This candid discussion of patrimonialism is excellent and helpful. But in the three articles I've read (Rauch, Hanson & Kopstein and now this) there is little if any discussion of the Constitutional answer to the particular problem of Trump's exhibitionism: the checks and balances of our system.
Trump is being allowed to do what he is doing mostly because of the failure of Congress. This is, of course, a problem of politics -- the Republicans in Congress are afraid of what they still view as the power of MAGA. That is a judgment they must make, since they are representatives of the People. They are the judges of the politics of their constituencies, and are rolling the dice betting that Trump's charisma still has its force with local majorities, and will continue to.
The Senate Republicans have almost completely bent to Trump's will, consenting to a cabinet that is proving to be Trump-loyal to a fault. The Senate GOP has put all of its eggs in Trump's basket, and allowed him and his administration to break the laws they, themselves made The Law.
Patrimonialism in a democratically elected President is only allowed if and when Congress decides to ignore or sidestep its obvious and historic failures. We'll see how that works out in a couple of years. Maybe the GOP is right and the voters will accept that the President can have his own way with what is now just nominally The Law. But I suspect Trump will wear out his welcome even in the two years leading to 2026; by 2028 it'll be someone else's to deal with. For better or worse, that is the politics that the Constitution allows and demands.
In addition, though, some of Trump's lawless actions very clearly seem to be unconstitutional, and the checks and balances the Supreme Court is charged with effectuating will also be put to the test. We won't have an actual constitutional crisis unless and until Trump suffers a high court loss he will not abide by. That is when the politics of our people, and the endurance of our traditional understanding of our country will have their day.
I expect some Supreme Court decisions will uphold some of Trump's actions, but not all of them. And while Trump will continue, always, to have his supporters, I think the circumstances of whatever he chooses to defy will get him much less adoration and support than he is used to.
This is all how our system is supposed to work, politics and all. Patrimonialism is being given a pass now, and on such a scale, for the very first time, and we'll see how it plays in Peoria, as they used to say. But honestly, I'm having a hard time seeing anyone after Trump with the dynamics he's been able to take advantage of, who would want to try this gambit after him.
Patrimonialism lies on a continuum. At one end, the enlightened patriarch exercises authority as a stabilising force, maintaining order and dispensing favors within a framework that, while personal, still upholds a broader social contract. At the other, the mob boss turns power into pure self-interest, reducing governance to extortion, replacing institutions with loyalty-based patronage, and treating the state—or its fragments—as a fiefdom for personal enrichment.
The distinction matters. Trump isn’t just a patrimonial leader. He’s a Don.
A Don shares no power. Rival centers—agencies, courts, entire nations—must be bent or crushed. Survival demands constant maneuvering, cutting deals one moment, burning bridges the next. Territory isn’t just borders—it’s control. Loyalty is extracted, tested, and enforced. Trump’s circle isn’t competent; it’s packed with lickspittle toadies. And at the end? There’s legacy—his name, his dynasty, his myth.
Trump wasn’t shaped in Ivy League law firms. He came up in 1970s–80s New York real estate, where money wasn’t enough—access was everything. And access meant playing by the rules of the Concrete Club, a cartel run by the Genovese and Gambino families. They decided which projects moved forward and which ones mysteriously stalled. Cross them, and concrete dried up, equipment got vandalised, loans disappeared.
Unions? Also mob-controlled. Foremen weren’t appointed—they were anointed. Kickbacks weren’t a risk; they were the cost of doing business. Job sites that resisted got hit with a wave of “accidents.”
Trump didn’t stumble into this world—he was trained for it. Fred Trump, a hardened landlord, taught him early: There are killers, and there are losers. Killers take. Losers get stepped on. Trust is for suckers. Compassion is weakness. The law? Just another tool for those with the leverage to ignore it.
This is the playbook Trump brought to Washington. Inspectors General? Purged like snitches. Agencies? Gutted and repurposed as enforcers. Foreign policy? A shakedown. NATO? Not an alliance, but weak families failing to pay tribute. Ukraine? Just another protection racket, but one where he has pinned his ego to a peace deal, unfortunately.
Patrimonialism explains why Trump treats the state as personal property. But to understand how he operates—why he rules through muscle and leverage—stop thinking about presidents.
Well apparently the way the US wants to get to Denmark now is by conquering Danish territory. Which by the way might explain Ukraine: Trump gives Putin a pass in exchange for his consent to gobble up Greenland and even Canada. Except it’s not going to happen because the free world will unite to thwart the authoritarians.
