One thing to add to the signs of dictatorship is the effort to control (or neutralize) the media. The writers of the US Constitution like still had the British Crown's past efforts to control the press (literally, often by seizing and destroying the presses and jailing their owners) in mind when they crafted the First Amendment.
One of the first things that Trump did as a politician was to create skepticism/suspicion of the media and introduce "alternative facts". That effort continues, with the enthusiastic participation of FOX.
I found a 1949 Silvertone radio going through my Mom's stuff. I plugged it in to see if it worked and experienced the extent to which "warming up" impacted performance.
And I broke it. Turned the tuning knob too far.
And I fixed it - the tuner is driven by a string and I broke the string. Reassembling it was like threading a sewing machine without a diagram.
I learned how to thread a 1950-vintage Singer when I was 10 years old. (My mom had that model; I bought a used one for myself as a grownup.) It's so instinctive now that I have to be sure not to actually think about it when I'm doing it, or else I might get it wrong. (However, I do need a much better light source than I did back then.)
"I didn't steal the crown. I found it laying in the gutter and picked it up with the tip of my sword.".... apocryphally attributed to Bonaparte...or, I might have made it up. It was in that movie "Waterloo" from about 1971 with Rod Steiger, one of my favorite film actors of all time, but I digress.
But, I'd posit that in many regards, the Republic was laying in the gutter for any a--hole to come along and pick it up, and that's what an a--hole did.
And of course it took the efforts of more than a few a--holes to land the country in the gutter awaiting this fate, them being both inside and outside of government, the problem being that similar to the "different problem" regarding dictatorships Marque mentions, the same old problem is always in play in the upper and elite echelons of national and state politics and civilian political *activism* in America: both those areas are every bit as capable, if not more so, of attracting the "wrong people" as they are the *right* ones. And in far too many cases this is exactly what happens.
Egos are the bane of American political activism, which itself in turn is just as often the bane of good politics and government as not. And egos + greed = toxicity in democratic governance, with the actual "cost" to the country of a few dozen greedy egos in the highest levels of national government at the moment making the cost of a semi-load of Grade-A Large eggs these days positively look like a steal, since the real price of this is shunned morals, abandoned ethics and the forsaking of Constitutionality and the rule of law as bed rock, inviolable tenets of our country's government, society and culture.
And egos + greed + a massive dose of amoral narcissism = the template for the current politics of 21st century America.
Throw in an absolutely bottomless well of hypocrisy and the digital age and internet as enablers, and it's a recipe for democratic failure if ever there was one, considering the electorate showed itself willing to abide the prospect of so many foxes in the hen house at once and which now have taken up residence there in significant numbers.
Our president may not yet be playing the fiddle on the White House roof with the smell of smoke in the background, but the tune he *is* playing should cause a lot more hair on one particular side of the political aisle to at least start to heat up and smolder than is presently the case. Or one day in the future you just might be able to toss an egg in the street and have it cook all on its own, while this guy here plays in the background singing, "Fire on the mountain, run boys, run!"
As a somewhat pertinent aside: What a sea change in American politics since the same guy could stand on a stage in Germany a few years before Regan told Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" and enthusiastically sing about the Russians that they could "go right straight to hell!"
Guess maybe I should now just strike this one right off my playlist for more than a couple of reasons...
Good morning. 29 degrees here with a highs in the 50s. The mothership is covering Trump’s deal making with (and over) Ukraine.
The article is absolutely correct in reminding us that not every dictator is a Hitler, And Hitlerian comparisons are misleading, as mentions of Hitler as a dictator inevitably bring in Hitler as a genocidal monster. While dictators are often mass murders (Stalin and Mao killed more people than Hitler), that is not inevitable.
The description of how dictators come to be welcomed is much like what happened in the final century of the Roman Republic, with successive dictators assuming more and more power until finally one of the crowned himself Emperor. Or the Revolutionary France, where ineffective government led to a general seizing power and crowning himself Emperor. BTW, Napoleon was not a mass murderer, but rather (at least in France proper) relatively enlightened.
I highly doubt that Trump is capable of mass murder. But neither is he enlightened.
See Cynthia's response. Trump's responsibility for the deaths in Ukraine, made possible by his aiding an aggressor, is much more indirect than a monster that directly orders people be put to death.
The question was whether he was capable of it. My contention is that he is absolutely capable of it and his eagerness to resort to extortion while cozying up to the people who bomb children's hospitals is a good indicator of that.
In theory, since we all have free will, we all are capable of the greatest evil. But the worst mass murderers of the 20th Century -- Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot -- all created evil ideologies that justified their killings. Donald Trump is no ideologue. He is more of a common bully, which is a much different thing that a mass murderer.
Well, hopefully we'll never find out. I would feel safer, however, if the DoD was still under the control of someone like Mattis or Esper, rather than a sycophantic loyalist.
If everyone who doesn't prevent a bad outcome is a "mass murderer," there are no useful moral criteria. In this case, I think it's important to emphasize the culpability of the person who chose to start a war. That person is uniquely, although not wholly, responsible.
True. However, like the Duke of Buckingham (only more so), as a starter of wars, he was responsible for a large number of deaths, both of his own people and those of other nations.
Referring to George Villiers, courtier to James I, discussed in the comments previously. (Look up "Duck of Buckingham" and you will find there were nearly a dozen holders of that title from the 1400s to 1889).
