During the first month of Trump’s second term, I often heard people complaining that the democrats weren’t resisting hard enough, and Trump was getting away with everything, I thought the reason for that was because one side of the conflict (democrats) believed in the rule of law, while the other side (Trump and allies) didn’t. That was an incomplete insight, but on the right track. A February 24 article in the Atlantic, “One Word Describes Trump” by Jonathon Rauch lays out a more complete analysis and offers some tools for better understanding what’s happening and how to fight against it.
Rauch reviews the book The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers Our Future, by Stephen E. Hanson, a government professor at the College of William & Mary, and Jeffrey S. Kopstein, a political scientist at UC Irvine. In it, the authors draw on the work of 19th century sociologist Max Weber to contrast bureaucratic proceduralism with patrimonialism. The former is a system, in which legitimacy is derived from institutions following accepted rules and norms, while the latter replaces impersonal, formal lines of authority with personalized, informal ones. Bureaucratic proceduralism is rooted in the rule of law and respect for expertise which brings “independent standing the authority.”
Patrimonialism, on the other hand, is rooted in the leader’s sway over family and friends, in which he values individual loyalties and connections. He rules as if the state were his personal property and where he rewards friends and punishes enemies (real or perceived). Patrimonialism is not quite authoritarianism, but over time it can "transition to full-blown authoritarianism."
"The damage that patrimonialism does to state capacity, even if authoritarianism is averted, is severe. Governments’ best people leave or are driven out. Agencies’ missions are distorted and their practices corrupted. Procedures and norms are abandoned and forgotten. Civil servants, contractors, grantees, corporations, and the public are corrupted by the habit of currying favor."
Fortunately, patrimonialism has two characteristics which can lead to its demise: incompetence and corruption. An incompetent and debilitated government, which cannot manage complex problems of modern governance eventually “makes itself evident to the voting public without needing too much help from the opposition.” The other characteristic, an even greater vulnerability, corruption, requires “relentless messaging.”
Since the purpose of patrimonialism is to exploit the state for personal gain, it is at its core corrupt, and Trump is very good at it. Notice how quickly he moved to dismantle the government’s public integrity guardrails, such as statutes against foreign influence, removing the heard of the government’s ethics office and the inspectors general of 19 agencies.
But, according to Rauch, “corruption is patrimonialism’s Achilles’ heel because the public understands it and doesn’t like it.” He recalls Trump’s relentless charges against Hillary Clinton as corrupt. “Republicans and Trump bootstrapped a minor procedural violation (the use of a private server for classified emails) into a world-class scandal. Trump and his allies continually lambasted her as the most corrupt candidate ever. Sheer repetition convinced many voters that where there was smoke, there must be fire.” Rauch also recounts the strategy of Newt Gingrich to end the career of Democratic house speaker, Jim Wright, by flooding the media with his message of Wright’s and the Democrats corruption.
And there is the playbook: driving home the message of Trump’s corruption. This is what the Democrats haven’t been doing, instead they’ve been reacting to whatever is in the daily news.
Raush ends his piece with the following:
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.
So, there it is, my friends: It’s the economy corruption, stupid.