On Sun, Jul 19, 2026, at 09:12 AM, Marv Gandall wrote: > > How would you explain "patrimonial Bonapartism" to a working class > audience, Tony - as "the hollowing out of our democratic institutions"? > That's true enough, but if the Trump administration is seen as a > qualitative rupture with the past, it can romanticize bourgeois democracy > by suggesting that its cutbacks, repression, militarism, and corruption > were not features in varying degrees of previous Republican and Democratic > adminstrations, no? If Trump is able to blatantly rig the election and > neutralize opposition from within the ruling class, from even within its > Republican wing, onlly then will I accept that he's risen above the > classes and parties as their arbiter. Of course, however we define the > threat, it needs to be resisted.
Marv makes two objections, and they are not in line with each other. The first is that talking about a "qualitative rupture" makes the past sound better than it really was. The second is that there hasn't been a rupture until Trump rigs an election and completely shuts down the resistance from the ruling class. The first argument against the idea is that it gives too much power to bourgeois democracy. The second one says the idea has to meet such strict conditions that it can only be used at an autopsy. In fact, the framework I've been defending was made to answer both of them. The romanticization worry is the most important one to deal with first. If patrimonial Bonapartism is explained to people from the working class as "the hollowing out of our democratic institutions," Marv has a good point. This way of putting it makes bourgeois democracy seem like something we all have and that Trump is taking away from us. It also encourages the very kind of nostalgia he says we shouldn't have: the idea that cuts, repression, militarism, and corruption started in January 2025 when they have been a part of every Republican and Democratic administration in recent memory, albeit to varying degrees. I don't use that phrase, and the idea doesn't need it either. A fall story is not the same as a form study. This is based on Marx's own method in the Eighteenth Brumaire. It is not shown that Bonapartism betrayed the parliamentary republic; rather, it is shown that it came from it. Article by article and purge by purge, the Party of Order destroys the political conditions of its own rule, and Bonaparte takes over the mess. The whole pamphlet is Marx's attack on the parliamentary republic, including its limits on voting, the June massacre, and its state of siege. No one says he's romanticizing it. The analytical point is that the state's class content stayed the same, but the form of the government changed. The change in form was very important for how the class struggle could be fought. That difference between a capitalist state and the government form that runs it is what the whole thing is based on. It lets us say two things at the same time: the old government was bad, and the new regime is better at organizing the bad. It's never okay for the working class to say "they are stealing our democracy." Draper's tradition should be used to explain it: the democratic rights we have in this country—the vote, the union, the press, and the street—were won by the working class and the downtrodden against the ruling class, which fought all of them. The political space that those victories made possible is now being closed. The stakes are clear, and no one's record is being cleaned. People who work for the rich did not get bourgeois democracy for free, and they are not being asked to mourn it like it was a gift. They have to explain what they took. The second reason is now here. If Trump hasn't "risen above the classes and parties as their arbiter," or when he meets the classical model of exhausted class forces that the executive raises itself to, then Marv won't accept the Bonapartist label. But there is a patrimonial qualifier because that model doesn't work and was never said to work. Things are not equal between classes in the US in 2026. The bourgeoisie is not worn out; in fact, a lot of them are excited. By adding the qualifier, the standard is changed from the balance of class forces to the running of the state, which is something Weber offers that Marx does not. The question is not whether Trump has become a judge. The test is to see whether the state apparatus is becoming personal property or whether the law office is being turned into personal property. And that can be seen right now, without a poll being rigged. As a condition of work, loyalty to the man took the place of loyalty to the office. The civil service used the same reasoning as in Schedule F. Tariff exemptions, pardons, and regulatory relief were given out as prebends, or personal gifts from the ruler's family to his clients, instead of being handled as impersonal policy. The executive and the family business became one without even trying to be separate. All of these follow a set of rules and are always happening. It is not critical rigor to refuse to name the process until the form is filled out. It is waiting for the autopsy to find out what kind of disease it is. There is also a problem with the way the condition is written. Marx's Bonaparte was never able to be sociologically separate from class content. Instead of following the bourgeoisie's political rules, he prioritized their material interests and protected their order, property, and income. Marx doesn't agree with "rising above the parties" as a way to show oneself ideologically; it was a form of appearance. If being literally above the classes is the bar, then classical Bonapartism never passed it, so the group is empty by design. It's not a rule if it leaves out its own model case. The research is being turned down in this way. So, if I were writing for a working-class audience, I would be more direct and leave out the institutional mourning. The old kind of graft was legal and didn't involve anyone personally. It was done through the lobbying business, the revolving door, and the donor class, which wrote both parties' laws. There was corruption built into the machine, and it didn't care who ran it. What is becoming clear is that the family business is corrupt. You stay on the job because you love your boss, not because you have to. The public office is now privately owned. The family gets the tribute right away. Workers are very aware of this difference because it means the difference between a bad boss who has to follow the rules and a boss who is the rule. Giving that shift a name doesn't make the old machine look better. It tells you what's new so you can fight it for what it is. Also, Marv and I agree on the fight, which needs to be said. No matter how we describe the threat, it needs to be fought. The disagreement over analysis is important because it has to do with how. When there isn't anything really new going on, protecting democratic rights is just another election cycle, and the Democratic Party is happy to take the lead. If the regime is becoming more like a family business, then protecting democratic rights is a united front job that the working class must do on its own, in its own groups, for its own gains, without being controlled by the part of the ruling class that is upset with Trump because it wants its impersonal machine back. That wing will level off. It always evens out. The only group that has a reason to keep these rights is the one that got them in the first place. -- Tony -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#42565): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/42565 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/120334411/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
