[draft]
I’m thinking this piece aligns with Tom Nichols and James Marriot, whose comments I’ve noted recently. Is there something vaguely or not so vaguely discontent with the ease of the modern world? A yearning for conflict and autocracy that aligns with base human nature?
Washington Post, Shadi Hamid, 25 Feb 2025: Why half of America is cheering for chaos, subtitle “The fight isn’t between the left and right anymore. It’s a clash over the system.”
The main divide in American politics today isn’t between liberals and conservatives or left and right. It’s between those who believe in the system and those who don’t. And sometimes it really does feel like a matter of belief. It’s a visceral divide about whether basic institutions of American life — from the federal bureaucracy and financial markets to academia and the mainstream media — are working or broken. But it’s more than a feeling, and it’s not entirely new.
Again, American institutions were constructed, in part, to implement the ideals of the Founders, which in turn were based on the ideals of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution. (And not, need it be said yet again, any particular religion.) And many people seem not to have the patience for them anymore. Break everything down into small enough pieces that they can understand them, they apparently are thinking. The world should be simple, should be black and white.
The writer goes on with how priorities of the two parties have shifted back and forth in recent decades. And says this:
For much of the 2024 campaign, Democratic leaders and economists brought out the charts to tell Americans that if they thought the economy was struggling, they were wrong. The economy was doing just fine. As Biden tone-deafly put it before he dropped out of the race, “I don’t think America’s in tough shape.” More recently, the Nobel laureate Paul Krugman was still insisting that “by any normal standard we are very close to a Goldilocks economy, in which everything is more or less just right.”
This was nothing less than gaslighting. Every day, ordinary Americans were still suffering from inflation. They could see as much every time they went to the grocery store. Yet, Democrats were telling them not to believe what was right in front of their very eyes.
The problem with broad generalizations like this is that Trump won by only 1.5% of the popular vote — nothing like a “mandate.” More deeply, this is an issue about perception, about psychology. No matter how great the US becomes, there will *always* be people who feel disadvantaged and sure that nothing is going right. The writer concludes:
As difficult as it may be, my hope is that we can find ways to acknowledge both realities — that the system has worked for some while failing others — without succumbing to the certainties of either side. Perhaps there is wisdom in standing in the uncomfortable middle, even as others rush to opposite sides of the bus. I realize that this answer won’t be satisfying to many. In some sense, it’s not even an answer. It’s more of a question. Joining the “party of the aisle” doesn’t exactly provide a clear path of action or a set of readily available policy prescriptions. But it does provide its own kind of clarity. After all, the ability to hold contradictions — to believe in institutions while remaining clear-eyed about their failures — is a skill and sensibility to nurture. And it’s one I’m trying my best to embrace.
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One more big-picture perspective, from Jonathan Rauch (whose essential book I reviewed here and in two following posts).
The Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch, 24 Feb 2025: One Word Describes Trump, subtitled “A century ago, a German sociologist explained precisely how the president thinks about the world.”
A word I have not heard before. I’ve bolded it.
What exactly is Donald Trump doing?
Since taking office, he has reduced his administration’s effectiveness by appointing to essential agencies people who lack the skills and temperaments to do their jobs. His mass firings have emptied the civil service of many of its most capable employees. He has defied laws that he could just as easily have followed (for instance, refusing to notify Congress 30 days before firing inspectors general). He has disregarded the plain language of statutes, court rulings, and the Constitution, setting up confrontations with the courts that he is likely to lose. Few of his orders have gone through a policy-development process that helps ensure they won’t fail or backfire—thus ensuring that many will.
In foreign affairs, he has antagonized Denmark, Canada, and Panama; renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”; and unveiled a Gaz-a-Lago plan. For good measure, he named himself chair of the Kennedy Center, as if he didn’t have enough to do.
Even those who expected the worst from his reelection (I among them) expected more rationality. Today, it is clear that what has happened since January 20 is not just a change of administration but a change of regime—a change, that is, in our system of government. But a change to what?
There is an answer, and it is not classic authoritarianism—nor is it autocracy, oligarchy, or monarchy. Trump is installing what scholars call patrimonialism. Understanding patrimonialism is essential to defeating it. In particular, it has a fatal weakness that Democrats and Trump’s other opponents should make their primary and relentless line of attack.
The writer discusses a book by two professors…
Weber wondered how the leaders of states derive legitimacy, the claim to rule rightfully. He thought it boiled down to two choices. One is rational legal bureaucracy (or “bureaucratic proceduralism”), a system in which legitimacy is bestowed by institutions following certain rules and norms. That is the American system we all took for granted until January 20. Presidents, federal officials, and military inductees swear an oath to the Constitution, not to a person.
The other source of legitimacy is more ancient, more common, and more intuitive—“the default form of rule in the premodern world,” Hanson and Kopstein write. “The state was little more than the extended ‘household’ of the ruler; it did not exist as a separate entity.” Weber called this system “patrimonialism” because rulers claimed to be the symbolic father of the people—the state’s personification and protector. Exactly that idea was implied in Trump’s own chilling declaration: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
Yes, this is what I’ve been calling tribalism, or the base state of human nature.