I think the whole dictator thing misseS the point. I couldn’t put my finger on it until I read this piece but Jonathan Rauch in THE ATLANTIC. I’ve removed the paywall:
Thanks for sharing this. It makes a lot of sense without over-complicating or over-reaching.
I can't imagine what it would take to get the stars to align such that enough people cared about corruption charges to make them stick enough to turn the tide.
Thanks for the "gift", O. But my birthday was a few weeks ago. Better belated than never, I reckon.
Seriously, though, a good article, I think. Rauch's argument seems persuasive to me.
There's a lot of disagreement as to exactly what kind of "ism" to use to define this result of the fever dream of our current American populism. Heck, just look at that; I / we just can't seem to say anything about the subject of American politics these days without some kind of "ism" attached at some point. As suffixes go, it's gotten pretty darned popular.
But I guess patrimonialism is about as good a term as any, and more so than some, since it does have a lot of pertinent markers concerning Trump's behavior and that of the MAGA dreamers now branching into Red MAGA and Dark MAGA with likely some baby MAGAs in the offing, not any of which are compatible with the American dream and ideals as they were once understood not all that long ago, and certainly not with any prospect of long term democratic self-governance.
But maybe if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, we could simplify things a bit and just call it a duck. To wit, the most proper "ism" to hang on Trump and his milieu of malign actors and what they're up to just may be, for the sake of simple clarity, sonofab**chism.
As far as isms go, I think it has a certain je ne sais quoi. 🤔🙄😏
I did enjoy reading that Atlantic piece. Have thought about subscribing to the A off and on; used to for quite a while back in the day of print magazines. I go on a subscription deleting jag every now and then. Maybe I'll make room for it again in my inbox one of these days.
I get to read a few things from them either in part or in full through links in other things that I subscribe to and always find the writing to be excellent, no matter the subject. They seem to have some pretty high standards as far as that goes.
Speaking of "standards"... Don't know if you've seen this little bit of journalistic *standards adjusting*. I just saw this in my AP news feed a few minutes ago (lightly editing for brevity's sake):
> The owner of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, narrowed the topics covered by its opinion section Wednesday to defending personal liberties and the free market, a pivot away from its traditional broad focus and prompting the news outlet’s opinion editor [David Shipley] to resign.
Bezos said on X, “viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
Bezos cast the change as a modernization from the days when newspapers offered opinions on a broad range of topics. Now, he said, “the internet does that job.”
"We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” Bezos wrote in his post, adding that the new topics “are right for America. I also believe that these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion.”
“I suggested to him [Shipley] that if the answer wasn’t `hell yes,’ then it had to be `no.’ After careful consideration, David decided to step away,” Bezos wrote.
The pivot echoes the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page banner: “free markets, free people.” <
The question of government employees is sort of complementary to the Leader as National Daddy concept, the personalization of everything. Someone was remarking at the Mothership to the effect that it's not nice or kind or #empathetic to be glad government jobs are being eliminated, because there are real people in those jobs.
This concept, "government as a family that supports everyone," is the opposite of the idea (bureaucratism?) that government is a set of functions to be accomplished in a well-organized and efficient manner.
There are other situations where "saving jobs" is treated by some as a moral imperative in itself, regardless of the utility of the jobs.
"....because there are real people in those jobs.".... I so hate that argument. Hate it.
Of course they're real people, but they aren't necessarily in real jobs. Real people working real jobs have the possibility of being laid off or downsized...or moved to another city...or any other of a number of changes. Factor in the mission creep of government jobs. Why are so many of those jobs even there?
I'm all for those real people getting treated like real people, and not as some indispensable inviolable component of government granted lifetime tenure.
True. The argument is annoying. More salient is the fact that people are being laid off whimsically without any understanding of their function. For example, the nuclear safety folks
For me, that's like a different argument. I doubt there is anyone that thinks less of Trump, Musk, and their utterly idiotic and dangerous approach to an important and critical change in management. They are moronic scum.
That said, anyone whining about "real people"...I immediately turn off. It's a government job, they're the beneficiaries of salaries and benefits that are essentially unobtainable for self employed individuals and most others in real jobs, and I don't care one bit that folks are getting fired. I'm glad government employees are getting fired. Welcome to the world.
Nah. You’re just in a bad mood. Firing people whose job is redundant or the function is silly, is one thing. But there is no thought in this. None. Zero zilch. Oh wait, there is one: to make musk richer without all those annoying regulation.
> The best objection to this approach (perhaps the only objection, at this point) is that the corruption charge won’t stick against Trump. After all, the public has been hearing about his corruption for years and has priced it in or just doesn’t care. Besides, the public believes that all politicians are corrupt anyway. <
I’ve seen lots and lots of that type of relativizing. It’s another item with the pattern: “It’s bad when those other guys do it, but okay when our people do it. I mean, how else do you hope to get anything done?”
Good article. Thanks for the free read! A weakness of Mr. Rauch's prescription - as opposed to his diagnosis - is that recent history undercuts the Democratic Party's opportunity to claim that they have something different to offer.
I think so, as well. Mr. Rausch did a good job of identifying the common element of a "patrimonial" conception of government. I'm not sure why he had to make up a new word for it, though. One principle of language is that, when you have to stick a whole bunch of suffixes onto something, you might be better off going back to the root word.
On the other hand, coining a new word helps to denote the fact that the meaning of the old word doesn't really apply any more. For example, "the journalistical industry."
