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When Pat Schroeder, a Democratic Party politician, reached for a kitchen metaphor in 1983 to describe Ronald Reagan, she gifted political science one of its most enduring—and perhaps most outdated—clichés. He was, she said, a “Teflon president”: scandals slid off him, criticism evaporated, and political blows seemed to bounce back without leaving a sticky mark. But the metaphor was always slightly deceptive. Empirical data later suggested, ironically, that the scandals did stick. Reagan simply had the optimism and economic tailwinds to outlast the stains.

Forty years later, the chemistry of political resilience has undergone a radical mutation and regained prominence. For the modern populist, scandal is no longer a substance to be washed away. Instead, it acts as a flavouring booster. When Donald Trump remarked in 2016 that he could “shoot somebody” on Fifth Avenue without losing a voter, he upgraded the Teflon coating entirely. He showed that a leader’s survival is no longer attached to their portrayal of innocence, but a test of the follower’s faith. It’s almost like scandals become a badge of authenticity.

Trump is not alone. Across Europe, we saw the quiet durability of Angela Merkel, and we continue to see the survivalist instincts of Mark Rutte, and the more pugnacious resilience of Viktor Orbán, who transformed international controversy into domestic strength. From Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s resurrection from prison to presidency in Brazil to Jacob Zuma’s devoted base through years of corruption allegations, the ‘Teflon’ label has long been global.

If this resilience is so common in politics, why treat it as a democratic problem? Political theorist Adam Przeworski famously argued that democracy favours the peaceful replacement of “bad leaders”. If voters won’t remove leaders who repeatedly violate norms, democracy’s accountability mechanism wobbles. In fact, recent elections around the world suggest that wrongdoings have no political consequences. The risks to democracy are considerable.

To mitigate them, society needs to understand the problem. Until recently, fragmented scholarship across political science, social psychology, and communication studies had thrown confusion into the Teflon phenomenon. Our latest research, recently published in Frontiers in Political Science, brings a new framework to understand its essence: why anti-stick leaders around the world succeed—and what science should investigate next.

Rather than treating the phenomenon as journalistic or opportunistic jargon, we looked at it as a multi-layered social and political phenomenon. We argue that Teflon resilience, especially among today’s populist leaders, comes from the strategic breaking of norms. Democratic rules are not merely bent or violated; they are publicly challenged, reframed, and weaponised to strengthen bonds with supporters. What looks like recklessness may, in fact, be calculated risk.

Three Psychological Engines Behind the Teflon Effect

Social psychology offers three particularly eye-catching mechanisms that help explain why scandals sometimes fail to erode public support. They all have to do with political credits.

What followers perceive in a leader’s personality and communication style can act as a protective shield. Charismatic appeal, confident delivery, and the ability to articulate a compelling world vision with confidence and emotional resonance often translate into a reservoir of symbolic “points” of goodwill. They also earn points by demonstrating competence, showing loyalty to group norms, or emphasising past successes. Researchers describe this as “idiosyncrasy credit”: these points can later be “spent” when they cross boundaries or make controversial decisions. In practice, followers think that their leaders have done so much for them that they now deserve some slack. This doesn’t erase criticisms. Rather, it slows or softens punishment.

Scientists describe the second mechanism as “transgression credit,” when leaders cease to be an individual and become an embodiment of “who we are”. When a politician is perceived as highly prototypical (the living symbol of the group’s values, grievances, or aspirations) norm-breaking behaviour can be reinterpreted as courage rather than deviance. Ordinary members who violate norms are often ostracised, because their behaviour threatens group cohesion. But when a trusted, identity-defining leader does the same, followers may defend the act as necessary, strategic, or even heroic. The more a leader is fused with the group’s identity, the more room they have to bend or break rules without losing legitimacy. In highly polarised environments, scandals can even backfire, reinforcing loyalty by framing criticism as an attack from hostile outsiders rather than a neutral evaluation of conduct.

Finally, for the newcomer, there is “innovation credit”. Supporters often grant rising challengers a short-term licence to deviate from norms voters find outdated. Unlike idiosyncrasy credit, which is earned over time, innovation credit is often conferred in advance. Supporters expect change, disruption, or unconventional moves, and therefore interpret early controversies not as betrayal but as proof of boldness or visionary thinking. This helps explain why newcomers or challengers can sometimes survive missteps that would be politically fatal for long-standing leaders. Tolerance is not infinite, but during this honeymoon phase, deviations are reframed as legitimate experimentation.

Together, these three mechanisms—accumulated charisma-based credit, identity-driven transgression credit, and temporally granted innovation credit—form a powerful psychological coating. They do not make leaders invulnerable, but they dramatically reshape how supporters interpret wrongdoing. In other words, the Teflon effect is less about scandals disappearing and more about how minds reinterpret what they see.

The theoretical implications are both unsettling and intellectually stimulating. If scandal no longer reliably produces political accountability, then transparency and investigative journalism—while essential—are no longer sufficient to correct democratic problems. Information now competes with the more primal forces of belonging, emotion, and identity.

Future studies can help map the psychological and communicative conditions that strengthen or weaken Teflon effects: when does loyalty harden into unconditional defence, and when does it soften into critical distance? Which media ecosystems amplify resilience to scandal, and which institutional arrangements are associated with stronger or weaker accountability outcomes? Because Teflon leaders exist everywhere, perhaps the deeper questions are not merely how these political “coatings” become so durable, but what it would take for criticism to regain its corrective power and how democratic freedoms can gain some of that protective coating against accountability-resistant leaders.

Meet the Authors

Rudolf Metz is a political scientist and economist whose research focuses on political leadership, particularly the dynamics of authority, charisma, and followership. Actively involved in international scholarly networks on leadership and elites, Metz is a senior research fellow at ELTE Centre for Social Sciences, associate professor at Corvinus University, a participant in the MORES research.

Veronika Kövesdi is a media researcher, a PhD Candidate at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), an Assistant Professor at the Communication and Media Department (ELTE) and a Junior Research Fellow at ELTE Centre for Social Sciences. Her research focuses on the mechanisms of strategic communication, persuasion, and manipulation in the context of contemporary belief systems and charisma.

Download Information

Metz, R., & Kövesdi, V. (2026). Teflon leadership: crossing moral boundaries with impunity. Frontiers in Political Science, 2025 (7). ISSN 2673-3145. Download this open-access MORES publication here.

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