,
7 tweets,
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1/ As always, the most newsworthy story here isn't that Trump believes this, or would say it out loud, or even that he'd accuse his FBI Director of being "naive" to suggest compliance with proper norms. *Of course* he would. He's been doing & saying such things daily for years.
2/ By now none of it can possibly surprise anyone. It's "Dog Bites Man," "Sun Rises in East" sort of stuff. No, the real story--the one that ought to be the lede--is that such conduct has now become normalized, and thus acceptable conduct for a President of the United States, ...
3/ ... *because something like 250 of the 251 Republican legislators, & all GOP-appointed officials, are perfectly fine with it, and choose to do nothing about it.*(Indeed, it appears that many, including the current Attorney General, basically agree with it.)
4/ *That*--rather than Donald Trump's well-known pathology and utter inability to put the public well-being above his own interests--is what's historically significant, and what threatens to fundamentally transform our political order.
5/ Sure, the media have to report Trump's daily outrages. But why aren't they also repeatedly asking every GOP official whether this is the conduct of someone who's fit to hold the highest and most powerful office in the land . . .
6/ ... and reporting in banner headlines the shocking absence of any affirmative responses? (Same as to the conduct described in the Mueller Report, which virtually the entire GOP save Justin Amash treats as exoneration rather than the shocking indictment that it is.)
7/ All of which is to say: The degradation of the institution(s) is the real story. That might not be as sexy, or as easy to convey, as the dysfunctional rantings of Donald Trump. But it's what truly matters for the future.
@just_security @lawfareblog
@just_security @lawfareblog