A very accurate analysis, and encouraging because it shows us that it is possible to still think clearly. Even more enlightening with the addition of the comment/analysis from John Baker above.
Just a point, though, the description of Weber's analysis is extremely reductive (and rather misleading) in your synopsis. In Economy and Society, Weber distinguishes several systems of governance, and several gradations internal to the system that he calls Patrimonial-Feudal, from one polarity of almost constitutional monarchy to the complete patrimonial capture of the state which he calls Sultanism, where change can only be brought about by palace coups and murders.
So assertions like that patrimonialism describes "virtually every pre-modern regime once mankind graduated from decentralized tribalism" and that in patrimonialism "the government was considered to be an extension of the ruler’s family and household", is both inaccurate and misleading.
Weber describes in detail the many mechanisms, throughout history in many different societies, but especially in Europe, through which the encroachment of the ruler's ownership of the state as his own property was held in check, even in proper Kingdoms which paid lip service to the Sovereign ownership of all. In fact the latter, becoming more and more abstract, became the precursor of the modern impersonal state, maintaining a symbol of national unity in the figure of the materially powerless but emotionally emblematic Sovereign.
Mind, this is not in any way a critique of the assessment, which applies perfectly to the present situation of your country (and many others).
But as a historian and someone who read Weber extensively, I would like to remind us all of the roots of our Liberal thought and systems, which Weber also identifies in Economy and Society: the Classical world, the Greek polis and the Roman republic, whose principles of impersonal state (limited and faulty as they were) still came to inform even the highly patrimonial rules of Hellenistic Satrapies and the Roman Empire, and from there modernity.
Nothing began ex nihilo in the 16 and 17 century. Our tradition is long and valuable, and it should be held up in the face of the many who nowadays appeal to antithetic, tribal traditions.
Very nice piece, but I thought that one of the identifying features of fascism was the lack of an ideology, or at least a unifying one. There should also be a powerful and charismatic leader, authoritarianism and a driving nationalism, as well as others I can't think of right now. In that sense, I still think the current administration is not so far away from fascism.
This candid discussion of patrimonialism is excellent and helpful. But in the three articles I've read (Rauch, Hanson & Kopstein and now this) there is little if any discussion of the Constitutional answer to the particular problem of Trump's exhibitionism: the checks and balances of our system.
Trump is being allowed to do what he is doing mostly because of the failure of Congress. This is, of course, a problem of politics -- the Republicans in Congress are afraid of what they still view as the power of MAGA. That is a judgment they must make, since they are representatives of the People. They are the judges of the politics of their constituencies, and are rolling the dice betting that Trump's charisma still has its force with local majorities, and will continue to.
The Senate Republicans have almost completely bent to Trump's will, consenting to a cabinet that is proving to be Trump-loyal to a fault. The Senate GOP has put all of its eggs in Trump's basket, and allowed him and his administration to break the laws they, themselves made The Law.
Patrimonialism in a democratically elected President is only allowed if and when Congress decides to ignore or sidestep its obvious and historic failures. We'll see how that works out in a couple of years. Maybe the GOP is right and the voters will accept that the President can have his own way with what is now just nominally The Law. But I suspect Trump will wear out his welcome even in the two years leading to 2026; by 2028 it'll be someone else's to deal with. For better or worse, that is the politics that the Constitution allows and demands.
In addition, though, some of Trump's lawless actions very clearly seem to be unconstitutional, and the checks and balances the Supreme Court is charged with effectuating will also be put to the test. We won't have an actual constitutional crisis unless and until Trump suffers a high court loss he will not abide by. That is when the politics of our people, and the endurance of our traditional understanding of our country will have their day.
I expect some Supreme Court decisions will uphold some of Trump's actions, but not all of them. And while Trump will continue, always, to have his supporters, I think the circumstances of whatever he chooses to defy will get him much less adoration and support than he is used to.
This is all how our system is supposed to work, politics and all. Patrimonialism is being given a pass now, and on such a scale, for the very first time, and we'll see how it plays in Peoria, as they used to say. But honestly, I'm having a hard time seeing anyone after Trump with the dynamics he's been able to take advantage of, who would want to try this gambit after him.
