Episode 2254: Why Trump wants to be the Godfather

Keen On America

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Added six years ago

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Jeff Kerr: Our First Amendment Right to Receive Communications (from Monkeys) 30:14

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"It is a scientific fact that these macaques, like all other primates, including humans, are communicating. They communicate in much the same way we do - facial expressions, vocalizations, body postures, those kinds of things." - Jeff Kerr Jeff Kerr is PETA foundations Chief Legal Officer. I asked him to come on the show to talk about one of PETA’s current lawsuits against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Nathional Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). PETA is arguing that the monkeys being tested on in a government run facility are capable of communication (or “are communicating”). And that we have a constitutional right under the First Amendment to receive their communications. This could be a game changer in allowing us to see what’s really going on in labs that are funded by taxpayer money, and which have so far been censored from public view. PETA’s lawsuit follows years of NIH’s attempts to deny Freedom of Information requests banning PETA executives from its campus and illegally censoring animal advocates’ speech on NIH’s public social media pages. Through the lawsuit, PETA is seeking a live audio-visual feed to see and hear real-time communications from the macaques who have been kept isolated, used in fear experiments, and had posts cemented into their heads. Anthropologists and other scientists have studied macaque and other primate communications for decades and know that the monkeys communicate effectively and intentionally through lip smacking, fear grimaces, body language, and various cries and sounds—all of which constitute speech under the law. Primatologists can analyze that speech on a deeper level to share their stories with the world.…

about a year ago 46:18

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What one word describes how Donald Trump thinks about the world? According to both the Atlantic writer Jonathan Rauch and UC Irvine professor Jeffrey Kopstein, that word is “patrimonialism” - a rather stodgy sociological term meaning that Trump wants to be the Godfather. Everything under Trump is personal, Rauch and Kopstein explain. Thus, for example, his public bullying of Zelenskyy and his vindictive announcement today of “pausing” military aid to Ukraine. The personal is the political used to be a rallying cry of the counterculture. With Trump, according to Rauch and Kopstein, the political is, by definition, personal. The public realm no long exists. And so Trump’s patrimonial ideology means that holding political power requires him to be The Godfather. The only question is whether that means becoming Don Corleone or Marlon Brando. I suspect both.

Here are the 5 Keen on America takeaways from our conversation with Rauch and Kopstein:

* Patrimonialism as Trump's governing model: The experts argue that Trump is implementing a patrimonial system of government where the state is treated as his personal property and family business. Loyalty to Trump as an individual supersedes institutional structures and processes, similar to how a mafia boss operates.

* The systematic dismantling of bureaucracy: According to Kopstein and Rauch, the current administration is in a "demolition phase" where Trump and allies like Elon Musk are working to dismantle the modern bureaucratic state. This isn't simply about reducing government size but about replacing merit-based systems with personal loyalty networks.

* The corruption inherent in patrimonial systems: In patrimonial systems, the distinction between public and private resources becomes blurred. The experts suggest that what we would call corruption (using public office for private gain) becomes normalized as the ruler sees state resources as personal property.

* Cultural reaction against modernity: Kopstein argues there's a cultural dimension to this shift, with Trump's patrimonialism appealing to those uncomfortable with rapid social changes in modern society, particularly around issues of gender, sexuality, and cultural diversity.

* The strategy for opposition: Rauch suggests that opponents should focus on exposing corruption as the most effective strategy against patrimonial systems. In the longer term, they argue for demonstrating how effective government bureaucracies actually benefit citizens' daily lives and for developing better policy ideas.

Jonathan Rauch is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a senior fellow in the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institution. His latest book, Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy, was published in January 2025.

Jeffrey Kopstein is Dean’s Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. In his research, Professor Kopstein focuses on interethnic violence, voting patterns of minority groups, antisemitism, and anti-liberal tendencies in civil society. These interests are central topics in his latest books, Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust (Cornell University Press, 2018), Politics, Memory, Violence: The New Social Science of the Holocaust (Cornell University Press, 2023), and The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers our Future (Polity, 2024).

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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