President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for many of the top cabinet positions in his upcoming administration are unorthodox, to say the least. In some cases, it would be hard to think of of people less qualified for their proposed jobs.
Pete Hegseth as secretary of Defense, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, Kash Patel as F.B.I. director and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as overseer of the nation’s health care policies — each lacks the relevant experience and has an array of troubling biases that should be disqualifying.
Mr. Trump’s choices for ambassadors and senior advisers — sycophants, cronies and even his children’s in-laws and romantic partners — seem to break with a century of precedent in American politics.
What we are seeing in the United States today, though, is not so new. It echoes what is happening all over the world: an assault on the modern state as we know it. In countries including Hungary, Israel and Britain, the civil service, judiciary and law enforcement have been attacked by the very leaders elected to manage them.
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We have seen the sort of damage these types of attacks cause — they enrich loyalists, weaken independent sources of expertise and information and erode vital public services. They will do much the same here.
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Eviscerating modern state institutions almost always clears a path for a different type of political order, one built on personal loyalties and connections to the ruler. The German sociologist Max Weber had a word for this type of regime: patrimonialism, based on the arbitrary rule of leaders who view themselves as traditional “fathers” of their nations and who run the state as a family business of sorts, staffed by relatives, friends and other members of the ruler’s “extended household.”
Social scientists thought that patrimonialism had been relegated to the dustbin of history. And for good reason: Such regimes couldn’t compete militarily or economically with states led by the expert civil services that helped make modern societies rich, powerful and relatively secure.
But a slew of self-aggrandizing leaders has taken advantage of rising inequality, cultural conflicts and changing demography to grab power. The result has been a steep decline in the government’s ability to provide essential services such as health care, education and safety.
Compared with the weak feudal states that preceded them, patrimonial regimes such as the Dutch Empire in the 17th century and czarist Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries were good at extracting revenue and making war, but otherwise inept. They were capable of coercion, but they could not provide the predictable enforcement of laws essential to modern capitalism.
The arbitrary decision-making that is typical of patrimonialism sometimes even resulted in the disintegration of the state itself. Czar Nicholas II of Russia could decide in the middle of World War I to take over direct command of Russian troops, leaving his capital city in the hands of his wife and her confidant, the faith healer Grigori Rasputin. Within a year and a half, the Russian Empire collapsed in defeat and revolution, leaving a power vacuum that was ultimately filled by Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik Party.
Americans love to hate the state. About half of our citizenry now believes that there is really a “deep state” of shadowy power brokers who pull the strings of our government behind the scenes. But as annoying and inefficient as bureaucracies sometimes are, all of us depend on them to live what we now consider normal lives.
Government agencies with staff who are recruited by merit play a vital role ensuring the safety of our food, air and water; maintaining the value of our currency; resolving legal disputes peacefully; and defending our national security. We rarely pay attention to the everyday work of government bureaucrats, but without them, we would be in grave danger.
When Mr. Trump and his cronies declare that they will destroy the deep state, it’s really the modern state — the state that supports the foundations of both public and private life — that they have in mind.
Once we view the matter from this perspective, it’s much easier to understand why Mr. Trump invited Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to drastically downsize the American state. In reality, though, government will not be downsized; it will be repurposed. Like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Trump aims not to streamline modern state bureaucracies, but rather to replace them with a much older form of rule based on personal loyalty to the ruler.
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Hungary and Israel provide a glimpse into our future. Mr. Orban built his family a palace rivaling Versailles while he attacked Hungary’s educational and health care systems, and his friends became fabulously wealthy as they took advantage of their connections to the leader. Mr. Netanyahu worked to weaken the Israeli civil service and judiciary to stave off corruption charges and reward loyalists, and after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, some government ministries were left paralyzed for days. Israel’s civil society filled in the void.
The occasional defeat of patrimonial leaders in democratic elections has not halted these dangerous global trends. Mr. Trump’s return to the White House isn’t the only example. In Poland, where the patrimonial administration of Jarosław Kaczynski was unexpectedly defeated in a parliamentary vote by Donald Tusk’s pro-European Union party Civic Platform in 2023, it has proved to be extraordinarily difficult to repair the damage already done to state agencies and the judiciary. And if Mr. Putin manages to replace Ukraine’s independent constitutional regime with a Russian client state — the ultimate goal of his brutal invasion — the fragile balance of power in Europe may tip decisively toward patrimonialism.
To reverse the global assault on modern government, then, will require more than a simple defense of “democracy.” After all, Mr. Trump won the presidential election fairly. The threat we face is different, and perhaps even more critical: a world in which the rule of law has given way entirely to the rule of men.
