The original Trump? How Charles Fox invented personality politics

Press/Media: Media contribution

Description

Podcast episode appearance. 

Period11 Dec 2025

Media contributions

1

Media contributions

  • TitleThe original Trump? How Charles Fox invented personality politics
    Degree of recognitionInternational
    Media name/outletThe Bunker Podcast
    Media typeRadio
    Duration/Length/Size31 minutes
    Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
    Date11 Dec 2025
    DescriptionPersonality politics isn’t just a modern problem – it started centuries earlier with an aristocrat called Charles James Fox. You can trace the roots of modern political celebrity back to this 18th-century provocateur, whose charm, scandals and theatrics helped redefine what leadership looked like. Fox built a movement around himself rather than his policies, offering an early blueprint for the dangerous style of politics reshaping democracies today. Alex von Tunzelmann speaks with Dr Callum Smith of Aberystwyth University about Fox’s rise and how history helps us understand the dominance of modern figures like Trump and Farage
    Producer/AuthorPodmasters
    URLhttps://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-original-trump-how-charles-fox-invented/id1496246490?i=1000740694775
    PersonsCallum Smith

Keywords

  • Politics
  • Trump
  • Charles James Fox
  • Radical
  • Sociability
  • Podcast
  • Eighteenth-century
  • Parliament
  • Celebrity
  • Cult of personality