Patrimonialism lies on a continuum. At one end, the enlightened patriarch exercises authority as a stabilising force, maintaining order and dispensing favors within a framework that, while personal, still upholds a broader social contract. At the other, the mob boss turns power into pure self-interest, reducing governance to extortion, replacing institutions with loyalty-based patronage, and treating the state—or its fragments—as a fiefdom for personal enrichment.
The distinction matters. Trump isn’t just a patrimonial leader. He’s a Don.
A Don shares no power. Rival centers—agencies, courts, entire nations—must be bent or crushed. Survival demands constant maneuvering, cutting deals one moment, burning bridges the next. Territory isn’t just borders—it’s control. Loyalty is extracted, tested, and enforced. Trump’s circle isn’t competent; it’s packed with lickspittle toadies. And at the end? There’s legacy—his name, his dynasty, his myth.
Trump wasn’t shaped in Ivy League law firms. He came up in 1970s–80s New York real estate, where money wasn’t enough—access was everything. And access meant playing by the rules of the Concrete Club, a cartel run by the Genovese and Gambino families. They decided which projects moved forward and which ones mysteriously stalled. Cross them, and concrete dried up, equipment got vandalised, loans disappeared.
Unions? Also mob-controlled. Foremen weren’t appointed—they were anointed. Kickbacks weren’t a risk; they were the cost of doing business. Job sites that resisted got hit with a wave of “accidents.”
Trump didn’t stumble into this world—he was trained for it. Fred Trump, a hardened landlord, taught him early: There are killers, and there are losers. Killers take. Losers get stepped on. Trust is for suckers. Compassion is weakness. The law? Just another tool for those with the leverage to ignore it.
This is the playbook Trump brought to Washington. Inspectors General? Purged like snitches. Agencies? Gutted and repurposed as enforcers. Foreign policy? A shakedown. NATO? Not an alliance, but weak families failing to pay tribute. Ukraine? Just another protection racket, but one where he has pinned his ego to a peace deal, unfortunately.
Patrimonialism explains why Trump treats the state as personal property. But to understand how he operates—why he rules through muscle and leverage—stop thinking about presidents.
Think like a Don.
The Don Framework
https://open.substack.com/pub/johnbaker768156/p/the-don-framework?r=294g0v&utm_medium=ios
Well apparently the way the US wants to get to Denmark now is by conquering Danish territory. Which by the way might explain Ukraine: Trump gives Putin a pass in exchange for his consent to gobble up Greenland and even Canada. Except it’s not going to happen because the free world will unite to thwart the authoritarians.
A very accurate analysis, and encouraging because it shows us that it is possible to still think clearly. Even more enlightening with the addition of the comment/analysis from John Baker above.
Just a point, though, the description of Weber's analysis is extremely reductive (and rather misleading) in your synopsis. In Economy and Society, Weber distinguishes several systems of governance, and several gradations internal to the system that he calls Patrimonial-Feudal, from one polarity of almost constitutional monarchy to the complete patrimonial capture of the state which he calls Sultanism, where change can only be brought about by palace coups and murders.
So assertions like that patrimonialism describes "virtually every pre-modern regime once mankind graduated from decentralized tribalism" and that in patrimonialism "the government was considered to be an extension of the ruler’s family and household", is both inaccurate and misleading.
Weber describes in detail the many mechanisms, throughout history in many different societies, but especially in Europe, through which the encroachment of the ruler's ownership of the state as his own property was held in check, even in proper Kingdoms which paid lip service to the Sovereign ownership of all. In fact the latter, becoming more and more abstract, became the precursor of the modern impersonal state, maintaining a symbol of national unity in the figure of the materially powerless but emotionally emblematic Sovereign.
Mind, this is not in any way a critique of the assessment, which applies perfectly to the present situation of your country (and many others).
But as a historian and someone who read Weber extensively, I would like to remind us all of the roots of our Liberal thought and systems, which Weber also identifies in Economy and Society: the Classical world, the Greek polis and the Roman republic, whose principles of impersonal state (limited and faulty as they were) still came to inform even the highly patrimonial rules of Hellenistic Satrapies and the Roman Empire, and from there modernity.
Nothing began ex nihilo in the 16 and 17 century. Our tradition is long and valuable, and it should be held up in the face of the many who nowadays appeal to antithetic, tribal traditions.
Very nice piece, but I thought that one of the identifying features of fascism was the lack of an ideology, or at least a unifying one. There should also be a powerful and charismatic leader, authoritarianism and a driving nationalism, as well as others I can't think of right now. In that sense, I still think the current administration is not so far away from fascism.