On the South White House lawn, beside the Palladian columns – glinting alabaster – sat a crimson Tesla. Beside it a charcoal grey one.
“Wow!” says Happy Customer Trump. “Everything’s computer… It’s beautiful…, Wow it’s very simple.’’ This, we are led to believe then, is the first time Donald Trump has seen a Tesla car. He gets inside it.
Then Trump, reading from the actual script in his actual hand, says: “They have one which is $35,000, which is pretty low.”
The US President holds notes about the various Tesla car prices (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
So there we have it: The Dogebag (as he’s affectionately known) who has taken it upon himself to “cut inefficiency” in the government, and is as we speak firing hundreds of thousands of employees from the American Department of Education, is flogging his electric wares on telly.
Tesla’s fortunes have been of some concern over recent weeks. Well, concern that is if you own a Tesla – or indeed own Tesla. From a high point in mid-December when Musk was looking like the de facto VP to the man he is now: crashing space debris around the planet with his failed moonshots and bungling the running of government to the point where nuclear weapons experts with decades of expertise have been fired because apparently “no one understood” what they did.
People protest against Tesla and Elon Musk outside a Tesla dealership in California (Photo: Laure Andrillon/Reuters)
There are reports across the US of Tesla showrooms and charging stations on fire and vandalised. This is criminal behaviour, but it’s suggestive of the strength of feeling towards Musk, who’s suddenly in everyone’s life without ever being elected.
To understand Trump it may be helpful to go back a hundred years – to Max Weber, the German sociologist and his theory of “patrimonialism”. This is something Trump embodies.
square KATE MALTBY
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Jonathan Rauch – writing in The Atlantic – explains it not as a form of government but a style of governing: “It is not defined by institutions or rules; rather, it can infect all forms of government by replacing impersonal, formal lines of authority with personalised, informal ones. Based on individual loyalty and connections, and on rewarding friends and punishing enemies (real or perceived).”
Seen through the lense of patrimonialism, so much makes sense. Trump must be aware of how corrupt this looks to the average American – using the office of state to help your mate flog a car. But if you believe the state is an extension of your household and your household is the state – well, why not simply use the nice garden on a sunny day?
Emily Maitlis is a journalist, broadcaster and host of the podcast The News Agents
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