Great post and yes, Trump is a lord of chaos and creating the opposite of the Leviathan.
But just to note that Hobbes is seen by some eminent scholars of him as the first liberal (liberalism and democracy being distinct things - and the essence of liberalism being no one has the natural right to rule) He was agnostic on whether the authority is democratically elected or indeed authoritarian — what matters is as you say, they create order, and can be removed by force if they don’t.
Also Hobbes explicitly has it that the Leviathan does not interfere in subjects’ personal lives and preferences - it has no preference of what constitutes virtue by them. This interpretation of Hobbes supports your point vs Trump even more comprehensively.
The real nastiness and brutishness will come with the forest fire, flood and storm seasons. Watching the US battle climate change effects without a functioning federal state is going to be tragic.
Hope you\re right Ben. I see an underlying issue. To have somebody like him to capture the wealthiest democracy and one the the two major party points to a system failure and maybe a written constitution not up to the task
US rampant probably means something different to Trump et al. From this south side of the Pacific it now means running riot in the vain hope that the USA wins the race. Whatever that is supposed to be. I suspect it should be victory or win! win! win! In reality it looks as if some teenagers are pretending to be adults but actually miss the salient points. There is some saying about wishes being horses then something would fly. The something would be modestly designated as horse manure.
"Because he lacks the control, the ruthlessness, and the rationality of normal authoritarian leaders."
Not sure I agree that he lacks the ruthlessness. And another useful trait he does appear to have is determination. I was kind of impressed at how indefatigable he was in his attempts to steal the 2020 election.
But overall, yes, his chaotic nature, vanity and wilful ignorance do provide some hope of stopping him. (I heard somewhere that he's planning a military parade to celebrate his birthday. I hope he goes ahead with it, as it would add to his despotic image without doing any real harm.)
I think the factor most confusing the issue is Trump and his allies are driven by needs and desires that are as much, if not more so, psychological rather than material. Beyond economic, military and political power as things that can be wielded to achieve specific outcomes, a demand for respect, revenge and the need to belittle and humiliate as things in themselves are driving their actions. When these psychic pleasures run counter to more obvious material ones they seem unable to choose (hence Trump's ridiculous attacks on the Fed despite the fact that it might well destroy dollar dominance). So in addition to Hobbes I would recommend engagement with Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of the Carnivalesque to describe the chaos, mockery and disruption of power we are wittnessing.
Great post and yes, Trump is a lord of chaos and creating the opposite of the Leviathan.
But just to note that Hobbes is seen by some eminent scholars of him as the first liberal (liberalism and democracy being distinct things - and the essence of liberalism being no one has the natural right to rule) He was agnostic on whether the authority is democratically elected or indeed authoritarian — what matters is as you say, they create order, and can be removed by force if they don’t.
Also Hobbes explicitly has it that the Leviathan does not interfere in subjects’ personal lives and preferences - it has no preference of what constitutes virtue by them. This interpretation of Hobbes supports your point vs Trump even more comprehensively.
The real nastiness and brutishness will come with the forest fire, flood and storm seasons. Watching the US battle climate change effects without a functioning federal state is going to be tragic.
Hope you\re right Ben. I see an underlying issue. To have somebody like him to capture the wealthiest democracy and one the the two major party points to a system failure and maybe a written constitution not up to the task
US rampant probably means something different to Trump et al. From this south side of the Pacific it now means running riot in the vain hope that the USA wins the race. Whatever that is supposed to be. I suspect it should be victory or win! win! win! In reality it looks as if some teenagers are pretending to be adults but actually miss the salient points. There is some saying about wishes being horses then something would fly. The something would be modestly designated as horse manure.
"Because he lacks the control, the ruthlessness, and the rationality of normal authoritarian leaders."
Not sure I agree that he lacks the ruthlessness. And another useful trait he does appear to have is determination. I was kind of impressed at how indefatigable he was in his attempts to steal the 2020 election.
But overall, yes, his chaotic nature, vanity and wilful ignorance do provide some hope of stopping him. (I heard somewhere that he's planning a military parade to celebrate his birthday. I hope he goes ahead with it, as it would add to his despotic image without doing any real harm.)
Oh this was very good. And surprisingly cheering. A paragraph on where we are, or aren't, with press/media freedoms would have been good too!
Excellent analysis.
I think the factor most confusing the issue is Trump and his allies are driven by needs and desires that are as much, if not more so, psychological rather than material. Beyond economic, military and political power as things that can be wielded to achieve specific outcomes, a demand for respect, revenge and the need to belittle and humiliate as things in themselves are driving their actions. When these psychic pleasures run counter to more obvious material ones they seem unable to choose (hence Trump's ridiculous attacks on the Fed despite the fact that it might well destroy dollar dominance). So in addition to Hobbes I would recommend engagement with Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of the Carnivalesque to describe the chaos, mockery and disruption of power we are wittnessing.
Reinventing Franz Neumann's Behemoth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behemoth:_The_Structure_and_Practice_of_National_Socialism (Behemoth is of course the original, Biblical counterpart to Leviathan and tellingly land-based rather than sea-going)