It’s not authoritarianism - it’s patrimonialism

[just-jim]

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PBS Newshour tonite - David Brooks explains. Video and transcript:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/brook ... rom-the-ma

“… I took a lot from piece Jonathan Rauch wrote in "The Atlantic" a couple — maybe a month ago a couple weeks ago, saying there are certain systems — people say Donald Trump is quite verging on authoritarianism, but the real thing he's verging on is patrimonialism.

And patrimonialism — authoritarianism is based on institutions and a set of laws and — but patrimonialism is the attempt to turn the government into a family business. And it's sort of a premodern form of government, if you go back before democracy, before the Treaty of Westphalia and all that kind of stuff.

It was — it was run by families. And the family enriched itself. And they took after anybody who threatened the family. It's a little like mafioso.

Jonathan Capehart: I was going to say, it sounds like the mafia.

David Brooks: It's like, you're making an offer you can't refuse. And so Trump is treating the justice system the way the head — the father of this patrimonialistic system would treat it.

And he's going after things that are just personal. And so that's the erosion of democracy, which is supposed to be about clear laws that apply to everybody. And we no longer live in that system.”
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