Carnes Lord

The Modern Prince is not a study of contemporary history but a treatise in political science.

Above all, Machiavelli wrote the playbook of the politician who takes power in a factionalized republic by siding with the common people against the dominant “elites.”

Consequently, whenever those who are enemies have opportunity to attack, they do so with partisan zeal, and the others defend lukewarmly so that one is in peril along with them.

The stark decline of the working class in the United States under the impact of globalization is perhaps the single most important factor behind Trump’s electoral victory

The theory of democracy tells us that the people rule. In practice, we have leaders who rule the people in a manner not altogether different from the princes and potentates of times past.

Second, and more to the point of the contemporary moment, if this book can be said to belong to the literary genre of “mirror of princes,” no one today better resembles the face in that mirror than the forty-fifth president of the United States.

the practice of American statecraft has shown little improvement in the Bush and Obama eras, while the negative trends I identified in areas such as public administration, law, and education have worsened markedly. Indeed, they are a significant part of the explanation for the Trump revolution.

In these and other respects, they look to presidents not only for competent management of the nation’s affairs, but for justice and a measure of inspiration. This is why the character of presidents matters. Indeed, given the ethos of instant gratification that pervades popular culture throughout much of the West today, personal integrity in our leaders seems both more fragile and more necessary than ever.

“Leadership” in such contexts is something almost wholly benign. It is seen as an exquisitely democratic activity, one in which the interests of leaders and the interests of followers mostly coincide, leaders are keenly sensitive to the needs and wants of followers, and decision-making is highly consensual. As such, it is a fundamentally apolitical concept, one that ignores central concerns of political leadership such as power and authority. It has succeeded in making leadership entirely respectable, not to say “politically correct,” but at the price of a loss of clarity about the problematic aspects of leadership in democratic as well as other societies.

Leadership is less necessary in times and places where state and society are in good working order. In times of economic prosperity and international stability, the issue of leadership tends to recede still further in the general consciousness. It is reasonable to assume that the advanced democracies today are less in need of strong leadership than are the emerging or would-be democracies of the former Communist bloc, or for that matter the democracies, nominal democracies, and traditional and autocratic regimes of the developing world.