One of the characteristics of the suppression of dissent that we've seen over the past decade or so is that the rules change very quickly. Among the Very Online, or people in government or academia, it seems that people don't realize they're "dissenting" until they're attacked by peers or threatened by management for something they thought was perfectly reasonable.
It's the, "Don't miss a memo," regime.
It seems to me that people with a wide variety of political perspectives are eager to make it illegal to disagree with them. If that mechanism is unavailable, there are others, such as professional organizations that issue official rulings against certain opinions. For example, it's career suicide to be a "Zionist" in a growing number of fields, and "Zionist" is assumed to include all Jewish people, just for convenience.
Yeah. It’s like “ex post facto” law, too. What was legal until the new law is passed becomes illegal for all of recorded history forever, amen. It’s one thing to disapprove of what someone believed that is now deemed unfashionable, but entirely new to demand people’s heads for past beliefs that were commonly held, often without any reflexion.
"entirely new to demand people’s heads for past beliefs that were commonly held, often without any reflection"
I don't think it's that new. It's just new to us. It was common in the Soviet Union. And in early modern Europe, if the current ruler or regime needed an excuse, they would prosecute a person for his totally legal, even mandatory, speech or actions under the previous regime.
That's why constitutions came to include prohibitions on ex post facto laws.
> they would prosecute a person for his totally legal, even mandatory, speech or actions <
In some ways, this is what results from a ballooning, unaccountable government bureaucracy adding to an ever burgeoning catalog of rules and regulations. Even as an upstanding, law-abiding citizen to the best of your ability, you can be arrested and charged with some crime that you never even knew existed.
The unchecked growth of the state itself threatens to make everything criminal. It’s a fantastic toolbox if you want to launch a dictatorship. You can round up your critics and opponents and punish them for some obscure infractions—or at least force them into ruinous and life-arresting legal defenses against an all-out onslaught from the Leviathan state.
RE: "...you can be arrested and charged with some crime that you never even knew existed."
Well, as some old Roman dictator or another probably said:
Ignorantia juris non excusat.
But wait... oh, who was that other guy... oh yeah:
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended." - Thomas Jefferson
Of course, ignorance of the law didn't stop a lot of folks from practicing it.
At that point, aren't we discussing "tyranny" rather than "dictatorship"? The two CAN come as a package, but they don't need to, and they are not the same thing.
This kinda applies, it's what happens when everything gets too big and words become illegal....one of my favorite quotes of all time, likely taken from a 2015 essay by Zhang Xuezhong, an outspoken Chinese legal scholar who has criticized the political oppression and lack of rule of law in mainland China...
"If sharp criticism disappears completely, mild criticism will become harsh. If mild criticism is not allowed, silence will be considered ill-intended. If silence is no longer allowed, not praising hard enough is a crime. If only one voice is allowed to exist, then the only voice that exists is a lie."
I agree. I think this helps explain some of the support - in principle, if not in detail - for DOGE's actions regarding Federal employees.
It's not that the individual Federal employees are necessarily bad people, or even not doing their jobs - although the incentives of the situation encourage abuse and poor performance. It's that the jobs shouldn't exist because that stuff either shouldn't be done by the Federal government or shouldn't be done at all.
For example, on both constitutional and pragmatic grounds, I don't think the Department of Education should exist. This means that, even if you're a terrific computer programmer or copier repairman at the Department of Education, I don't think your job should exist. It's nothing personal. If you're actually good at a real job, you could get a better position in the private sector in an economy where the private sector didn't have compete for every resource with Leviathan.
That’s where I am too: DOGE is somewhat bumbling in execution with overall goals unclear, but I fully support in principle the idea that our govt has grown huge with little oversight, and should be pared down. I feel sorry for those who would lose jobs, but as you say, those jobs shouldn’t exist in the first place. I don’t see any of that as being dictatorial. The Hitler and “He wants to be a dictator!” accusations are old and tired. Just one guy’s opinion.
Not dictatorial in the strictest definition of the word, perhaps, but in all likelihood most if not all actions now being carried out by DOGE and Musk and those heads of departments cooperating with them are either illegal, unconstitutional or both.
Think there might be a reason Trump's mouthpieces both in and out of court won't acknowledged Musk as the head of this living fiction called DOGE, or acknowledge that he's anything other than an unpaid "special advisor" to Trump?
I doubt there is authority granted by law for the people carrying out these actions to do so without Congress being involved to at least some degree or another in giving them the lawful authority to do these things.
Part of the issue here, though, is with who is deciding that something should or should not exist. We may individually agree with the decisions being made, but it should not be up to Elon Musk to arbitrarily decide that USAID should not exist.
It matters. And the pendulum will someday come back around. Always does.
I had a civil conversation at a store with an ultra smart ultra ultra conservative view. We discussed our views on many Constitutional topics. He strongly disagreed with me that Lee and the Confederates were traitors. Total states rights guy. Sigh. Kinda got me a bit concerned with his joy in saying and justification of the old "Tree of Liberty needs refreshed from time to time". Even with violence he sad. An attorney and teaches US Military.
His tie was beautiful Jerry Garcia yellow base that I complimented him on. We exchanged phone numbers to possibly have more discussion.
Got give props to my friends here and few left over at The Excusership for helping me engage in politcal philosophy and conLaw that were of uselessness as long time businessman. And being civil about it even when crazy shows up.
The 10th amendment has been somewhat ignored mainly due to the expansive power given to the federal government by the Supreme Court in interpreting the commerce clause.
