With the prospect that Donald Trump’s numerous wives, children, and in-laws may be advising him in choosing candidates for official positions in his administration — or even assuming such positions themselves — we are apparently going to have to take a fresh look at our opinions of nepotism in Washington.
The initial inclination of most people will be to say that it’s bad. Nepotism — awarding people jobs on the basis of a family relationship or membership in an old-boy network means ignoring merit in favor of genes or loyalty. “It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.” That entrenches financial and political dynasties at the expense of any talented contender who was not, as Texas Governor Ann Richards so memorably tagged George W. Bush, “born on third base”. It’s just another aspect of the spoils system Andrew Jackson brought to the American government after Lincoln’s assassination. It forgoes the possibility of recruiting people of demonstrated ability in favor of appointing people who had the good luck to be born to the right parents or attended the right schools and joined the right clubs. This is a difficult hurdle for a democracy that is supposed to also be a meritocracy.
But it might help to review a bit of history. The word “nepotism” derives from the Italian nipote meaning “nephew”. Its meaning was originally very specific. In the Middle Ages when the Church began to accumulate vast wealth Popes and members of the clergy were not permitted to acknowledge offspring. Thus, under the prevailing laws of primogeniture, the riches they often managed to acquire while in office could not legally be bestowed on their children, and they rebelled at the idea of forfeiting them to the Church. The solution used by Donald Trump’s accountants — his “charitable” foundations — had not yet been invented, but an equally effective technique was to leave the loot to a nephew who had been made aware that his first duty was to keep it securely in the family. That worked until 1682, when Pope Innocent XII, who had himself been born on third base and presumably didn’t need the extra income from indulgences, (which may by that time have become an embarrassment anyway because of that meddlesome Luther) issued a bull forbidding it. That was strictly a Church ruling, of course, and did not affect the Divine Right of Kings, who continued to pass the royal torch only according to direct bloodlines regardless of even the most obvious evidence of incapability or sometimes outright imbecility. Government by royalty has generally not survived, but the custom has, now adopted by the politically connected. Think of the do-good foundations and “libraries” now routinely established by our ex-presidents, providing jobs to sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters on and on generations into the future by means of extended copyrights and eleemosynary employment. Considering that democracy was once considered the foe of aristocracy, this should be seen as a victory of selfish corruption over ideological righteousness, no?
Well, maybe yes and maybe no. Take that business of the Divine Right of Kings. In a once largely illiterate world it ensured that a new ruler would have had the benefit of the best available education, the best tutors, doctors, and diplomatic counselors. In short it meant that the newly installed leader would actually be qualified to lead. The stability of the country (no less than that of the Church) was therefore enhanced. Quality of leadership succession was being protected against inexperience and ignorance. Jealously protected succession — nepotism in its purest form — was thus a form of social insurance against incompetence.
So nepotism is not necessarily just about keeping wealth and power in the family; it’s also about reinforcing the values of the family. If those values are good, nepotism can be a blessing. But Cosa Nostra is also a family. In today’s world, where power is increasingly based on money, and the oligarch is likely to be more influential than the senator, the network connections established at Harvard or Yale are likely to be worth more than those from Podunk State U (although the quality of the education acquired from any of them may in fact be the same and today may be no better than that available free on a simple laptop computer). The payoff for the sixty-three thousand dollars a year you will spend at at Cambridge or New Haven will only come in the future if you have unexpectedly become President in a campaign based largely on your hairdo and the appointees you will need are people you once knew as Stinky or Biff and are in your cell phone’s address book. If your pool of friends from Wharton doesn’t include people outside the one percent you may have to turn to mysterious aspirants who have never before been elected to anything or done anything to demonstrate their skills at government — such as army generals, for example, or the editors of fake news sites, or addled preachers in pillow-case hats claiming that the Civil War was never lost. This can be a scary thing for the rest of us, given the history of earlier administrations that have turned for staffing to the Pentagon or to people who turned out to be common burglars.
Face it. The job is too big to be handled with midnight Tweets. You are going to need help. A lot of help. Experienced help. There will be no time for qualifying civil service exams. Some thoughtful nepotism by some of your predecessors might have presented you with a bigger labor pool.
Too late for this time around, but with a large stable of sons and daughters and sons-in-law and daughters-in-law to choose from you may yet be able to have an impact. “The Trump Dynasty” has a nice solid ring to it. Good name for a resort hotel. (Like “Trump University”, which had none of the characteristics of a university except exorbitant tuition fees.) The Brand is only going to be stronger after 2020, regardless of what kind of shape our country may then be in. The Kennedys and the Bushes and the Clintons have had their shot. Their dynasties failed to take hold. Time to show them now what a student of P. T. Barnum can do.
But where does that leave us on the question of nepotism — is it in itself good or bad? I’d say the jury is still out. Pretty much where we started. In our governing institutions, ideology is not the point. Nepotism itself is neither good nor bad. People are good or bad. If they do their jobs well, how they got them of no consequence. If they do their jobs badly, whether they got them honestly or by lying and cheating or family influence will make no difference. What will save us as a country is if the good people outnumber the bad ones and they stick to their convictions. Good luck, Donald. Good luck, America.
Vance Weaver 