Trumpism is patrimonialism, says David Brooks

Roy Cohn planted seeds of insanity into Trump’s mind

Last Friday on the PBS Newshour David Brooks credited Jonathan Rauch’s story in The Atlantic for refining our concept of Trump authoritarianism as in fact patrimonialism, a word I had not heard of before then. Brooks said, “Authoritarianism is based on institutions and a set of laws — but patrimonialism is the attempt to turn the government into a famil…