Trump at War: Media, Corporations, Ordinary Citizens, and the U.S. Intelligence Services

Abstract

In early modernity, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes postulated that without a strong monarchy and state, humanity lived in a state of nature where “life is nasty, brutal, and short.” Hobbes posited the need for a “leviathan” authoritarian state to keep unruly impulses and conflicting forces in check, and political philosophy for centuries thereafter has debated the scope of state power, its limitations and restraints, and the way that the state can make human life better, while criticizing excessively authoritarian regimes, state repression, and degenerate forms of the polity like fascism.