The Dangerous Normalization Of Trump’s Lawlessness— A Nation, Our Nation, Without Guardrails

I Hope I'm Wrong But We Seem To Be Watching The Death of American Democracy

In a birthday greeting today, my old elementary school friend Ken, wrote that he’s tuned out politics. He wrote that he “can't get past the crushing reality that over the years Trump, by pushing his lies ever more aggressively and more wildly out of touch with reality, has won immunity from truth. The President of the United State can just open his trap and spew an endless stream of the most vicious, blatant, frequently psychotic lies and it just doesn't matter. Throw Elon's limitless billions into the mix, and… well, you know!” Sure… who wouldn’t guess that a regime filled with predatory billionaires wouldn’t have come up with, for as an example, a plan to abolish the IRS and “create an ‘external’ revenue service that will somehow force the rest of the world to fund the U.S. government.” The IRS firings have begun. Jeepers, no one to hold billionaire class accountable!

This morning, Jack Blanchard channeled Lenin to mark Trump’s first month back in the White House: “‘There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.’… Since Jan. 20, Trump has reshaped everything— from the workings of America’s federal government to its relations with allies and foes overseas; from its approach to war and peace to its stances on trade and foreign aid. Trump has stretched the Constitution to its limits; upended historic law and order norms; transformed the conversation around deep-seated social issues. He shows no sign of slowing down… Speaking on Air Force One last night, Trump threw his backing behind GOP members of Congress who want to reassert federal control over Washington, D.C. Trump said he liked Mayor Muriel Bowser personally, but complained about the city’s governance. ‘I get along great with the mayor, but they’re not doing the job. Too much crime, too much graffiti, too many tents on the lawns,’ Trump said. ‘I think we should take over Washington, D.C. Make it safe.’” And— no matter— a cravenly shameless Senate will confirm Kash Patel, undoubtably a worse FBI director than even J Edgar Hoover turned out to be. No senator who votes “aye” should be shown a moment’s mercy… ever.

According to a new CNN poll, Ken isn’t the only one worried about Trump getting worse. In fact 53% of respondents say they feel either afraid or pessimistic about Trump’s second term, as opposed to just 20% who feel enthusiastic and 26% who say they are optimistic. “Three-quarters say his handling of the presidency has been in line with what they expected while 25% say he’s handled it in an unexpected way, similar to how people felt a few weeks into his first term… Nearly all of those who feel caught off guard describe that as a bad thing, but the group who feels surprised in a bad way by Trump’s actions makes up only 21% of all Americans.” Were 21% of Trump voters— just over 16 million people— to swing towards Democrats next year there GOP House majority would shrink by nearly half and the Democratic majority in the Senate would be likely about to find Trump guilty in the impeachment trial the following month.

Trump’s support also appears to be fading among some traditionally Democratic-leaning demographic groups with whom he made inroads in last year’s election. A January CNN poll found that 57% of 18–34-year-olds, 50% of Hispanic adults and 30% of Black adults approved of the way he was handling the presidential transition. Now that Trump has taken office, his approval ratings with those groups stand at 41% among younger and Hispanic adults and 23% among Black adults.

Hispanic and Black adults are notably more likely than Whites to also say that Trump has handled the presidency in a way they did not expect (35% among Hispanic adults and 30% among Black adults compared with 20% among White adults), and to see that as a bad thing (29% among Hispanic people and 24% among Black people vs. 16% among White people).

About half of all Americans feel that Trump has overstepped in using the power of the presidency and the executive branch (52% say he has gone too far in doing so, 39% that he’s been about right and 8% that he hasn’t gone far enough). Broad majorities of Democrats (87%) and independents (57%) see him as going too far in using the presidency’s powers. Republicans largely disagree but few of Trump’s own partisans are clamoring for him to go further than he has already: 75% say his use of presidential power has been about right, 11% think he’s gone too far and 13% that he hasn’t gone far enough.

Sizable shares are skeptical about his efforts to trim government programs and shut down federal agencies. About half (48%) say he’s gone too far in changing the way the US government works, with 32% saying his approach has been about right and 19% that it hasn’t gone far enough. Larger shares say he’s gone too far in cutting federal government programs (51%), that it’s a bad thing that he has attempted to shut down entire agencies such as the US Agency for International Development and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (53%) and that it’s bad he gave Musk a prominent role in his administration (54%).

Trump’s suggestion that the US take over Gaza and keep Palestinians from returning there is the least popular of the early proposals he’s put forth that were tested in the poll. Overall, 58% call that a bad idea, including 86% of Democrats, 60% of independents and 27% of Republicans. A plurality of Republicans take a neutral position on it (47% call it neither good nor bad), and just 26% call it a good thing.

…Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, just 23% see American democracy as under attack, down from 61% who said the same about a year and a half ago, and 87% describe themselves as either enthusiastic or optimistic about Trump’s coming time in office.

Naftali Bendavid was one of the media types who decided to remark on Trump dragging the U.S. down into a fascist hell, although he euphemistically termed it a relentless effort to remake the presidency. Yeah, in terms of authoritarianism, he’s worse than Nixon or Andrew Johnson (or Andrew Jackson). “[T]o a degree possibly unprecedented in the country’s nearly 250 years, Trump is barreling through the executive branch with the conviction that it is his to rule alone, no matter the laws Congress has enacted— even if that means destroying agencies, intervening in the justice system or granting enormous authority to a wealthy donor.”

