The New York Times' opinion column that I am linking right here had the following title in the hard copy version: "The Next Assault on the Modern State Has Begun." I read that column on Tuesday, January 7, 2025. The online version of the column is dated December 31, 2024, and the headline on the online version is different: "Trump Is Dismantling the Systems That Keep Us Safe. All Americans Will Suffer."
Non-subscribers will probably face a paywall if they try to click through to read the column online. If you can do it, though, I encourage you to read the column, and to see what Stephen E. Hanson and Jeffrey S. Kopstein have to say. Hanson and Kopstein are the authors of "The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers Our Future." This sounds like a book worth reading, and I am guessing that the column in The Times is a "short version" of the book.
The benefits of our "administrative state," which some now call the "Deep State," are many. But Hanson and Kopstein point out that public support for the modern state is waning, worldwide. The election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States is only one of many examples. We are returning, says Hanson and Kopstein, to what they call "patrimonialism," which is "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."
As I say, I think the Hanson-Kopstein column is worth reading. I am referencing it today, though, not for its overall message, but to highlight one statement made in the column:
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 (emphasis added).
I have made this comment before, but I don't think I can emphasize this enough. The president of the United States is not a "ruler."
Surely, Hanson and Kopstein know this. I am sure that we all know this. However, the use of language that suggests that a president, once elected, is expected to "rule," is not uncommon. Many Members of Congress (even members of the Democratic Party) seem to think that the election of Mr. Trump is a direction from the people that the Congress should do what Mr. Trump says. While Mr. Trump certainly tries to advance this "patrimonial" understanding of what a president is - as when he claims that "I, alone, can fix it" - anyone who has read the United States Constitution knows that this is a profoundly wrong understanding of our governmental system. Still, as an opinion piece in yesterday's New York Times makes clear, spelling out some of the details, the Congress has actually abdicated, in many ways.
In a "democracy," the people are the "rulers," not their elected representatives, from the president on down. Our "representatives" are supposed to "represent" us, as they conduct and oversee governmental activities, from decisions on war and peace to decisions about where oil drilling can occur. However, here's the problem. The "modern state," our "administrative state," reflects the incredible complexity of our modern world. In fact, the degradation of our understanding of what "self-government" actually means is occasioned by our (perhaps unanalyzed and undeclared) feeling that we can't possibly know enough to be "in charge."
If we want to continue to have genuine "self-government," that feeling has to change. I have confidence that it can, and will, but the changes needed do require a kind of "time reallocation" on our part. Unless many more of us start deciding that the exciting and challenging, and supremely important, task of running our government, in all its aspects, is more important than spending our time on social media "influencers," and other forms of intellectual recreation, both political and non-political, we are putting ourselves, and the world, in danger.
Just in case you haven't already figured that out!
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