https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/04/how-to-destroy-a-government/606793/
James Baker, the former general counsel of the FBI, and a target of
Trump’s rage against the state, acknowledges that many government
officials, not excluding himself, went into the administration convinced
“that they are either smarter than the president, or that they can hold
their own against the president, or that they can protect the
institution against the president because they understand the rules and
regulations and how it’s supposed to work, and that they will be able to
defend the institution that they love or served in previously against
what they perceive to be, I will say neutrally, the inappropriate
actions of the president. And I think they are fooling themselves.
They’re fooling themselves. He’s light-years ahead of them.”
The adults were too sophisticated to see Trump’s special political
talents—his instinct for every adversary’s weakness, his fanatical
devotion to himself, his knack for imposing his will, his sheer staying
power. They also failed to appreciate the advanced decay of the
Republican Party, which by 2016 was far gone in a nihilistic pursuit of
power at all costs. They didn’t grasp the readiness of large numbers of
Americans to accept, even relish, Trump’s contempt for democratic norms
and basic decency. It took the arrival of such a leader to reveal how
many things that had always seemed engraved in monumental stone turned
out to depend on those flimsy norms, and how much the norms depended on
public opinion. Their vanishing exposed the real power of the
presidency. Legal precedent could be deleted with a keystroke; law
enforcement’s independence from the White House was optional; the
separation of powers turned out to be a gentleman’s agreement;
transparent lies were more potent than solid facts. None of this was
clear to the political class until Trump became president.
TRUMP THE EDUCATOR
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Neither the GOP or the Dem's saw this coming. Trump isn't a politician. He's a businessman and a showman. As a showman, he ran his campaign like a reality show and two decades of Survivor and Big Brother meant his appeal would top Hillary's standard political approach. He treats running the country like a business, a corrupt business full of nepotism and deviance, sure, but like a business. He relates to people like a businessman, looking to screw them for the maximum profit and also worrying about life after his "retirement" in 2024. Until folks on both sides of the aisle realize that, they're screwed.
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