Presidential candidate Donald Trump takes charge and attacks rivals just like a chimpanzee trying to gain dominance says primatologist Jane Goodall. Picture: Evan Vucci/AP
ENOWNED primatologist Dame Jane Goodall says Donald Trump’s successful campaign antics resemble male chimpanzees’ dominance rituals and he reminds her of a specific Alpha male chimp named Mike.
Goodall, who spent years studying and living among chimpanzees in Africa, toldThe Atlantic Trump’s “vigorous” and “imaginative” attempts to assert dominance in political debate were chimp-like.“In many ways the performances of Donald Trump remind me of male chimpanzees and their dominance rituals,” the 82-year-old British anthropologist told The Atlantic.“In order to impress rivals, males seeking to rise in the dominance hierarchy perform spectacular displays: stamping, slapping the ground, dragging branches, throwing rocks.”Goodall drew on decades of observations of chimpanzees social interactions to make a comparison between a male chimp she observed taking over from his rivals and Trump’sstyle during the Republican primary debates.
- Jane Goodall says Donald Trump uses ‘stamping, slapping and throwing rocks’ much like chimps.Source:Supplied
- Trump attracted maximum media coverage when he continually referred to his opponents by insulting nicknames, attacked moderators and boasted about the size of body parts.Goodall compared the Republican presidential candidate with Mike, the chimp she wrote about in her book My Life with Chimpanzees.Mike’s rise to the top-ranking position in the chimpanzee community that Goodall was studying had begun one day when the chimp “took hold of an empty kerosene can by the handle”.
Prior to that day, Mike was almost bottom in the adult male dominance hierarchy, had been threatened and attacked and “the last to gain access to bananas”.
Trump reminded Goodall of Mike, a chimp who was last in line for the bananas until he banged kerosene cans together. Picture: janegoodallug.orgSource:Supplied
Donald Trump insulted opponents and boasted about body parts during the primary debates. Picture: Evan Vucci/APSource:AP
Donald Trump with host Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon in New York on September 15. Picture: Andrew Lipovsky/NBCSource:AP
Renowned primatologist Jane Goodall in the early days of her research, in Tanzania in 1977 with chimpanzee Figan.Source:Supplied
But on that day Mike picked up the can, then another, and began to charge around, hooting and banging the cans together and charging the group’s dominant males.The noise scared off his rivals, who responded by submissively beginning to groom him.“The more vigorous and imaginative the display, the faster the individual is likely to rise in the hierarchy, and the longer he is likely to maintain that position,” Goodall said.Goodall was among several “intellectual and emotional” experts The Atlanticcommissioned to explain Trump’s success.She has previously compared the aggressive behaviour found in chimpanzees to humans acting in times of war.Trump’s first debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is on September 26.
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