to support the political leaders whom they feel most represent their views and interests. They may never personally meet the candidate or fully examine their platforms, yet make the ultimate difference in elevating their preferred candidate through their support.
In each entry in my series, I will take a dive into the vulnerability and power of each type of follower, offering a taste of what I explore in depth in my new book, “ To Stop a Tyrant.” Like couples on the dance floor, competent or courageous followers will make a good leader look better than they are. Conversely, bad or colluding followers will make a bad leader worse, to all of our detriment.
Begin paying attention to which circle of followers you fall into, in relation to different political leaders (local, state, national), and how you might be making them look better than they really are. Then consider what a courageous follower would do.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.