The real reason Trump is utterly, shamelessly, blatantly uninhibited - Robert Reich [View all]

[justaprogressive]

Friends,

People keep asking: How can Trump do this?

It’s not just a legal question about how Congress and the courts can allow his outright corruption, open use of the Justice Department to target perceived enemies, explicit threats to universities and law firms if they don’t cede their independence to the regime, direct attacks on media that criticize him, and defiant trampling on constitutional rights.

It’s also a question about how a president of the United States can be so utterly and uninhibitedly greedy, vindictive, and desirous of monarchic power at the expense of America’s democratic institutions.

A common explanation is that the “guardrails” are now gone. In his second term, Trump has installed people around him who are more loyal to him than they are to the United States, such as Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who therefore approve everything he wants (such as a $400 million luxury aircraft from Qatar that clearly violates the Constitution’s emoluments clause).

Another explanation I hear, especially from historians, is that crazy rulers — mad kings, ruthless power-hungry strongmen, malignant narcissists who take over nations — tend to attract fanatics who are even crazier than they are. And those fanatics (think Elon Musk, Stephen Miller, RFK Jr., Russell Vought) incite and excite each other and goad the crazy ruler into ever more extreme measures.

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-real-reason-trump-is-utterly