Donald Trump is running the United States like his personal business, but that system of government has historic roots and some crucial weaknesses, according to one journalist.
The Atlantic's Jonathan Rauch told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Trump's governing style can be described as patrimonialism, a form of autocratic governance where power flows from a leader who owns the majority of the territory, resources, and institutions
"That word is patrimonialism – kind of an odd word," Rauch said. "It's over 100 years old. It goes back to the great German sociologist Max Weber. It is probably the oldest and most common pre-modern form of government, and it's when the ruler rules as if the state were the ruler's personal property or family business. It all just belongs to them, and this is a form of government, it's not really a system. It's more like a style where the ruler replaces the bureaucracy with personal ties. So everyone has to be individually loyal to the ruler, and the qualification isn't being qualified, it's being loyal, and you do this throughout the government. That's what we're seeing."
Trump's government has been described by critics as fascist, but Rauch said the changes he's bringing to democracy differ from that form of authoritarianism.
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"It's subtle, and I think the most important people who need to understand this are the strategists and the leaders in opposition to patrimonialism," Rauch said. "The public may be also, but so this is not like classic authoritarianism, and that's what we're familiar with from the National Socialists in Germany, the communists in the Soviet Union, where you set up a whole bureaucracy, bureaucratic structures – propaganda agencies, secret police, special militaries, politburos – and you bureaucratize authority. This is the opposite of that patrimonial bureaucracy. They just want personal ties, so it's like the Mafia."
Although patrimonialism can be compatible with democracy, at least at first, Rauch said, he said that style of governance suffered from two fatal weaknesses – incompetence and corruption – that can already be found in abundance in the Trump administration.
"The second thing you have to understand [is] patrimonialism can be and frequently is democratic, at least initially," he said. "People will vote for it. You can think of Putin initially, Viktor Orbán, Modi and, of course, now Trump. So it can take on the clothing of democratic mandate, and that's very different from authoritarianism so you have to fight it differently. It does have two critical weaknesses, and that's how you can take it down."
Watch the clip below or at this link.