RE: the Confederates, it must be pointed out that Lee and the other Confederates were pardoned by Presidents Lincoln and Johnson after the war. The 14th Amendment prohibition against Confederates holding public office was lifted by Congress n the 1870s. And the “moral pardon” of the Confederates has been understood ever since — right up to the moral panic following George Floyd’s murder. Personally, I still hold Robert E, Lee as an honorable man, albeit who made a tragically wrong choice.
Nah. The country wasn't unified enough for him to be labeled a traitor. States rights were more the law than the Union. Utter shit heel lousy human, yes. All that dignified Southern Gentleman crap...nope. A truly awful human.
I will disagree with both of you. And I say that as a former US Army officer who took that same oath.
There is absolutely no question that Reconstruction, half-heartedly carried out, did not press through to ensuring equality for the freed slaves. That is a tragedy and an outrage. At the same time, if there were not a reconciliation of the South to the North, re-uniting the country, the US would never have become a world power in the 20th century, defending freedom in two World Wars and the Cold War.
It is possible to imagine a medium position between the current reality where Jim Crow racism persisted in the South of over 100 years after the Civil War, and an alternate reality, that I fear some would have wanted, of the South having been held in subjugation for decades. I don't think Abraham LIncoln wold have endorsed either of those 2 extremes.
I'd take hanging the top 1,000,racist Confederate traitors and every subjugation of white people over what in fact white southern christians did to blacks.
In this alternate reality, I absolutely do not see a Black KKK, lynching of whites, suppression of their voting rights.
This is all just fantasy. Except, the Confederates were traitors to the United States. There was no cause by Lincoln. The Traitors just were mad.
That’s encouraging: the idea that people can be friendly despite political differences.
The “tree of liberty” stuff disturbs me. It’s one of those items where there’s a lot of implied ends justifying means, and implied bloodshed and cruelty along the way.
One major category of motives for evil/human cruelty in Baumeister’s “Evil” is ideology. It’s the justification that sometimes the ideological objectives are so important that it may require a lot of murdering along the way…
Good morning. It's 41Fs here and could be 72! later. D has a riding lesson this afternoon: the last two were called off due to bad weather, so it's about time we got a break. I'll take a lawn chair and sit with the chickens.
Neither, in this case. I sit in my lawn chair, and the chickens walk around on their scary dinosaur feet, making little clucky sounds and sticking their heads in my purse or pecking at my boots.
When chicken is served here, it's the whole carcass including the head and feet. The head is often prominently perched upward and is the first identifiable part. Everyone goes right for the feet. I get laughed at because I tell folks I don't do heads or feet. Everything else is fine. "Tube" (intestine) usually gets people watching me to see if I go for it. I'll put a section on my chopstick and twirl it around, which usually gets a laugh. Wife, normally reserved and proper, dives on the feet and tears at them. .
There's also duck head, duck tongue, duck feet.
Grandma Nana ate chicken feet. It turned me forever against them.
One thing to add to the signs of dictatorship is the effort to control (or neutralize) the media. The writers of the US Constitution like still had the British Crown's past efforts to control the press (literally, often by seizing and destroying the presses and jailing their owners) in mind when they crafted the First Amendment.
One of the first things that Trump did as a politician was to create skepticism/suspicion of the media and introduce "alternative facts". That effort continues, with the enthusiastic participation of FOX.
Interesting conversation this morning. I have some different takes but the topic is disheartening.
The chickens are more my speed today.
I am working on decreasing the entropy in my mother's garage. And making progress!
Good morning.
I found a 1949 Silvertone radio going through my Mom's stuff. I plugged it in to see if it worked and experienced the extent to which "warming up" impacted performance.
And I broke it. Turned the tuning knob too far.
And I fixed it - the tuner is driven by a string and I broke the string. Reassembling it was like threading a sewing machine without a diagram.
You can fix old electronics like that by yourself. Forget about fixing a chip.
And there are plenty of websites where you can buy vacuum tubes.
Well done!!
I have fixed a number of tube radios and electric clocks. All mostly 1910 to 1940s. Fin stuff!
I can never thread a sewing machine without a diagram.
I learned how to thread a 1950-vintage Singer when I was 10 years old. (My mom had that model; I bought a used one for myself as a grownup.) It's so instinctive now that I have to be sure not to actually think about it when I'm doing it, or else I might get it wrong. (However, I do need a much better light source than I did back then.)
It took me decades.
Wow. That's nice little essay. Great job.
"I didn't steal the crown. I found it laying in the gutter and picked it up with the tip of my sword.".... apocryphally attributed to Bonaparte...or, I might have made it up. It was in that movie "Waterloo" from about 1971 with Rod Steiger, one of my favorite film actors of all time, but I digress.
But, I'd posit that in many regards, the Republic was laying in the gutter for any a--hole to come along and pick it up, and that's what an a--hole did.
And of course it took the efforts of more than a few a--holes to land the country in the gutter awaiting this fate, them being both inside and outside of government, the problem being that similar to the "different problem" regarding dictatorships Marque mentions, the same old problem is always in play in the upper and elite echelons of national and state politics and civilian political *activism* in America: both those areas are every bit as capable, if not more so, of attracting the "wrong people" as they are the *right* ones. And in far too many cases this is exactly what happens.
