What is Trumpism?Revised

I originally posted an epistle on Trumpism on various sites, including Medium, Facebook, and LinkedIn, on November 21, 2024.

Among 13 points, one of my key points was: Trumpism appears to be a blend of fascism and oligarchy, an autocratic system in which voices of dissent are stifled with impunity (“You’re fired!”)

After reading an article by Jonathan Rauch published on February 24, 2025, in The Atlantic, entitled “One Word Describes Trump,” my opinion changed.

To stay true to Mr. Rauch, I will quote liberally from his article.

***

Although Trumpism resembles fascism and oligarchy, if we define it as such, we miss the mark.

By failing to define the problem accurately, we fail to find the correct solution.

You will find the key below.

Let’s listen to Mr. Rauch (emphasis is mine):

*

Patrimonialism

Trump is installing what scholars call patrimonialism.[1]

Understanding patrimonialism is the key to defeating it.

In a system of patrimonialism, rulers claimed to be the symbolic father of the people – the state’s personification and protector.[2]

Patrimonialism is less a form of government than a style of governing.

Patrimonialism is distinguished by running the state as if it were the leader’s personal property or family business.

Patrimonialism is suspicious of bureaucracies; after all, to exactly whom are they loyal?

Patrimonial governance’s aversion to formalism makes it capricious and even whimsical, such as when the leader announces, out of nowhere, the renaming of international bodies of water or the U.S. occupation of Gaza.

Unlike classic authoritarianism, patrimonialism can coexist with democracy, at least for a while.

… as patrimonialism snips the government’s procedural tendons, it weakens and eventually cripples the state.

[Trump] is patrimonialism’s perfect organism.

He recognizes no distinction between what is public and private, legal and illegal, formal and informal, national and personal.

“He can’t tell the difference between his own personal interest and the national interest, if he even understands what the national interest is,” John Bolton, who served as national security adviser in Trump’s first term, told The Bulwark.

He broke with 50 years of practice by treating the Justice Department as his “personal law firm.”

In Trump’s world, federal agencies are shut down on his say-so without so much as a nod to Congress.

Henchmen with no statutory authority barge into agencies and take them over.

A loyalist who had only ever managed two small non-profits is chosen for the hardest management job in government.

Conflicts of interest are tolerated if not outright blessed.

Prosecutors and inspectors general are fired for doing their job.

Thousands of civil servants are converted to employment at the president’s will.

Former officials’ security protection is withdrawn because they are disloyal.

The presidency itself is treated as a business opportunity.

Incompetence and Staggering Orgies of Corruption

Patrimonialism suffers from two inherent and in many cases fatal shortcomings.

The first is incompetence.

Patrimonial regimes are “simply awful at managing any complex problem of modern governance.”

Some examples of incompetence, such as the reported firing of staffers who safeguard nuclear weapons and prevent bird flu, would be laughable if not so alarming.[3]

Eventually, incompetence makes itself evident to the voting public without needing too much help from the opposition.

But helping the public understand patrimonialism’s other, even greater vulnerability – corruption – requires relentless messaging.

Patrimonialism is corrupt by definition, because its reason for being is to exploit the state for gain – political, personal, and financial.

As Larry Diamond of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution said in a recent podcast, “I think we are going to see an absolutely staggering orgy of corruption and crony capitalism in the next four years unlike anything we’ve seen since the late 19th Century, the Gilded Age.”

Corruption is patrimonialism’s Achilles heel because the public understands it and doesn’t like it.

Newt Gingrich defeated Jim Wright for House Speaker in 1994 by relentlessly branding him as “corrupt.”

Gingrich routinely repeated, “Jim Wright is the most corrupt speaker in the 20th Century,” and peppered Wright with ethics complaints.

It worked.

Today, Gingrich’s campaign offers the Democrats a playbook. If they want to undermine Trump’s support, this model suggests they should pursue a relentless, strategic, and thematic campaign branding Trump as America’s most corrupt president.

But driving a strategic, coordinated message against Trump’s corruption is exactly what the opposition has not done.

Instead, it has reacted to the day’s news.

By responding to daily fire drills and running in circles, it has failed to drive any message at all.

[1] Max Weber, the famous German sociologist, coined this term.

[2] On October 31, 2024, the Convicted Sexual Assaulter-in-Chief gave a speech in which he said he would protect women “whether they liked it or not.” Strange but true.

[3] Like making conference calls on unsecured lines when transmitting highly classified war plans, and managing that pesky, and potentially deadly, little problem with the measles.