Billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs holds majority control of The Atlantic through her Emerson Collective, an organization that invests in “education and economic mobility, immigration and the environment.” ¹ The Atlantic has a 168-year history, so it has witnessed and written about every U.S. President. The magazine’s recent coverage of the worst of the 45 leaders has been outstanding.

Jonathan Rauch, senior fellow at Brooking’s Center for Effective Public Managment wrote in the Atlantic about the USA’s regime change. Rauch says that even those who expected the worst from Trump’s reelection expected more rationality. Instead, they got an administration that operates like a crime family, “divvying up the spoils, sometimes quarreling, but helping each other when needed.”

To explain the new American system of government, Rauch turned to the work of professors Stephen E. Hanson (College of William & Mary) and Jeffrey S. Kopstein (UC Irvine).²

Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, his blizzard of executive orders, direct attacks on government agencies, and brazen violations of legal and constitutional norms has stunned and disoriented his political opponents. The new administration seems bent on upending not only domestic institutions but also the global order itself, sidling up to enemies and criticizing our closest friends.

…Trump is part of a global wave of leaders who are best described as “patrimonial”: they present themselves as powerful father figures who run the state itself as a family business, doling out its assets to cronies and sycophants in return for unquestioned personal loyalty.

…In the 21^st century, patrimonial regimes have been consolidated in countries as diverse as Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, Narendra Modi’s India, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel…

First, in patrimonial regimes there is simply no way to distinguish between the parts of the leader’s speeches that matter politically from empty rhetoric not meant to be taken seriously…

In a leader-centered political order, whatever the boss says, no matter how outlandish, sets the agenda for every underling. In fact, the willingness of subordinates to parrot and defend even the most extreme parts of his stated agenda is one of the most important signs of regime loyalty, used by the leader to decide on promotions, demotions, and in cases of open criticism, retribution…

Second, bitter fights among rival loyalists and their “clans” are a normal part of patrimonialism. It is a mistake to think that when such struggles are aired in public, this is necessarily a sign of regime weakness. Nor is it an indication that one faction is somehow becoming the true “power behind the throne.” In fact, patrimonial leaders benefit from internal court rivalries, as long as all sides remember who the ultimate boss is…

Third, the idea that various officials in a patrimonial state administration might have conflicts of interest is little more than a quaint anachronism. The phrase “conflict of interest” itself assumes that state officials are supposed to uphold the public good rather than pursue their personal self-interest. Under patrimonial rule, however, the interests of the “people” are equated with the personal interests of the ruler and his extended household, so in principle no conflict can ever arise between the two.

So, if the U.S. government provides lucrative contracts to companies controlled or largely owned by Elon Musk, no problem. As a proven Trump loyalist, Musk deserves no less. Nor is this in any way a violation of the core ruling principle in a leader-based order: under patrimonialism, the word “corruption” loses its meaning over time as old norms of probity are eroded. The letter of the law matters only for those lacking connections to the ruling household…

Fourth, Trump’s otherwise inexplicable threats to purchase Greenland, retake the Panama Canal, own Gaza, and even annex Canada begin to make sense in the context of the patrimonial regime he is creating…

A world of countries with fuzzy borders, dominated by rival patrimonial elites treating their states as personal possessions, will be vastly different from the one the United States has helped to craft and defend since 1945, in which territorial boundaries were largely demarcated by international legal agreement. Trump’s attempts to make the world safe for patrimonialism will inevitably mean casting aside old allies and embracing new partnerships with other strongmen whenever this seems expedient. In such a world, we can expect a drastic increase in disputes over international borders on every continent.

And such a dramatic reordering of the global system will surely encounter violent resistance from those who find themselves the losers of this new dispensation.

President Trump’s new patrimonial regime, if he is able to consolidate it, will amount to nothing less than a revolutionary change in the American political system, as well as a paradigm shift in the global order.

Persuasion – Sins of the Father

David A. Graham, another writer at The Atlantic, reported on Hampton Dellinger, Biden’s appointment to head The Office of Special Counsel. Trump’s hit squad fired Dellinger, but he has been temporarily reinstated by a federal judge. OSC’s primary mission is to safeguard the merit system by protecting federal employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices (PPPs), especially reprisal for whistleblowing. 

Under the law, the special counsel serves a five-year term and “may be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

OSC is a classic post-Watergate creation, designed to insulate the functioning of the federal government from political and other improper interference. It’s charged with protecting whistleblowers inside the executive branch and with identifying violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits politicking by government officials.

Jonathan Chait is responsible for a blunt assessment that Trump is no better than a Russian asset:

Donald Trump’s approach to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has always been to root for Russia while pretending he isn’t…

But now he has flung the mask to the ground. The president’s latest positions on the war reveal that he is indifferent to ongoing slaughter—indeed, he is willing to increase it—and that his opposition to Ukraine’s independence has nothing to do with saving American tax dollars. Trump simply wants Russia to win…

Trump Drops the Mask

¹ One of the founders of The Atlantic was writer, lecturer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson.

²Stephen E. Hanson and Jeffrey S. Kopstein are the authors of The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers Our Future.