More often than not, I write about Donald Trump as if he were a normal president. It effectively explains why Trump has been such a weak president, as well as it shows the dangers of that weakness. However, he is not at all a normal president, and it’s worth stopping and pointing it out at the start of a new year. Trump remains an autocrat in style, and most likely — by his own account — in deeds, if he were able to do what he liked. See a good evaluation from Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes on how all this played out in 2017. US presidents, up to this point, have, whatever their temptations or even their actions, attested to the democratic values embedded in the US constitution and the practices of the republic. Trump rarely does that. Instead, he frequently attacks the system of separated institutions that share powers on which US democracy rests. His nasty personal attacks on other politicians tend to corrode the political system. So do his claims of omnipotence within the system. So d...
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