Black Republicans and Big Man Syndrome

Understanding a new and uniquely American phenomenon

Jeff Maurer has a very entertaining piece on Black Republicans, joking that their elevation can be considered as a kind of performance art. Ibram X Kendi types believe that DEI is practically cost-free since you can always find someone qualified enough to do any particular job. Republicans have a very small group of black people to pick from, and to prove Kendi wrong they push individuals like Royce White and Mark Robinson to the forefront and watch them discredit leftist ideology. Robinson’s campaign of course crashed and burned when it was recently revealed that he used to spend his time making wild statements on a message board connected to a pornographic site, and White is now in the news for doubling down on his belief that the bad guys won World War II.

Maurer acknowledges that this is all tongue-in-cheek but doesn’t explain why exactly Republicans have ended up with such candidates. One argument that some have put forward is that Republicans so dislike thinking of themselves as racist that they bend over backwards to promote blacks in their ranks. There’s definitely something to this. But I think it’s also the case that Republicans are increasingly looking for qualities in their leaders that black guys are disproportionately likely to have. And black men with these traits are preferable to their white equivalents for complicated psychosocial reasons.

Political scientists use the phrase “Big Man Syndrome” to refer to a kind of corrupt one-man rule in developing countries. Anthropologists have a similar term that refers to societal organization at a more primitive level, a theory that is traced to a classic 1963 paper by Marshall Sahlins called “Poor Man, Rich Man, Big-Man, Chief: Political Types in Melanesia and Polynesia.”

The prototypical Big Man is large in physical size. His power is not based on an official position or coming out ahead through an established process, but his own personal charisma, control over resources, and ability to inspire followers. Generosity is key to the Big Man’s persona, as it both builds relationships with others and demonstrates his own power. Sahlins argues that by studying Polynesia and Melanesia, we can learn how organization around such individuals is a key characteristic of primitive societies.