Egos are the bane of American political activism, which itself in turn is just as often the bane of good politics and government as not. And egos + greed = toxicity in democratic governance, with the actual "cost" to the country of a few dozen greedy egos in the highest levels of national government at the moment making the cost of a semi-load of Grade-A Large eggs these days positively look like a steal, since the real price of this is shunned morals, abandoned ethics and the forsaking of Constitutionality and the rule of law as bed rock, inviolable tenets of our country's government, society and culture.
And egos + greed + a massive dose of amoral narcissism = the template for the current politics of 21st century America.
Throw in an absolutely bottomless well of hypocrisy and the digital age and internet as enablers, and it's a recipe for democratic failure if ever there was one, considering the electorate showed itself willing to abide the prospect of so many foxes in the hen house at once and which now have taken up residence there in significant numbers.
Our president may not yet be playing the fiddle on the White House roof with the smell of smoke in the background, but the tune he *is* playing should cause a lot more hair on one particular side of the political aisle to at least start to heat up and smolder than is presently the case. Or one day in the future you just might be able to toss an egg in the street and have it cook all on its own, while this guy here plays in the background singing, "Fire on the mountain, run boys, run!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNSljt0i3TI
As a somewhat pertinent aside: What a sea change in American politics since the same guy could stand on a stage in Germany a few years before Regan told Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" and enthusiastically sing about the Russians that they could "go right straight to hell!"
Guess maybe I should now just strike this one right off my playlist for more than a couple of reasons...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcHNAovPT3E
Yeah.....sigh....
Good morning. 29 degrees here with a highs in the 50s. The mothership is covering Trump’s deal making with (and over) Ukraine.
The article is absolutely correct in reminding us that not every dictator is a Hitler, And Hitlerian comparisons are misleading, as mentions of Hitler as a dictator inevitably bring in Hitler as a genocidal monster. While dictators are often mass murders (Stalin and Mao killed more people than Hitler), that is not inevitable.
The description of how dictators come to be welcomed is much like what happened in the final century of the Roman Republic, with successive dictators assuming more and more power until finally one of the crowned himself Emperor. Or the Revolutionary France, where ineffective government led to a general seizing power and crowning himself Emperor. BTW, Napoleon was not a mass murderer, but rather (at least in France proper) relatively enlightened.
I highly doubt that Trump is capable of mass murder. But neither is he enlightened.
Trump is absolutely capable of being a mass murderer. He is currently contemplating that with regard to Ukraine.
See Cynthia's response. Trump's responsibility for the deaths in Ukraine, made possible by his aiding an aggressor, is much more indirect than a monster that directly orders people be put to death.
The question was whether he was capable of it. My contention is that he is absolutely capable of it and his eagerness to resort to extortion while cozying up to the people who bomb children's hospitals is a good indicator of that.
In theory, since we all have free will, we all are capable of the greatest evil. But the worst mass murderers of the 20th Century -- Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot -- all created evil ideologies that justified their killings. Donald Trump is no ideologue. He is more of a common bully, which is a much different thing that a mass murderer.
Well, hopefully we'll never find out. I would feel safer, however, if the DoD was still under the control of someone like Mattis or Esper, rather than a sycophantic loyalist.
Amen to that!
If everyone who doesn't prevent a bad outcome is a "mass murderer," there are no useful moral criteria. In this case, I think it's important to emphasize the culpability of the person who chose to start a war. That person is uniquely, although not wholly, responsible.
"Napoleon was not a mass murderer."
True. However, like the Duke of Buckingham (only more so), as a starter of wars, he was responsible for a large number of deaths, both of his own people and those of other nations.
Referring to George Villiers, courtier to James I, discussed in the comments previously. (Look up "Duck of Buckingham" and you will find there were nearly a dozen holders of that title from the 1400s to 1889).
That's the one.
I think the whole dictator thing misseS the point. I couldn’t put my finger on it until I read this piece but Jonathan Rauch in THE ATLANTIC. I’ve removed the paywall:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/corruption-trump-administration/681794/?gift=BtHKijFqEnt1YaIeX_YOQDdPAH1uhI1ui3zp6pw0kus&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Thanks for sharing this. It makes a lot of sense without over-complicating or over-reaching.
I can't imagine what it would take to get the stars to align such that enough people cared about corruption charges to make them stick enough to turn the tide.
Nailed it. Tump himself said, replying to the Governor of Maine: "We are the federal law."
The Founders would be shocked. We all should be shocked.
Yup.
Thanks for the "gift", O. But my birthday was a few weeks ago. Better belated than never, I reckon.
Seriously, though, a good article, I think. Rauch's argument seems persuasive to me.
There's a lot of disagreement as to exactly what kind of "ism" to use to define this result of the fever dream of our current American populism. Heck, just look at that; I / we just can't seem to say anything about the subject of American politics these days without some kind of "ism" attached at some point. As suffixes go, it's gotten pretty darned popular.
But I guess patrimonialism is about as good a term as any, and more so than some, since it does have a lot of pertinent markers concerning Trump's behavior and that of the MAGA dreamers now branching into Red MAGA and Dark MAGA with likely some baby MAGAs in the offing, not any of which are compatible with the American dream and ideals as they were once understood not all that long ago, and certainly not with any prospect of long term democratic self-governance.
But maybe if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, we could simplify things a bit and just call it a duck. To wit, the most proper "ism" to hang on Trump and his milieu of malign actors and what they're up to just may be, for the sake of simple clarity, sonofab**chism.
I like that.
