I think everyone has struggled to perfectly define what's going on here. Is this autocracy? Oligarchy? Kakistocracy? Is Trump simply out of control, behaving like a Mad King, even worse than the one this country rebelled against in the first place? A widely read Atlantic article from last month by Jonathan Rauch gives a definition to the process that makes the most sense to me. He reaches back to German sociologist Max Weber who defined this as something called "patrimonialism."

Weber believed that rulers gain legitimacy from two one of two systems, the first being what Rausch calls "rational legal bureaucracy (or “bureaucratic proceduralism”), a system in which legitimacy is bestowed by institutions following certain rules and norms." That would be the system we have been operating under since the founding of our country under the Constitution. Patrimonialism, on the other hand, is the system under which nearly everyone on earth lived until pretty recently in human history. Quoting a book called "The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers Our Future" by Stephen E. Hanson, a government professor at the College of William & Mary and Jeffrey S. Kopstein, a political scientist at UC Irvine, which defines it as the state being "little more than the extended ‘household’ of the ruler":

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Patrimonialism is less a form of government than a style of governing. It is not defined by institutions or rules; rather, it can infect all forms of government by replacing impersonal, formal lines of authority with personalized, informal ones. Based on individual loyalty and connections, and on rewarding friends and punishing enemies (real or perceived), it can be found not just in states but also among tribes, street gangs, and criminal organizations.In its governmental guise, patrimonialism is distinguished by running the state as if it were the leader’s personal property or family business.

That's what Trump and Musk are in the process of creating: A pre-modern patrimonial government where everything is decided through them on a personal basis.

Rausch makes the case that this is not necessarily authoritarian since authoritarian systems like Hitler's Germany or the Soviet Union were heavily bureaucratized. It can even begin as a democracy. But over time it almost always devolves into autocracy.

Rausch says that patrimonialism has two inherent weaknesses that make it vulnerable: incompetence and corruption. Once you chase out all the people who know how to make things run (bureaucrats) and allow corruption to supercede the needs of the people it breaks down.

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Rausch says, "corruption is patrimonialism’s Achilles’ heel because the public understands it and doesn’t like it. It is not an abstraction like “democracy” or “Constitution” or “rule of law.” It conveys that the government is being run for them, not for you." It's the most potent argument against this patrimonial presidency, that's for sure.

I've never understood why more wasn't made of Trump's outright corruption in his first term. Now they are just waving it in our faces and it's a thousand times more blatant. Musk waving around a chainsaw and Trump hawking Teslas on the White House driveway last week says it all. Let's hope the opposition can get it together enough to pound that message home this time.

-Heather Digby Parton in Salon.com