Photograph Source: Daniele Dalledonne – CC BY-SA 2.0
Michael Jackson’s biopic Michael is a box-office phenomenon. It earned $217 million worldwide on opening weekend, the biggest debut ever for a biographical film. But the movie has almost nothing to say about multiple allegations of Jackson’s child sexual abuse. Donald Trump commands a similar public fascination. The civil finding that he sexually abused E. Jean Carroll, along with controversies such as Todd Blanche’s approval of Trump’s $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” are part of a broader swirl of legal and ethical questions surrounding his presidency. Even so, they barely interrupt the spectacle around him. Jackson and Trump are different men in different worlds, but they reveal the same ugly truth: when fascination takes hold, morality becomes negotiable. Why are charisma, celebrity, and power so effective at blinding people to obvious wrongdoing?
Fascination explains how audiences can remain deeply attached to figures like Michael Jackson and Donald Trump. The argument isn’t just that people ignore moral issues, but that fascination actively turns scandal into narrative, controversy into spectacle, and moral judgment into something secondary to emotional attachment.
I have not seen the Jackson movie, but I am intrigued by his fans’ reactions. Many reports of fans’ responses confirm that his relationships with young boys did not hinder fandom’s loyalty. Numerous reports testify that fans emerged from theaters euphoric, as though Jackson’s singing and dance moves had granted him absolution. One moviegoer reportedly declared, “When he’s on that stage, you forget everything else — you just love him again.”
Where was the morality? What “else” was forgotten? The allegations against Jackson were not obscure or trivial. He was accused of repeatedly sharing his bed with young boys and faced multiple charges of child sexual abuse that shadowed him for decades. Instead, many viewers seemed eager to separate the performer from the accusations, treating the allegations as irrelevant beside the force of nostalgia and talent. As one fan said, “I don’t care what they say about him — his music, his genius, that’s what matters. Nothing can take that away.”
Jackson’s music and dance—the moonwalk and all—seemed to outweigh everything else. The film’s success, despite barely confronting the allegations against him, testifies to the strength of that fascination. Many reports of fan reactions suggest that allegations about Jackson’s relationships with young boys did little to weaken their loyalty. There was only fascination: “You just love him again.”
The divide between public charisma and private conduct is hardly new. Generations of politicians were elected in the United States despite rumors about their personal misconduct. Grover Cleveland was elected president despite allegations of fathering a child out of wedlock, with the opposition chanting “Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?” Bill Clinton was impeached over Monica Lewinsky and perjury, yet he remained politically resilient despite his semen stains on Lewinsky’s blue dress. John Kennedy was shadowed by rumors of serial affairs, yet both his image and the mythology of Camelot have largely endured. After all, didn’t we all want Marilyn Monroe to sing “Happy Birthday” to us?
All this leads inevitably to Donald Trump. Cleveland, Clinton, and Kennedy were all involved in consensual relationships. Not only has Trump’s infidelity been publicly shown, but Trump was accused of sexual assault and defamation in the E. Jean Carroll case. The jury found him liable for sexual abuse and for defamation. Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages. Carroll filed another lawsuit over later statements Trump made repeating denials and insults after the first verdict. In that case, a jury found Trump liable again for defamation. He was ordered to pay $83.3 million in damages. Unlike the Jackson rumors, Trump was found legally liable for sexual abuse.
In addition to sexual misconduct and defamation, Trump’s broader pattern of dishonesty and corruption seems only to intensify the loyalty of many of his supporters. His $1.8 billion slush fund makes the 1920s Teapot Dome scandal – roughly $400,000 in bribes and “loans” to Interior Secretary Albert Fall by President Harding – seem quaint by today’s standards.
Trump has taken corruption to another level. “Even the most notorious presidential financial scandals in history – Credit Mobilier during Ulysses S. Grant’s administration, Teapot Dome during Warren G. Harding’s presidency and Watergate during Richard M. Nixon’s tenure – did not come close to the money swirling around the Trump family during his second term,” wrote Peter Baker in the New York Times.
Like Michael Jackson, Trump has a remarkable ability to turn moral accusation into emotional theater. His followers do not simply forgive him; many seem energized by the outrage directed against him. Victimhood becomes absolution. The attacks deepen loyalty.
Despite small cracks appearing in the Republican Party, Trump continues to wield extraordinary political control. Three Republicans have already paid a price for crossing him – Senators Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn, and Representative Thomas Massie. Cassidy voted to convict Trump during the second impeachment trial; Massie pushed for the release of all the Epstein files. Both were defeated in primaries. In addition, Senator John Cornyn, a four-term incumbent and longtime fixture of the Senate Republican leadership, has just lost—defeated in Texas by Trump-endorsed Attorney General Ken Paxton. This latest result reinforced the message that even senior Republicans with deep institutional support remain vulnerable if Trump turns against them.
“Do not ever doubt President Trump and his political power,” wrote Steven Cheung, the White House communications director. Examples beyond Cassidy, Massie, and Cornyn? Trump boasted of his “37 wins, 0 losses” in the primaries. Piotr Smolar in Le Monde notes that Trump presented the result as “proof of his total control over the Republican primaries.” On the political meaning of the streak, Smolar writes that it “reinforced the image of an undefeated kingmaker.”
This is what modern fascination does. Celebrity, political charisma, and mythmaking no longer merely distract people from moral failings; they can transform those failings into part of the appeal itself. The more shocking the accusation, the stronger the emotional bond becomes between the idol and the audience defending him. At that point, morality no longer disappears; it is actively subordinated to fascination.
Fascination is more than admiration. It is a form of emotional surrender. It pulls people toward someone so strongly that judgment softens or disappears; criticism feels disloyal, and moral clarity blurs. With Jackson and Trump, we are well beyond traditional ethical judgment.
Fascination is dangerous because it is morally blind.