As far as isms go, I think it has a certain je ne sais quoi. 🤔🙄😏
I did enjoy reading that Atlantic piece. Have thought about subscribing to the A off and on; used to for quite a while back in the day of print magazines. I go on a subscription deleting jag every now and then. Maybe I'll make room for it again in my inbox one of these days.
I think they have acquired a stable of the best writers around.
Some good, some awful. Lotta crap, but a lotta really good stuff.
I get to read a few things from them either in part or in full through links in other things that I subscribe to and always find the writing to be excellent, no matter the subject. They seem to have some pretty high standards as far as that goes.
Speaking of "standards"... Don't know if you've seen this little bit of journalistic *standards adjusting*. I just saw this in my AP news feed a few minutes ago (lightly editing for brevity's sake):
> The owner of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, narrowed the topics covered by its opinion section Wednesday to defending personal liberties and the free market, a pivot away from its traditional broad focus and prompting the news outlet’s opinion editor [David Shipley] to resign.
Bezos said on X, “viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
Bezos cast the change as a modernization from the days when newspapers offered opinions on a broad range of topics. Now, he said, “the internet does that job.”
"We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” Bezos wrote in his post, adding that the new topics “are right for America. I also believe that these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion.”
“I suggested to him [Shipley] that if the answer wasn’t `hell yes,’ then it had to be `no.’ After careful consideration, David decided to step away,” Bezos wrote.
The pivot echoes the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page banner: “free markets, free people.” <
https://apnews.com/article/washington-post-bezos-opinion-trump-market-liberty-97a7d8113d670ec6e643525fdf9f06de
Rupert Murdoch hasn't yet returned my call for comment.
And... if the answer wasn't 'hell yes,' then it had to be 'no'? Echoes of Elon bouncing around in that one, me thinks.
The question of government employees is sort of complementary to the Leader as National Daddy concept, the personalization of everything. Someone was remarking at the Mothership to the effect that it's not nice or kind or #empathetic to be glad government jobs are being eliminated, because there are real people in those jobs.
This concept, "government as a family that supports everyone," is the opposite of the idea (bureaucratism?) that government is a set of functions to be accomplished in a well-organized and efficient manner.
There are other situations where "saving jobs" is treated by some as a moral imperative in itself, regardless of the utility of the jobs.
"....because there are real people in those jobs.".... I so hate that argument. Hate it.
Of course they're real people, but they aren't necessarily in real jobs. Real people working real jobs have the possibility of being laid off or downsized...or moved to another city...or any other of a number of changes. Factor in the mission creep of government jobs. Why are so many of those jobs even there?
I'm all for those real people getting treated like real people, and not as some indispensable inviolable component of government granted lifetime tenure.
True. The argument is annoying. More salient is the fact that people are being laid off whimsically without any understanding of their function. For example, the nuclear safety folks
For me, that's like a different argument. I doubt there is anyone that thinks less of Trump, Musk, and their utterly idiotic and dangerous approach to an important and critical change in management. They are moronic scum.
That said, anyone whining about "real people"...I immediately turn off. It's a government job, they're the beneficiaries of salaries and benefits that are essentially unobtainable for self employed individuals and most others in real jobs, and I don't care one bit that folks are getting fired. I'm glad government employees are getting fired. Welcome to the world.
Nah. You’re just in a bad mood. Firing people whose job is redundant or the function is silly, is one thing. But there is no thought in this. None. Zero zilch. Oh wait, there is one: to make musk richer without all those annoying regulation.
Bad mood, yeah. Cutting the Fed workforce...I'm totally in favor of. How it's being done...is idiotic and becoming very clear it's a cash grab.
Yes. That is the part where it's absurdly incompetent.
Well said.
Thanks for that!
> The best objection to this approach (perhaps the only objection, at this point) is that the corruption charge won’t stick against Trump. After all, the public has been hearing about his corruption for years and has priced it in or just doesn’t care. Besides, the public believes that all politicians are corrupt anyway. <
I’ve seen lots and lots of that type of relativizing. It’s another item with the pattern: “It’s bad when those other guys do it, but okay when our people do it. I mean, how else do you hope to get anything done?”
Yes, that's everyone on all sides's big weakness: that they're on record as asserting, "But it's good when we do it!"
Thanks, Optimum. But I think nothing will stick to Trump until the economy tanks, which I suspect will be sooner rather than later.
Good article. Thanks for the free read! A weakness of Mr. Rauch's prescription - as opposed to his diagnosis - is that recent history undercuts the Democratic Party's opportunity to claim that they have something different to offer.
I don’t disagree. But his diagnosis seems spot on.
I think so, as well. Mr. Rausch did a good job of identifying the common element of a "patrimonial" conception of government. I'm not sure why he had to make up a new word for it, though. One principle of language is that, when you have to stick a whole bunch of suffixes onto something, you might be better off going back to the root word.
On the other hand, coining a new word helps to denote the fact that the meaning of the old word doesn't really apply any more. For example, "the journalistical industry."
Since Trump's EO to the Treasury to have the US Mint stop coining pennies, I expect an EO forbidding the coining of new words any day now.
Aw, what's a new word between friends…
Rauch has been one of my favs for a long time.
One of the characteristics of the suppression of dissent that we've seen over the past decade or so is that the rules change very quickly. Among the Very Online, or people in government or academia, it seems that people don't realize they're "dissenting" until they're attacked by peers or threatened by management for something they thought was perfectly reasonable.
It's the, "Don't miss a memo," regime.
