The NY Times features a conversation between Jamelle Bouie, Stephen Rattner and Michelle Cottle about how much of this Trump administration’s wrecking ball is being done for specific purpose or by Trump’s personal whims. I‘ve given a gift link for the whole thing which I think is quite interesting. Here’s an excerpt:
Bouie: I think it’s always important to not attribute too much intentionality to the specific person of Donald Trump. I think Donald Trump is most interested in maintaining maximum autonomy — he wants to be able to do whatever he wants whenever he feels the need to do it. A byproduct of that is this assault on institutions.
But I think it’s worth remembering, or this is my view, that him going after redistricting in the country, him being obsessed with tariffs — those, in his mind, aren’t related to each other, right? There’s no logical connection between them.
He’s obsessed with tariffs as he basically has been for 40 years, and he doesn’t want to lose control of the House next year, knowing that losing control of the House not only puts an end to his legislative agenda, such that it exists, but exposes him to political vulnerability.
So he wants to do both of these things and in the process of doing both of these things, he has no real interest in regular procedures or democratic give-and-take or anything through his demolishing institutions.
So, they’re related in that way, but that relation is our interpretation. I don’t think it’s something that he himself envisions.
Cottle: Steve, do you think it’s all just capriciousness?
Steven Rattner: I think there’s an element of capriciousness, but I think there’s also an element of intentionality. And I certainly agree with everything Jamelle said, but I’d also put it in this context, which is the difference between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0.
Trump 1.0 operated vaguely within some set of norms that we’re used to. He didn’t try to fire the head of the B.L.S. or this or that.
Trump 2.0 has this idea that he was elected with an extraordinary mandate and he thinks it’s empowered him to put anybody he wants in any job that he wants. So far, of course, the Senate has gone along with him in virtually every respect, and he feels there are no guardrails and he can just do what he wants and that’s the way he’s been operating.
Cottle: The way I look at it is, obviously, this is all about him getting to do whatever he wants without anybody saying no. But I also think that one of the things that he’s worked on since he got into office, even before, is undermining all other sources of authority — not just in terms of what kind of power they have, but also how people view them.
He wants everybody to distrust the Department of Justice or the courts or certainly the media because he wants them to be viewed as illegitimate, which makes him the only source that his people look to.
And I do think that this kind of falls into the category of if you can make everything look super partisan and super sketchy, that’s just in service of his greater power grab.
I’m with Bouie. Trump’s decisions are just a reflection of his whims and obsession and bear no relationship to each other. I also think he has some people around him who have larger ambitions. I mean, Russ Vought was one of the authors of Project 2025. We know exactly what he has in mind. RFK Jr has been selling his snake oil for years. Stephen Miller is an actual fascist. Some of the outside influencers like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are techno-utopians. They are all taking advantage of the orange weirdo’s inhibitions to run with their individual visions. But that doesn’t add up to a coherent worldview anymore than what’s rattling around in Trump’s addled mind does.
It looks like chaos because it is chaos.