Washington (AP) – President Donald Trumponce a Casino Owner And men who are always looking for his next deal, like poker analogies when sizing their partners and enemies.
“We have a much bigger and better card than they do,” he said of China last month. Compared to Canada, he said in June, “We have all the cards. We all have one card.” And the most famous He told them to Ukrainian President Voldimia Zelenki School Elliptical office conflict Early this year: “You don’t have a card.”
This phrase provides a window into the world of Trump. Trump collected cards for his second White House stint to unfold in pursuit of his profits.
Seven months after his second term, he accumulated the power of the president he used against universities, media companies, law firms, and individuals he disliked. The man who ran for the president as an angry victim of a weaponized “deep state” is, in a way, overcharge the government’s power and train the enemy.
And supporters who responded to his complaints about the enthusiastic Democrats have not been recoiled. They are giving birth to him.
“It was essential to their agenda that the nation uses weapons to win the culture war,” said David N. Smith, a sociologist at the University of Kansas who has extensively studied the motivations of Trump voters. “They didn’t like it when the nation was mobilized to hold Trump down, but they’re happy to see the nation act to fight the culture war on their behalf.”
How Trump weaponized the government
Trump has begun to let the federal government work for him Within a few hours With his appointment in January, he has since used his power in novel ways. His political agenda and fast propulsion to carry out grim.
Last month, hundreds of federal agents and the National Guard incited across Washington after Trump painted unused laws. He is It threatened a similar development in other Democrat-run cities, such as Baltimore, Chicago, New York and New Orleans. He too Dismissed the Federal Reserve Governorrefers to an unproven claim of mortgage fraud.
Trump, his close aides, and allies across the administrative sector, have trained or threatened the government with eye-opening targets.
– He threatened to block the Washington Commander’s soccer team’s stadium plan unless he reads the racial slur used until 2020.
– He revoked security clearance and tried to block access to government facilities for his lawyers Law firms are imminent.
– He attempted to cancel billions of dollars with federal research funds and block international students from elite universities. Under pressure, Columbia University agreed to $220 million settlementUniversity of Pennsylvania Cancelled Record Set Transgender swimmer Leah Thomas and the president have resigned from University of Virginia and Northwestern University.
– He fired or reassigned federal employees for their work, including prosecutors who worked on cases involving him.
– He dropped corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams and gained help in cracking down on immigrants who reside in the country illegally.
– He secured a multi-million dollar settlement against media organisations in a lawsuit that was widely considered a weak case.
– General Pam Bondy pursues Review of Daiju The origins of Trump-Russia’s investigation He was appointed as a special prosecutor We examine New York State Attorney General Letitia James and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff.
It doesn’t weaponize the government, says White House spokesman Harrison Fields. It’s wielding your strength.
“What the country is witnessing today is the most consequential administration execution in American history,” Fields said.
Trump has a sixth sense of power
There is a push and pull to power. It’s given and filmed. And through executive orders, personnel moves, bully pulpits and pure bravery, Trump insisted that none of his modern predecessors were close to claiming.
He is also empowered by many people around him. by a A fierce and faithful bass It’s thick and thin with him. So far, they have given power to the administrative department by Congress and the Supreme Court. by universities, law firms, media organizations, and other institutions that negotiated or settled with him.
The US government is strong, but not almighty in nature. Just as Trump learned his frustration in his first term, the president is written by constitutional law, law, court decisions, bureaucracy, traditions and norms. However, in his second term, Trump managed to eliminate many of these guardrails, eliminate, ignore or neutralize steam.
Leaders can demonstrate their will through fear and intimidation by determining topics being discussed and shaping people’s preferences, Stephen Lukes argued in his inventive book, Power: Radical View, in 1974. Lukes, a professor emeritus at New York University, said Trump exemplifies all three-dimensional power. Trump’s innovation is “epistemological liberation” and his willingness to compensate for facts without evidence.
“This idea that you can say something that’s not true and that doesn’t matter to your followers and many other people…it seems new to me,” said Lukes, at least in liberal democracy. He said Trump uses memes and jokes more than arguments and advocacy to show his preferences.
Trump opposed the government’s weaponization
At the heart of Trump’s 2024 campaign was his claim that he was the victim of “malicious persecution” carried out by the “armed, unjustified rigging department of the Biden administration.”
Faced with four criminal cases in New York, Washington and Florida, Trump said in 2023 that he was eager to use the government rather than ending its weaponization. “If you follow me, I’ll follow you!” Trump wrote about the true society August 4th, 2023.
“If I happen to be president and see someone who’s doing well and is grossly beating me, I say, ‘I’ll go down and prosecute them,'” he said. Univision Interview On November 9, 2023, and with the opportunity by a friendly Fox News interviewer, he replied that year that he was not a dictator, to assure the Americans that he would use power responsibly. Except for the first day. ”
He primarily supported these threats as elections got closer, even as he continued his campaign against the weaponization of government. When he won, he declared an end to it.
“The immeasurable power of the nation will never be weaponized again to persecute political adversaries — what I know,” Trump said in his second inaugural address.
A month later: “I immediately entered and ended the weaponization of Joe Biden,” Trump said in a February 22 speech at a conservative political action conference outside Washington. And ten days later: “We have ended our weaponized government. As an example, a sitting president is allowed to viciously prosecute his political opponents, like me.”
Two days later, on March 6th, Trump signed a drastic order Targeting prominent law firms representing Democrats. And on April 9th, he issued a memorandum of understanding from the president. Department of Justice Director He investigates two officials in his first administration, Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor.
So I went all the way to weaponize it. Trump is no longer surrounded by tradition-bound lawyers and government officials, and his instinct to play his hand is actively confronted with restraint.
