There have been a number of articles suggesting that "Patrimonial" describes Trump's governing style.
>>>Professor Hanson argues that Trump’s presidency exemplifies a broader 21st-century resurgence of patrimonial rule—a system in which leaders govern as if the state were their personal property.
Professor Hanson underscores that
“the key features [of Trump’s governance] are that the ruler governs the entire state as if it were his personal possession, viewing the state as a kind of family business. He distributes parts of the state and its protection to loyalists, cronies, and even family members directly. At the same time, he attacks the impersonal and impartial administration of the state as an obstacle to his arbitrary power.” This, he argues, is a defining characteristic of patrimonialism, a governance style that many assumed had been relegated to history but is now re-emerging in modern democracies.<<<
In an in-depth interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Stephen E. Hanson, the Lettie Pate Evans Professor in the Department
www.populismstudies.org
Hanson may disagree, but it seems to me that patrimonialism is a shift towards medieval systems in which the king literally owned everything and his decisions were absolute law.
Making America Great Again apparently envisions making America something it never was, at least not after the revolution.