It seems to me that people with a wide variety of political perspectives are eager to make it illegal to disagree with them. If that mechanism is unavailable, there are others, such as professional organizations that issue official rulings against certain opinions. For example, it's career suicide to be a "Zionist" in a growing number of fields, and "Zionist" is assumed to include all Jewish people, just for convenience.
"It seems to me that people with a wide variety of political perspectives are eager to make it illegal to disagree with them."
Yes.
Yeah. It’s like “ex post facto” law, too. What was legal until the new law is passed becomes illegal for all of recorded history forever, amen. It’s one thing to disapprove of what someone believed that is now deemed unfashionable, but entirely new to demand people’s heads for past beliefs that were commonly held, often without any reflexion.
The Cultural Revolution would disagree with the "new" part. It's a foundational component of Marxist stupidities.
But, good comment. I get your intent and agree.
"entirely new to demand people’s heads for past beliefs that were commonly held, often without any reflection"
I don't think it's that new. It's just new to us. It was common in the Soviet Union. And in early modern Europe, if the current ruler or regime needed an excuse, they would prosecute a person for his totally legal, even mandatory, speech or actions under the previous regime.
That's why constitutions came to include prohibitions on ex post facto laws.
> they would prosecute a person for his totally legal, even mandatory, speech or actions <
In some ways, this is what results from a ballooning, unaccountable government bureaucracy adding to an ever burgeoning catalog of rules and regulations. Even as an upstanding, law-abiding citizen to the best of your ability, you can be arrested and charged with some crime that you never even knew existed.
The unchecked growth of the state itself threatens to make everything criminal. It’s a fantastic toolbox if you want to launch a dictatorship. You can round up your critics and opponents and punish them for some obscure infractions—or at least force them into ruinous and life-arresting legal defenses against an all-out onslaught from the Leviathan state.
RE: "...you can be arrested and charged with some crime that you never even knew existed."
Well, as some old Roman dictator or another probably said:
Ignorantia juris non excusat.
But wait... oh, who was that other guy... oh yeah:
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended." - Thomas Jefferson
Of course, ignorance of the law didn't stop a lot of folks from practicing it.
At that point, aren't we discussing "tyranny" rather than "dictatorship"? The two CAN come as a package, but they don't need to, and they are not the same thing.
That’s probably accurate. Many would look at Wilson’s doings and conclude they were tyrannical without being dictatorial.
This kinda applies, it's what happens when everything gets too big and words become illegal....one of my favorite quotes of all time, likely taken from a 2015 essay by Zhang Xuezhong, an outspoken Chinese legal scholar who has criticized the political oppression and lack of rule of law in mainland China...
"If sharp criticism disappears completely, mild criticism will become harsh. If mild criticism is not allowed, silence will be considered ill-intended. If silence is no longer allowed, not praising hard enough is a crime. If only one voice is allowed to exist, then the only voice that exists is a lie."
如果尖銳的批評完全消失，溫和的批評將會變得刺耳。 如果溫和的批評也不被允許，沉默將被認為居心叵測。 如果沉默也不再允許，讚揚不夠賣力將是一種罪行。 如果只允許一種聲音存在，那麼，唯一存在的那個聲音就是謊言
That’s very good!
"If only one voice is allowed to exist, then the only voice that exists is a lie."
Sounds like the Liturgy Committee. 155 more days ...
During the Covid lockup in Wuhan, circa 2020, that sentence rebounded all over WeChat and was constantly being censored.
Liturgy Committee...woof... A committee for ritual activity sounds right down there with a HOA or PTA meeting.
I agree. I think this helps explain some of the support - in principle, if not in detail - for DOGE's actions regarding Federal employees.
It's not that the individual Federal employees are necessarily bad people, or even not doing their jobs - although the incentives of the situation encourage abuse and poor performance. It's that the jobs shouldn't exist because that stuff either shouldn't be done by the Federal government or shouldn't be done at all.
For example, on both constitutional and pragmatic grounds, I don't think the Department of Education should exist. This means that, even if you're a terrific computer programmer or copier repairman at the Department of Education, I don't think your job should exist. It's nothing personal. If you're actually good at a real job, you could get a better position in the private sector in an economy where the private sector didn't have compete for every resource with Leviathan.
That’s where I am too: DOGE is somewhat bumbling in execution with overall goals unclear, but I fully support in principle the idea that our govt has grown huge with little oversight, and should be pared down. I feel sorry for those who would lose jobs, but as you say, those jobs shouldn’t exist in the first place. I don’t see any of that as being dictatorial. The Hitler and “He wants to be a dictator!” accusations are old and tired. Just one guy’s opinion.
RE: I don’t see any of that as being dictatorial.
Not dictatorial in the strictest definition of the word, perhaps, but in all likelihood most if not all actions now being carried out by DOGE and Musk and those heads of departments cooperating with them are either illegal, unconstitutional or both.
Think there might be a reason Trump's mouthpieces both in and out of court won't acknowledged Musk as the head of this living fiction called DOGE, or acknowledge that he's anything other than an unpaid "special advisor" to Trump?
https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-doge-white-house-layoffs-0fcdbb692717c63203ef971cb9807b35
https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/white-house-finally-comes-up-with-an-official-answer-for-who-is-running-doge-an-obama-honoree/ar-AA1zMM6l?ocid=BingNews
https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/02/white-house-reveals-whos-really-running-doge-says-its-not-elon-musk.html
I doubt there is authority granted by law for the people carrying out these actions to do so without Congress being involved to at least some degree or another in giving them the lawful authority to do these things.
