The Trump II Destruction Is Already Well Underway

By David Kurtz. December 13, 2024.

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

It’s Already Happening

Since the election, I’ve emphasized to our reporters that we want to focus less on what Trump might do or is threatening to do, and more on what he is actually doing. The main reason for this is to try to break free of the chaos that Trump sets off with each threat, declaration, feint, and emission and focus instead on concrete and tangible actions. But there’s another salutary reason for directing our finite resources to what is actually happening as opposed to what might happen: It is already happening.

Trump II is unfolding before our eyes exactly as Trump promised it would and as experts warned. As you peruse the news items below, you’ll already see plain evidence of the erosion of the rule of law, of governing norms, and of protections against tyrannical rule. I don’t say that for dramatic effect. It’s just a fact that the damage is already being done now, before Trump is even inaugurated and will of course continue after Jan. 20.

Let me try to put it another way.

Forcing out the FBI director and trying to install the likes of Kash Patel is itself destructive. Whatever Patel ends up doing if he is confirmed as FBI director will be next level stuff, icing on the MAGA cake. The same goes for the damage caused by casting his administration like a reality TV show. Putting charlatans in charge is the point. Whatever they do or fail to do is gravy. It’s not as simple as his appointees being unqualified. It’s that their own lack of seriousness mirrors the contempt and lack of regard they have for the institutions they are set to lead. It’s all part of the destructive impulse.

The descent towards a less democratic America isn’t a cliff’s edge we fall over but a steepening slope. We’ve already come down a considerable distance and the speed of the descent is quickening. This is what it looks like. Right now.

Trump’s Corruption Of The FBI

Garrett M. Graff:

The only reason Trump wants to change FBI directors is he doesn’t think he can boss, bend and break Wray to his will sufficiently, that Wray would not be personally loyal to him in the way that he has wanted his FBI directors to be — and which, institutionally, they’re explicitly not supposed to be. Every single part of that is a dire warning sign about what’s to come under Trump II and what he and Patel intend to do with the bureau.

We’re Not Going To Be Out The Woods For A Long Time

New polling shows many Republicans are okay with Trump ignoring the law to target his enemies.

FAA Chief Resigns

FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker, barely a year into his five-year term, is resigning before Trump takes office.

If the presidential appointees whose terms are longer than the president’s – precisely in order to make them more independent and less susceptible to political interference – keep resigning at the end of the president’s term, then they’re basically turning these positions into the same as those held by any other administration appointee.

‘Personalist Rule’

NYU professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat was on MSNBC the other night talking about FBI Director Chris Wray’s resignation and the broader authoritarian context in which it is happening:

“The core definition of authoritarianism is that the executive overwhelms the other branches of government and all checks on power and the situation of the president, or head of state, are removed,” she said.

“This is actually something called personalist rule. It’s a type of authoritarian where you have a very strong one person […] and the purpose of the party and ultimately government is to solve the legal and financial and other problems of the leader. And so everybody becomes a personal tool to the leader and that’s what is happening now. Everybody is folding to his will,” she said.

The Trump transition team has started to explore pathways to dramatically shrink, consolidate or even eliminate the top bank watchdogs in Washington.

In recent interviews with potential nominees to lead bank regulatory agencies, President-elect Donald Trump’s advisers and officials from his newfound Department of Government Efficiency have, for example, asked whether he could abolish the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., people familiar with the matter said.

Just to be clear: Abolishing the FDIC, which insures bank deposits, would be insane for the banks, too.

The LAT’s billionaire publisher has effectively spiked another editorial, this one critical of Trump considering bypassing the Senate’s confirmation process for nominees. The junior senator from Connecticut, no less:

Fake Oligarch Wannabe?

In an amazing story on Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law, whom her dad picked as his new White House adviser on the Middle East, the NYT suggests he’s not a billionaire as advertised or a lawyer as claimed or even involved in his wife’s family’s company, which had been seen as the source of his wealth.