Pete Hegseth as secretary of Defense, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, Kash Patel as F.B.I. director and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as overseer of the nation’s health care policies — each lacks the relevant experience and has an array of troubling biases that should be disqualifying.
Mr. Trump’s choices for ambassadors and senior advisers — sycophants, cronies and even his children’s in-laws and romantic partners — seem to break with a century of precedent in American politics.
What we are seeing in the United States today, though, is not so new. It echoes what is happening all over the world: an assault on the modern state as we know it. In countries including Hungary, Israel and Britain, the civil service, judiciary and law enforcement have been attacked by the very leaders elected to manage them.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
We have seen the sort of damage these types of attacks cause — they enrich loyalists, weaken independent sources of expertise and information and erode vital public services. They will do much the same here.
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
Eviscerating modern state institutions almost always clears a path for a different type of political order, one built on personal loyalties and connections to the ruler. The German sociologist Max Weber had a word for this type of regime: patrimonialism, based on the arbitrary rule of leaders who view themselves as traditional “fathers” of their nations and who run the state as a family business of sorts, staffed by relatives, friends and other members of the ruler’s “extended household.”
Social scientists thought that patrimonialism had been relegated to the dustbin of history. And for good reason: Such regimes couldn’t compete militarily or economically with states led by the expert civil services that helped make modern societies rich, powerful and relatively secure.
But a slew of self-aggrandizing leaders has taken advantage of rising inequality, cultural conflicts and changing demography to grab power. The result has been a steep decline in the government’s ability to provide essential services such as health care, education and safety.
Compared with the weak feudal states that preceded them, patrimonial regimes such as the Dutch Empire in the 17th century and czarist Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries were good at extracting revenue and making war, but otherwise inept. They were capable of coercion, but they could not provide the predictable enforcement of laws essential to modern capitalism.
The arbitrary decision-making that is typical of patrimonialism sometimes even resulted in the disintegration of the state itself. Czar Nicholas II of Russia could decide in the middle of World War I to take over direct command of Russian troops, leaving his capital city in the hands of his wife and her confidant, the faith healer Grigori Rasputin. Within a year and a half, the Russian Empire collapsed in defeat and revolution, leaving a power vacuum that was ultimately filled by Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik Party.
Americans love to hate the state. About half of our citizenry now believes that there is really a “deep state” of shadowy power brokers who pull the strings of our government behind the scenes. But as annoying and inefficient as bureaucracies sometimes are, all of us depend on them to live what we now consider normal lives.
Government agencies with staff who are recruited by merit play a vital role ensuring the safety of our food, air and water; maintaining the value of our currency; resolving legal disputes peacefully; and defending our national security. We rarely pay attention to the everyday work of government bureaucrats, but without them, we would be in grave danger.
When Mr. Trump and his cronies declare that they will destroy the deep state, it’s really the modern state — the state that supports the foundations of both public and private life — that they have in mind.
Once we view the matter from this perspective, it’s much easier to understand why Mr. Trump invited Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to drastically downsize the American state. In reality, though, government will not be downsized; it will be repurposed. Like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Trump aims not to streamline modern state bureaucracies, but rather to replace them with a much older form of rule based on personal loyalty to the ruler.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Hungary and Israel provide a glimpse into our future. Mr. Orban built his family a palace rivaling Versailles while he attacked Hungary’s educational and health care systems, and his friends became fabulously wealthy as they took advantage of their connections to the leader. Mr. Netanyahu worked to weaken the Israeli civil service and judiciary to stave off corruption charges and reward loyalists, and after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, some government ministries were left paralyzed for days. Israel’s civil society filled in the void.
The occasional defeat of patrimonial leaders in democratic elections has not halted these dangerous global trends. Mr. Trump’s return to the White House isn’t the only example. In Poland, where the patrimonial administration of Jarosław Kaczynski was unexpectedly defeated in a parliamentary vote by Donald Tusk’s pro-European Union party Civic Platform in 2023, it has proved to be extraordinarily difficult to repair the damage already done to state agencies and the judiciary. And if Mr. Putin manages to replace Ukraine’s independent constitutional regime with a Russian client state — the ultimate goal of his brutal invasion — the fragile balance of power in Europe may tip decisively toward patrimonialism.
To reverse the global assault on modern government, then, will require more than a simple defense of “democracy.” After all, Mr. Trump won the presidential election fairly. The threat we face is different, and perhaps even more critical: a world in which the rule of law has given way entirely to the rule of men.
