[View here as a Twitter thread]
On April 29, Trump told an audience in MI that “all our laws are so corrupt and stupid” Obviously he doesn’t like laws he can’t bend to his will. But there is more. . .
Trump & pals don’t like the body of laws put in place since 1955 (a turning point—Brown v. Board of Education). He campaigned on a promise to roll back the country to what we had prior to 1955.
The only way to roll the country back to 1950 is to get rid of all those pesky laws that prevent the country from being Great Again.
Trump has made clear he has no intention of following “stupid” laws. His base is fine with this. For example, in April Trump called obstruction of justice ’fighting back” & he vowed to continue. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/11/trump-fightback-514513 …
Trump has been breaking laws & rules & norms and getting away with it for a long time.
This is why some people voted for him.
Prior to becoming president, when Trump overstepped, he sent Cohen to “fix it.”
Did Trump commit crimes during the campaign? Yes, certainly.
Because if he didn’t, he’d do what Hillary Clinton did. He’d ignore the investigation (except to roll his eyes) and he’d fully cooperate, even if it meant testifying in a televised session for 11 hours.
While he was committing crimes, did he worry about it? I don’t think so.
Why? Because if he lost, he may have figured nobody would go after. A norm in democratic societies is not to prosecute political rivals.
If he won, he’d be head of the executive branch (DOJ, FBI, etc), so he figured he could shut down any federal investigations. With buddies in Congress, he probably didn’t worry about Congressional investigations, either.
This is how he’s always operated. And it has worked.
Sometimes it’s hard for liberals & moderates to believe that 1/3 of Americans (including many highly intelligent) are happy to have Trump bend the laws to his will.
They fear liberalism and diversity that much.
Consider Alan Dershowitz (former Harvard Law prof) arguing that Trump can’t be charged with obstructing justice if he shuts down an investigation because he is in charge of the exec branch, so he can fire any exec branch employee any time for any reason, which includes (of course) prosecutors and law enforcement.
Under Dershowitz’s theory, POTUS can disregard any federal law, then shut down an investigation. Nothing to stop POTUS from breaking laws means no checks on POTUS power, which makes Trump an authoritarian.
So don’t be surprised as Trump does all he can to obstruct the probe.
And please don’t underestimate him. He’s following Putin’s playbook. His methods look stupid to non-authoritarians who are not caught up in a cult of leadership, but they can (and often do) work.
