Despite his heart-worn rhetoric, President Trump's administration is actually fragile, doomed to be inefficiency, collapse, or both.
Americans may be surprised by the comprehensive nature of the administration, but that's nothing new. History has seen many examples of governments made up of all-capable leaders surrounded by sicophantic underlings who make all decisions, dominate weak institutions, and use their positions as self-rich platforms.
Such a regime is not merely a normal dictator, as dictators do not always enjoy cumbersome authority and obedience. In fact, Trump's second administration resembles a totalitarian political system characterized by an almighty ruler who claims to know everything about the wholeness of human experiences that seek to oversee, guide and shape that wholeness. Naturally, totalitarian leaders often have revolutionary agendas intended to change everything according to their leader's preferences.
Such a regime usually appears strong as an omnipotent leader projects a strong, masculine image as a very wise, fearless and capable ruler. The reality is that their system suffers from fatal flaws, hypergroupization, which also serves as a central organisational principle for the administration.
The most important contribution to the theory of totalitarian collapse belongs to the brilliant Harvard sociologist Karl Germany. in Original article Published in 1954, Deutsch built an ideal type of “totalitarian decision system.” A key feature of such a system is “unification of command and intelligence,” which “needs either a set of arrangements or devices to ensure a single source of decisions or to ensure consistency of decisions between several sources.”
Deutsch continued to show that such systems inevitably “limited ability to make centralized decisions.” As a result, the system will be “overloaded with decisions that can no longer be addressed, except for the increased price of unbearable delays or the likelihood of potentially significant mistakes.”
“In the long term,” according to Germany, “so there is a tendency for any totalitarian system of government either to overload central facilities for decision-making, or to either the automatic corrosion of the original central structure and the collapse into increasingly separate parts.”
In other words, hyper-aggregated systems result in poor information, bad decisions, weakening of totalitarian rulers, and disobedience from subordinates.
It should be noted that social science jargon is ignoring the German model well-illustrated the Trump administration. The putative omniscience and almighty presidents are occupying the pinnacle. Just below him is a yes minister score, scary, to provide him with correct information and disagreement with his opinion. Existing government agencies are internalized by Elon Musk, leaving the remaining employees in highly vulnerable atomized positions that promote backpassing, kicking cans and kicking many other dysfunctional actions that can efficiently and effectively make the system's structural inability to do.
The reason he appears to ignore the president's truth may be due to the fact that he is being told what he wants to hear, not what he is actually. How else can you explain Trump's claim that Ukrainian President Voldimi Zelensky is 4% popular, and as polls show, it's not over 50%? Or has Ukraine “started” a war with Russia? Psychofants put the goodwill of their rulers on trial and know well enough that being the bearers of bad (or accurate) news can get them in trouble.
Naturally, the German model is also an accurate account of the Vladimir Putin regime. And, as the theory has come to expect from us, Putin was able to destroy the Russian army and the economy in just three years, perhaps despite sincerely believing that he made Russia great again.
The first weeks of Trump's control already contain huge blunders. The shame of many Canadians, Mexicans, Panamas, Europeans and Ukrainians was certainly not necessary, even if Trump's absurd demands were justified. Appointing the Kennedy Center Chairman may be too challenging for any president, despite making perfect sense in terms of his self-image as an absolute ruler. Putting all his foreign policy hopes in Putin's basket calls for Russians to make Trump look weak and stupid.
Just as Putin was a disaster for Russia, Trump would be a disaster for America too. Fortunately, hypergroupization may sound like a good idea for men who believe they are in a golden age, but it doesn't work. Unknown to them, both Trump and Putin are destined to find permanent residence in the ashes of history.
Another good news is that both men are at the core of hyper-intensive systems they have built, so it's unlikely that those systems will survive in the absence. There is hope for a recovery of democracy in America, and perhaps even Russia.
Alexander J. Motil He is a professor of political science at Rutgers University Newark. An expert in Ukraine, Russia, the Soviet Union, nationalism, revolution, empire and theory, he is the author of ten non-fiction books, and isThe end of the empire: The Empire collapse, collapse, resurrection” andWhy is the Empire repeated again?: The collapse of the empire and the revival of the empire are from a comparative perspective. ”