By putting in the word “possibly” between “degree” and “unprecedented,” Bendavid normalizes Trump is a way that the media— usually inadvertently— enables the country’s slide into fascism. Gee, thanks.

“We are in a new kind of presidency with Donald Trump,” said H.W. Brands, a historian at the University of Texas at Austin. “He is trying to make the presidency like a CEO position in a corporation.”

Trump is the first president who is essentially ignoring the existence of Congress, added Brands, a biographer of Andrew Jackson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. “Presidents before Trump have not led with executive orders— they have fallen back on executive orders when Congress wouldn’t do what they wanted it to do,” Brands said. “But they all agreed that it was better to get Congress to pass legislation than to issue an executive order.”

Trump’s first month is striking not just because of the president’s actions, but also because a significant number of Americans and members of Congress are applauding his aggressive approach to the job. The country appears to be in a dark mood, with some voters’ hunger for disruption outweighing their impulse to follow American traditions.

“What makes this moment particularly dangerous for those who care about our constitutional system is that Donald Trump believes he has a mandate to act this way— and so far, the American people haven’t pushed back,” said Timothy Naftali, a historian at Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs.

Trump’s unconventional actions have been numerous and varied, but they all reflect his belief that Congress has no business telling him how to run the executive branch. He has set about slashing the federal workforce with little regard to the myriad laws aimed at protecting it.

…If Trump’s move to assert such expansive power is novel, so, too, is Congress’s willingness to cede it.

In 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt, frustrated that the Supreme Court was blocking important elements of the New Deal, proposed a bill to let him appoint a half-dozen more justices. Members of Congress, led by a Democratic senator, killed the idea.

Four decades later, a trio of Republican lawmakers, including Barry Goldwater of Arizona, advised Nixon during the Watergate scandal that his support had evaporated, prompting Nixon to resign the next day. And in 1999, senators from both parties met informally to discuss how to conduct the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton.

Today, that desire to assert Congress’ prerogative has all but evaporated. And Trump is showing little interest in moving bills through Congress regardless.

“Here is somebody who has a congressional majority and isn’t using it,” said Eric Rauchway, a historian at the University of California at Davis. “That is relatively unusual— you might say unique. I don’t know of a similar example.”

…Trump’s rhetoric also suggests that he sees himself as having a higher mission. He has said his role is divinely ordained, contending that he was saved by God from an assassination attempt in July so that he could rescue the country from its current ills. He has also suggested that, as America’s savior, he is above the law, posting recently on social media, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

On Wednesday, Trump posted another message, taking credit for the end of congestion pricing in New York. “Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED,” he wrote. “LONG LIVE THE KING!”

Such language does not suggest restraint, though it can be difficult to discern when Trump is simply needling his critics. The president has said he will heed the courts, but some legal experts say the administration is already finding ways to walk up to the line of defiance without crossing it.

… Trump’s salvos in some ways mark the end of the post-Watergate era in Washington. The president has discarded many of the safeguards that were installed to prevent a repeat of Nixon’s abuses of power.

Congress in the late 1970s placed inspectors general in federal agencies, for example, but Trump fired a slew of them upon taking office. Watergate also led to limits on the president’s ability to discuss criminal cases with the attorney general, and Trump has jettisoned that as well.

When historians cast about for comparisons with Trump, they often land on Presidents Andrew Jackson, who won election in 1828, and Andrew Johnson, who governed after the Civil War. In each case, the differences with Trump are as instructive as the similarities.

Jackson ran for office denouncing elites with a message reminiscent of Trump’s today. He was dismissive of the Supreme Court when it prohibited the removal of Cherokee tribe members from Georgia. But the American government at the time was in its infancy, with few similarities to today’s landscape.

As for Johnson, he fired a Cabinet secretary after Congress passed a law prohibiting him from doing so, leading to his impeachment. But that clash was tied up in a bigger fight over America’s post-Civil War landscape, giving it limited relevance today.

What seems clear is that any new powers that Trump wins for the presidency will be seized on by future occupants of the White House, raising the prospect that if Trump succeeds in significantly expanding his power, he will permanently change the office.

“Presidents in the past have almost never given back authority that a previous president has managed to bring to the White House,” Brands said.

Historian Robert Dallek said Trump’s self-centered qualities are not what make him different from his predecessors; that is a characteristic common to presidential aspirants. Where Trump differs, he said, is in his determination to bend the government to that view of himself.

“Everyone who runs for president has impulses to be the central figure in the country, the central political figure and a star. So they have to be driven by a kind of egotism, it seems to me,” Dallek said. “What sets him apart is how far he may be willing to go in centralizing authority. Does he know the limits of his power?”

Our country now— Trump’s America— is not just a break from political norms; it’s a full-fledged assault on the foundations of democracy. His second term is already proving to be an authoritarian fever dream, in which the separation of powers is merely an obstacle to be bulldozed. He isn’t simply pushing the envelope; he’s setting fire to it. His relentless gutting of federal agencies, brazen defiance of abandoned congressional authority, and open disdain for the Constitution make it clear that this is no longer just about politics— it’s about whether democracy itself can survive.

History has shown that democracies don’t always fall in one dramatic moment. Sometimes they wither, chipped away bit by bit, while a complicit media normalizes the destruction and opposition leaders rationalize their inaction. The question now is whether Americans— particularly those who thought they could tune out politics— will recognize the danger in time. Because if Trump succeeds in normaling the outrageous erosion of institutional checks and making the presidency an unchecked dictatorship…