Patrimonialism is less a form of government than a style of governing. It is not defined by institutions or rules; rather, it can infect all forms of government by replacing impersonal, formal lines of authority with personalized, informal ones. Based on individual loyalty and connections, and on rewarding friends and punishing enemies (real or perceived), it can be found not just in states but also among tribes, street gangs, and criminal organizations.
In its governmental guise, patrimonialism is distinguished by running the state as if it were the leader’s personal property or family business. It can be found in many countries, but its main contemporary exponent—at least until January 20, 2025—has been Vladimir Putin. In the first portion of his rule, he ran the Russian state as a personal racket. State bureaucracies and private companies continued to operate, but the real governing principle was Stay on Vladimir Vladimirovich’s good side … or else.
It goes on; long piece. Ending:
Also, it is not quite true that the public already knows Trump is corrupt and doesn’t care. Rather, because he seems so unfiltered, he benefits from a perception that he is authentic in a way that other politicians are not, and because he infuriates elites, he enjoys a reputation for being on the side of the common person. Breaking those perceptions can determine whether his approval rating is above 50 percent or below 40 percent, and politically speaking, that is all the difference in the world.
Do the Democrats need a positive message of their own? Sure, they should do that work. But right now, when they are out of power and Trump is the capo di tutti capi, the history of patrimonial rule suggests that their most effective approach will be hammering home the message that he is corrupt. One thing is certain: He will give them plenty to work with.
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Short items.
JMG, from Washington Post, 23 Feb 2025: DOJ Deletes Database On Misconduct By Federal Cops
Why would they do this??
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Slate, Jill Filipovic, 24 Feb 2025: Project 2025 Makes Trump’s Goal Chillingly Clear
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Vox, Nicole Narea, 24 Feb 2025: 4 conspiracy theories that have driven policy under Trump, subtitled “The federal government is now subject to the whims of Trump, Musk, and RFK Jr.”
They are: 1) No, USAID didn’t secretly bribe media outlets for pro-Democratic coverage; 2) FEMA didn’t blow millions on luxury hotels for migrants; 3) RFK Jr. is doubling down on conspiracy theories about childhood vaccines; 4) Trump’s offer of asylum to South Africa’s white minority is based on conspiracy theory.
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It’s been debunked, but Kari Lake keeps spreading the lie about those 150-year-old social security recipients.
People for the American Way, 21 Feb 2025: Kari Lake Spreads DOGE Propaganda While Hoping to Lead Voice of America
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RawStory, by ProPublica, 24 Feb 2025: ‘Completely untrue’: Trump mercilessly shamed for single lie that stands out from many
The lie: “Only 6% of federal employees are working full time in their offices.” It’s untrue.
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Republicans keep doing this over and over again. They’re beholden to the wealthy. Who want to be able to cheat on their taxes. This has been a Republican priority for decades.
NY Times, 24 Feb 2025: Trump Just Fired 6,700 I.R.S. Workers in the Middle of Tax Season. That’s a Huge Mistake.
If you were to ask the top chief executives in the world to name the best strategy to attack waste in their organizations and balance the books, there is one answer you would be very, very unlikely to hear: Take an ax to accounts receivable, the part of an organization responsible for collecting revenue.
Yet the private sector leaders advising President Trump on ways to increase government efficiency are deploying this exact approach by targeting the Internal Revenue Service, which collects virtually all the receipts of the U.S. government — our nation’s accounts receivable division. Last week, the Trump administration started laying off about 6,700 I.R.S. employees, many if not most of whom are directly involved in collecting unpaid taxes.
Every year, the government receives much less in taxes than it is owed. Closing that gap, which stands at roughly $700 billion annually, would almost certainly require maintaining the I.R.S.’s collection capacity. Depleting it is tantamount to a chief executive saying something like: “We sold a lot of goods and services this year, but let’s limit our ability to collect what we’re owed.”
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It’s long been speculated that Putin has something on Trump, and Trump is being blackmailed. In the past few days there have been stories, let’s call them rumors, that Trump was hired as a Russian agent in 1987, nicknamed #Krasnov, but these stories don’t seem legitimate enough to have reached the mainstream media. And yet, they would explain so much.
Salon, Charles R. Davis, 24 Feb 2025: Trump administration refuses to back UN resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, subtitled “The US joined Russian allies Belarus, Hungary and Nicaragua in voting against a condemnation of the 2022 invasion”
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NY Times, Frank Kendall (secretary of the Air Force in the Biden administration), opinion guest essay, 24 Feb 2025: America Has a Rogue President
This is about this:
President Trump’s decision to fire senior military leaders without cause is foolish and a disgrace. It politicizes our professional military in a dangerous and debilitating way. What frightens me even more is the removal of three judge advocates general, the most senior uniformed legal authorities in the Defense Department. Their removal is one more element of this administration’s attack on the rule of law, and an especially disturbing part.
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I’m struggling to find the right words. Neanderthal? No, that’s a discredit to Neanderthals.