Part of the issue here, though, is with who is deciding that something should or should not exist. We may individually agree with the decisions being made, but it should not be up to Elon Musk to arbitrarily decide that USAID should not exist.
"DOGE is somewhat bumbling in execution with overall goals unclear"
I would call it absurdly incompetent in execution and delusional (or lying) about its goals, but I'm in agreement with the rest of your observations.
Right.
It matters. And the pendulum will someday come back around. Always does.
I had a civil conversation at a store with an ultra smart ultra ultra conservative view. We discussed our views on many Constitutional topics. He strongly disagreed with me that Lee and the Confederates were traitors. Total states rights guy. Sigh. Kinda got me a bit concerned with his joy in saying and justification of the old "Tree of Liberty needs refreshed from time to time". Even with violence he sad. An attorney and teaches US Military.
His tie was beautiful Jerry Garcia yellow base that I complimented him on. We exchanged phone numbers to possibly have more discussion.
Got give props to my friends here and few left over at The Excusership for helping me engage in politcal philosophy and conLaw that were of uselessness as long time businessman. And being civil about it even when crazy shows up.
45F. 434am
The 10th amendment has been somewhat ignored mainly due to the expansive power given to the federal government by the Supreme Court in interpreting the commerce clause.
RE: the Confederates, it must be pointed out that Lee and the other Confederates were pardoned by Presidents Lincoln and Johnson after the war. The 14th Amendment prohibition against Confederates holding public office was lifted by Congress n the 1870s. And the “moral pardon” of the Confederates has been understood ever since — right up to the moral panic following George Floyd’s murder. Personally, I still hold Robert E, Lee as an honorable man, albeit who made a tragically wrong choice.
We will disagree. Malice towards none and Charity towards all... meant nothing to the beaten traitor confederates as they devastated black citizens
Nah. The country wasn't unified enough for him to be labeled a traitor. States rights were more the law than the Union. Utter shit heel lousy human, yes. All that dignified Southern Gentleman crap...nope. A truly awful human.
Well, when you are a US Army officer and swear an oath, and rhen work to divide the Nation into a separate country. That is a classic traitor.
And they initiated War on the United States. The Confederate Constitution and all of it was worse than repugnant
Traitors. Everyone may disagree. But I've long held this position.
And charity by Lincoln and Grant was a wasted gesture that allowed the murders of thousands of Black citizens.
So. Still. Hanging the top 1,000 leaders and officers would have a great positive outcome for black Americans.
But we all wish a different world at times.
I will disagree with both of you. And I say that as a former US Army officer who took that same oath.
There is absolutely no question that Reconstruction, half-heartedly carried out, did not press through to ensuring equality for the freed slaves. That is a tragedy and an outrage. At the same time, if there were not a reconciliation of the South to the North, re-uniting the country, the US would never have become a world power in the 20th century, defending freedom in two World Wars and the Cold War.
It is possible to imagine a medium position between the current reality where Jim Crow racism persisted in the South of over 100 years after the Civil War, and an alternate reality, that I fear some would have wanted, of the South having been held in subjugation for decades. I don't think Abraham LIncoln wold have endorsed either of those 2 extremes.
I'd take hanging the top 1,000,racist Confederate traitors and every subjugation of white people over what in fact white southern christians did to blacks.
In this alternate reality, I absolutely do not see a Black KKK, lynching of whites, suppression of their voting rights.
This is all just fantasy. Except, the Confederates were traitors to the United States. There was no cause by Lincoln. The Traitors just were mad.
yeah, I was just being argumentative. He was a traitor. Hard core traitor, and an awful human.
Thanks Kurt!!
That’s encouraging: the idea that people can be friendly despite political differences.
The “tree of liberty” stuff disturbs me. It’s one of those items where there’s a lot of implied ends justifying means, and implied bloodshed and cruelty along the way.
One major category of motives for evil/human cruelty in Baumeister’s “Evil” is ideology. It’s the justification that sometimes the ideological objectives are so important that it may require a lot of murdering along the way…
'The “tree of liberty” stuff disturbs me.'
Jefferson tended to promote ideas in something of an intellectual/emotional vacuum, since people other than himself experienced the consequences.
Jefferson got carried away with his own charisma and eloquence, usually with a Jacobin inclination.
Excellent summary.
Good morning. It's 41Fs here and could be 72! later. D has a riding lesson this afternoon: the last two were called off due to bad weather, so it's about time we got a break. I'll take a lawn chair and sit with the chickens.
Hard frost here. Supposed to be low 60s later on.
Is “to sit with” the chickens “to roost” or “to perch”?
Neither, in this case. I sit in my lawn chair, and the chickens walk around on their scary dinosaur feet, making little clucky sounds and sticking their heads in my purse or pecking at my boots.
You can buy chickens feet at the Asian grocery store.
When chicken is served here, it's the whole carcass including the head and feet. The head is often prominently perched upward and is the first identifiable part. Everyone goes right for the feet. I get laughed at because I tell folks I don't do heads or feet. Everything else is fine. "Tube" (intestine) usually gets people watching me to see if I go for it. I'll put a section on my chopstick and twirl it around, which usually gets a laugh. Wife, normally reserved and proper, dives on the feet and tears at them. .
There's also duck head, duck tongue, duck feet.
Grandma Nana ate chicken feet. It turned me forever against them.
*shudder*
I'd rather not.