One word describes Trump
One word describes Trump
- February 24, 2025
- Jeffrey Kopstein, political science, The Atlantic, Feb. 24, 2025
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What exactly is Donald Trump doing? ... There is an answer, and it is not classic
authoritarianism—nor is it autocracy, oligarchy, or monarchy. Trump is installing
what scholars call patrimonialism. ... Last year, two professors published a book
that deserves wide attention. In The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on
Modern Government Endangers Our Future, Stephen E. Hanson, a government professor
at the College of William & Mary, and Jeffrey S. Kopstein, a political scientist at
UC Irvine, resurface a mostly forgotten term whose lineage dates back to Max Weber,
the German sociologist best known for his seminal book The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism.
For the full story, please visit https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/corruption-trump-administration/681794/.
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